RECENT RECORDS
JENNIE TOUREL sings Duparc and Faure with beautiful finish, and Hans Hotter has made an endearing recording of Schubert's In Friihling—all for Columbia. Disappointments were Ludwig Weber's 0 to Palermo and some Strauss songs by Lotte Lehmann, where the predominance of art over nature is too marked. For H.M V. Victoria de. los Angeles'sings Dich, teure Halle and Einsam in friiben Tagen almost wholly successfully, with a beautifully pure line and tone. Boris Christov's• fine " Death of Boris " is marred by poor choral singing, and he is hardly gross enough for Varlaam. Decca issues a Ritorna vincitor which shows the strength and the weakness of Renata .Tebaldi, an attractive E lucevan le stelle by Eugene Conley and Schubert's Wohin and Die Forelle-by Suzanne Danco, unfailingly artistic blot not a well-chosen voice for these songs.
The Schneiderhahn Quartet have made a magnificent recording of Beethoven's F minor op. 95, but the Busch Quartet do not always keep the lively counterpoint of Mendelssohn's Capriccio as clear as it should be. Gieseking completely conceals his prodigious art in a Mozart sonata (C major K. 545), and Cyril Smith only spoils the beautiful cantabile tone of his Schubert Impromptu (G major, not G flat as on the label) by some unfortunate rubato.. These are all Columbia issues. For H.M.V. Colin Horsley plays a big Rach- maninov prelude (E minor) and a Szymanowski study with extra- ordirrary brilliance; and .Schnabel has recorded Bach's Chromatic Fantasy and Fugueethe fugue- too fast for comfort of player and listener.
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