GRAMOPHONE RECORDS
THE most interesting records that I have received in the last two months are those of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky cantata, made for Columbia by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelpnia Orchestra. The music is heroic in the manner of Borodin, though the idiom is of course modern ; and Jenny Tourel sings the lament over the field of battle with grand epic pathos. Columbia have also issued a very attractive Elizabethan Suite—an anthology of pieces from the Fitz- william Virginal Book made by Ethel Bartlett and played by her and Rae Robertson. The records are worth getting for Byrd's Variations
on John come kiss me now, alone; all the pieces deserve to be known. Two new recordings of Bethoven sonatas, the Appassionata by Nicolas Medtner (Columbia) and Les Adieux by Albert Ferber (Decca), almost look as though they were the heralds of a new fashion in Beethoven-playing—a discretion and self-effacement on the part of the player which is excellent in theory but rather takes the stuffing (i.e. the emotional rhetoric) out of the first and last move- ments of the Appassionata.
The Halle Orchestra and John Barbirolli have made a really ex- cellent recording of the Lohengrin Prelude (Columbia)—one of the few chunks of Wagner which stand absolutely on their own and are ideal to have as records. Toscanini and the N.B.C. Symphony Orchestra have recorded the overture to Rossini's Cenerentola, not one of his most interesting overtures but the last word in chic when dressed by Toscanini (Columbia). The Delius violin concerto is played by Jean Pougnet and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Beecham, in the new Columbia -ecording; and the performance is as good as you would expect from such a team. Ansermet and the London Philharmonic Orchestra are an equally good combination for Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (Decca).
There are not many vocal records. Marjorie Lawrence has re- corded three Brahms songs—So Willst du des Armen, Der Schmied and the elegiac Nicht mehr zu gehen—for Decca, but I think she lacks the refinement of musical sensibility necessary, certainly, for the last. Ebe Stignani's record of Softly awakes my heart (in Italian) does justice to that beautiful and unjustly decried music. M.C.
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