Music: March Records

• Share

Some phonograph records are musical events. Each month TIME notes the noteworthy.

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Mozart: Die Zauberflote (Berlin Philharmonic, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting, with Tiana Lemnitz. Erna Berger, Helge Roswaenge, Gerhard Hüsch and other artists; Victor: 2 volumes, 3-7 sides). The 18th-Century Masonic symbolism ol Mozart's great, quaint, rollicking fantasy-opera The Magic Flute is pretty vague to present-day audiences. But the music is some of the most beautiful Mozart wrote. Its first complete recording, less perfectly tooled but more spectacular than the Glyndebourne Don Giovanni (TIME, Oct. 3), is the record of the month.

Delius Society Album No. 3 (London Philharmonic, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting, with the BBC and Royal Opera Choruses; Columbia: 14 sides). Blind, British-born Composer Delius spent much of his youth on a Florida orange plantation, remembered the singing of Florida Negroes, later based one of his finest tone poems, Appalachia, on these memories. The four-year-old Delius Society's best album to date contains Appalachian first recording, plus a sheaf of smaller items.

Satie: Gymnopédie Nos. I & 2. (Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducting: Victor). French musical impressionism had three inventors: Claude Debussy, Erik Satie and Ernest Fanelli. Today only Debussy is remembered as a front ranker. But these two little pieces, orchestrated by Debussy, are as deft and fresh as Seurat water colors.

Purcell-Barbirolli: Suite for Strings, Horns, Flutes & English Horn (New York Philharmonic-Symphony, John Barbirolli conducting: Victor: 4 sides). Anthology in modern orchestral dress of music by England's great 17th-Century master. Brilliantly played and recorded.

Bach Recital (E. Power Biggs, playing the Bach Organ at the Germanic Museum, Cambridge, Mass.: Technichord:* 10 sides). On Harvard's limpid-toned 18th-Century facsimile organ (TIME, March 21), Organist Biggs makes Bach sparkle. Contains a Bach-Vivaldi concerto, Trio Sonata No. 1 and the "St. Anne" Fugue.

Album of Early Choral Music (Trapp Family Choir; Victor: 10 sides). Salzburg's singing family (TIME, Dec. 19) warbles a program of quaint archaic vocal chamber music.

POPULAR

Pick-a-Rib (Victor). Benny Goodman's Quartet, plus Johnny Kirby on the doghouse fiddle, covering two sides with a joyous boogie-woogie.

Tahitian Rhythms (Augie Goupil and his Royal Tahitians: Decca), according to the collection in this five-record album, sound like a succession of rumbas, torch songs, foxtrots, military marches and old-fashioned hillbilly jump-ups. Weirdy-of-the-month.

Sweet Little Buttercup (Larry Clinton: Victor) proves that Sir Arthur Sullivan (Onward! Christian Soldiers and the Savoy operettas) can be swung as well as sung.

Abe Lincoln and Joe Hill (Michael Loring, Cabaret TAC and singers from the Earl Robinson Chorus; Modern Records**) Two crusty proletarian items by Songwriters Alfred Hayes and Earl Robinson.