RECENT RECORDS
NOT all of the records mentioned below can, I fear, be strictly called recent, and these notes represent a belated effort to _clear off outstanding debts in order to start the autumn with a clean slate.
Vocau—Columbia issues two Viennese songs sung by Erich Kunz, with a " Schrammel " orchestra, which will prove powerfully nostalgic to lovers of Vienna and delightful to anyone who enjoys high-class sentimentality (as I do). Ludwig Weber singing Osmin's arias is more savage than comic, but the singing is magnificent. For H.M.V. Hans Braun has recorded some Tchaikovsky and Offen- bach, which show that he has ? fine sense of style as well as a very fine voice Mascia Predit sings two Tchaikovsky genre pieces, The Gipsy and At the Ball, in Russian—hauntingly poetic if not vocally impeccable. Margaret Ritchie gives a charming and finished per- formance of Bishop's Bid Me Discourse, which exactly suits her voice, and, in their different ways, two Wagner songs sung by Flagstad and a serenade by Gigli fulfil all expectations, and cer- tainly, at this time of day, need no comment or description. For Decca, Suzanne Danco has made the bold experiment of recording Schumann's Dichterliebe The quality of both singing and interpretation leave almost nothing to be desired, but it is to be hoped that other women singers will not take this example as 3 precedent. (If they do, Schumann's songs: offer an obvious retort from the men.) For Parlophone, Ebe Stignani has recorded a fine Stride la Vampa from Trovatore and a rather less successful 0 don fatale. Luciano Neroni shows himself a good comedian and a capable singer in arias from L'Elisir d'Amore.
CHAMBER Music —There is some beautiful unaccompanied Bach playing by Gaspar Cassado (Col.) and Gioconda de Vito (H.M.V.), and Ossy Renardy's recording of Paganini's Le Streghe (Decca) is magnificent violin virtuosity. Gieseking expends all the magic of his style and tone on Debussy's rather mawkish little Ballade (Col.), and Kathleen Long has made a firm and delicate recording of Faure% Fourth Nocturne for Decca, who also issue a very fine Beethoven violin sonata, Op. 30, No 2, played by Max Rostal and Franz Osborn. For Parlophone the London Baroque Ensemble have made a most attractive recording of a suite-overture in C major by Handel.
H.M.V.'s Holy Year Album will Serve as a souvenir to many pilgrims, who will be able to pass before their mind's-eye the varied settings of the bells, the cheering and the atrocious singing. Only one of the records is of interest to those who are neither pilgrims nor Roman Catholics—the long and moving "bidding prayer" for all sorts and conditions of men, recorded by the Pope himself, on one side in thin, clear Italian and on the other in fluent and
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