RECENT RECORDS
SoLomox (for H.M.V.) plays Beethoven's op. 111 very finely, but the extreme ranges of the pianoforte make it a very difficult work to record. Kathleen Long plays Faures 13th Nocturne for Decca with admirable taste and feeling, but Mewton Wood's style is too nervous and abrupt for Schumann's Symphonic Studies. The Griller Quartet plays, with Max Gilbert, Mozart's great G minor quintet K. 516 excellently. I thought the slow movement a trifle hurried here and there, but this is being very exacting. Campoli has recorded, also for Decca, Tartini's "Devil's Trill" sonata, finely played. Probably the supreme technical performance among these records, and certainly among the violinists, is Nathan -Milstein's playing of Glazunov's A minor violin concerto with the R.C.A. Victor Sym- phony Orchestra under William Steinberg Those who like Elgar's should enjoy Glazunov's violin concerto—they-are much of a date and a quality—and the playing is unqualifiedly superb. Auber's' Fra Diavoio overture does not amOunt to much outside the theatre; but the Boston Promenade OrcheStra under Arthur Fiedler have recorded it. The R.P.O. under Beecham make a pretty thing of Maul's overture to Les deux aveugles de Tolede. The Danish State Orchestra under Fritz Busch play Brahms's second symphony with a good style, straightforward and yigorous, but the N.B.C. Sym- phony Orchestra under Guido Cantelli grbssly over-point Haydn's symphony no. 93, with " brutal " tutu i and an airified tenderness equally out of place. All these are H.M.V Another Haydn sym- phony, no. 99, played by the L.S.O. under Royalton Kisch, is issued by Decca. Columbia issues a most attractive recording of Wald- teufel's "Skaters Waltz" played by the Philharmonia ,Orchestra under Constant Lambert. Furtwangler conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a fine new recording of Beethoven's fourth symphony, sensitive as always yet free from exaggeration. The Philharmonic Orchestra play Weber's Invitation to the Waltz under Igor Markevich with great verve and' Tchaikovsky's B flat minor —piano concerto under Dobrowen, with Solomon as a technically excellent (if slightly bored) soloist. Flagstad and Svanholm have recorded the Love Duet from Tristan in circumstances more congenial than the garden- bench at Covent Garden, and the quartet and quintet from Act 1 of Cosi fan tutte sting by this year's Glyndebourne cast are admir- able. These are all H.M.V. records. The Philharmonic Orchestra play Rossini's Gazza Ladra over- ture under Alceo Galliera and Tchaikovsky's Capriccio !fallen under Paul Kletzki, both works which are perhaps only worth playing supremely well ; and they play them well but not supremely so. Jennie Tourel's singing of Ravel's Scheherazade with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra is accomplished but coarse compared with the recent record made by Suzanne Danco. Two of our recent Italian visitors, Giacinto Prandelli and Cesare Siepi, have recorded arias by Verdi and Massenet and confirm the impression made when they sang here with La Scala—Prandelli of an accomplished tenor of the second rank and Siepi of a fine voice•insufficiently controlled. Gieseking's playing of Beethoven's first piano concerto with the Philharmonic prchestra is magnificent. These records are all
Columbia. •
Among Decca records Suggia's playing of Lab's violoncello concerto with the L.S.O. has an added poignancy so soon after her death, though the work can hardly be viable except in her hands. Kathleen Ferrier., William Herbert and William Parsons are the soloists in Bach's Cantata No. 67, with the Jacques Orchestra—a fine team and a good recording. M. C.
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