Music: April Records

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

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Aaron Copland: El Salón Mexico

(Boston Symphony, Sergei Koussevitzky conducting; Victor: 3 sides). At his best as a deft impressionist, U. S. Composer Copland here records sultry musical impressions of Mexico. Koussevitzky's Bostonians play them like summer lightning.

Paul Hindemith: Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 11, No. 4 (William Primrose and Jesús Maria Sanromá; Victor: 4 sides). One of the most beautiful of contemporary viola sonatas, written in 1922, long before Composer Hindemith became a Kulturbolschewist.

Mozart: Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 297 (London Philharmonic, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting; Columbia: 5 sides). One of Mozart's important symphonies gets its first recording, and a brilliant one. Two numbers from the lusty Handel-Beecham ballet suite. The Gods Go aBegging, fill out the last disc.

Haydn: Symphony No. 80 in D Minor and Symphony No. 67 in F Major (Orchestra of the New Friends of Music, Fritz Stiedry conducting; Victor: One vol., 9 sides). Of the five unpublished Haydn symphonies that Musicologist Alfred Einstein dug out of European libraries last summer (TIME, March 6), two are here recorded for the first time. Both are good-vintage Haydn, both rather coarsely and pedantically performed.

Pergolesi: Stabat Mater (Vienna Choir Boys, Viktor Gomboz conducting, with string orchestra and harpsichord; Victor: 6 sides). Slightly wobbly, ingratiatingly childlike performance of a great ecclesiastical work.

Album of Fantasias (Grace Castagnetta, pianist; Timely*: 8 sides). An anthology including works by Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Scriabin and Shostakovich, some of them previously unrecorded. Capably performed, magnificently recorded, with an explanatory pamphlet by Author Hendrik Van Loon.

Beethoven: Sonata No. 21 in C Major (Walter Gieseking, pianist; Columbia : 5 sides).

Schumann: Carnaval Suite (Myra Hess, pianist; Victor: 6 sides) and Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6 (Kurt Appelbaum, pianist; Musicraft: 6 sides).

Chopin: Sonata in B Minor, Op. 58 (Alexander Brailowsky. pianist; Victor: 6 sides). With the Beethoven and Schumann above, a top-notch addition to the list of recorded piano music.

POPULAR

Honolulu (Tommy Dorsey; Victor). Most danceable foxtrot-of-the-month, from the namesake picture.

Pastel Blue (John Kirby; Decca). Manhattan's famed Onyx Club's little band plays homemade low-down music; blues-of-the-month.

All of Me (Jimmy Dorsey; Decca). For the hot library, especially notable for a fine trombone obbligato (by Bobby Byrne) behind the concluding solo.

Rock-A-Bye Basie (Count Basie; Vocalion). New theme song of the No. 1 colored hot band.

I Get Along Without You Very Well (Dick Todd; Bluebird). The Canadian Bing Crosby sings the month's torch song the best.