Music: December Records

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

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Wagner: Die Meistersinger, Act 3 (Saxon State Orchestra, Dresden State Opera chorus, Karl Bohm conducting, with Hans Hermann Nissen, Torsten Ralf, Margarete Teschemacher and other singers; Victor: 2 volumes, 30 sides). Superb singing, perfect teamwork, and the latest touches in crystal-clear recording, make this complete and bulky last act of Wagner's great comic opera the record of the year.

Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben (Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Victor: 10 sides). Up-to-date recording technique makes Composer Strauss's autobiographical "Life of a Hero" scintillate. But Conductor Ormandy's interpretation has not quite the sweep of the performance recorded in 1928 by irascible Willem Mengelberg, to whom the autobiography was dedicated.

Walter Piston: String Quartet No. 1 (Dorian String Quartet; Columbia: 5 sides). Maine-born Composer Piston, most adept of U. S. Kulturbolschewiks, racks ears softly, intricately.

Hindemith: Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 2 (Los Angeles Wind Quintet; Columbia: 4 sides). Kulturbolschewik Hindemith, in one of his earlier and lighter moods, wrote two ironic little suites for small ensembles, called them "Little Chamber Music, No. 1 and 2." No. 2, for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, is deftly tootled by a new group of Holly-woodmen.

Johann Strauss: Album of Rediscovered Music (Columbia Broadcasting Symphony, Howard Barlow conducting; Columbia: 6 sides). Poking about the collection of Straussiana that the late Railroad Tycoon Paul Lowenberg left to the Library of Congress (TIME, Aug. 7), Columbia researchers last spring dug up five lost dances by Vienna's Waltz King. Well uncorked by Conductor Barlow, they are up to Strauss's champagne standard.

Mozart: Symphony No. 36 (K. 425) (London Philharmonic, Sir Thomas Beecham conducting; Columbia: 7 sides). Latest and richest Mozart vintage, brilliantly bottled.

Chopin: Waltzes (Edward Kilenyi; Columbia: 10 sides). Pianist Kilenyi makes all 14 of Chopin's familiar waltzes glitter like cut steel.

POPULAR

I Thought About You (Bluebird). Johnny Mercer's railroad ballad—probably the first from inside a Pullman—sung as low down as a tie-plate by Newcomer Dinah Shore.

All the Things You Are (Tommy Dorsey; Victor). Musicians' music—i. e., most others will have to hear it three times to like the melody—from Jerome Kern's Very Warm For May.

Eccentric (Jimmy McPartland's Squirrels; Hot Record Society). Another group of lively antiquarians revive a lively hot antique.

Calypsos (Wilmoth Houdini; Decca). Three-disc album of Trinidad's unique babu-pa-doop. Note Roosevelt Opens World's Fair.