GRAMOPHONE NOTES
Music lovers will welcome the records of Benjamin Britten, "Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo," set for tenor and pianoforte, sung intelligently and with appropriately clean tone by Peter Pears, with the composer accompanying (H.M.V. B93o2). This new work by on,.. of our most talented young composers only recently re- ceived its first performance. It makes the impression, perhaps, of being a little too facile, and some will prefer his earlier son cycle "Les Illuminations" as more original. Roy Harris, the Ameri- can composer's Symphony No. 3 (DB6I37-8) played by Ku - sevitzky and the Boston Symphony strikes me as having little merit. A nice recording of the Aria "Flocks in Pastures Green Abiding" and Recitative from Bach's Cantata No. 208, sung by Isobel Baillie with instrumental accompaniment, is to be recom- mended. With January recordings I welcome E. J. Moeran's massive Symphony in G Minor (C3319-24), played by the Halli Orchestra conducted by Leslie Heward. On the twelfth side are Four Bagatelles for pianoforte (dating from 1938), by Alan Raw - thorne, played by Denis Matthews, who is one of the best of our younger pianists. The Columbia recording of the Erahms Variations on a theme of Haydn (DXxio5-6), played by the Halle Orches under Dr. Malcolm Sargent, has a more general appeal. I suggest that the H.M.V. Co. should get Toscanini to record Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" symphony with which he has recently astonished the New York musical public. This is a task really worth while which should be set about at once before it is too late.
W. J. T.
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