February Records

Some phonograph records are musical events. Each month TIME notes the noteworthy.

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Verdi: Requiem Mass (Soprano Maria Camgha, Mezzo-Soprano Ebe Stignani, Tenor Beniamino Gigli, Basso Ezio Pinza' with the Rome Royal Opera Chorus and Orchestra, Tullio Serafin conducting-Victor: 20 sides; $10.50). No ardent Catholic Verdi wrote this Requiem for the anniversary of the death of his friend, Italy's Poet Alessandro Manzoni. The Requiem's melting arias, its thumping drums of doom and trumps of wrath have been damned as operatic. In this recent recording of the Mass, Basso Pinza and the chorus sing superbly, Tenor Gigli sounds prosciutto (Italian ham), Maestro Serafin conducts with shattering intensity. Album of the month.

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E Minor .Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky conducting; Victor: 9 sides; $5). Best recording to date of one of the greatest of post-Beethoven symphonies.

South American Chamber Music (Soprano Olga Averino, Violinist Alfredo St Malo, Cellist Fritz Magg, Pianist-Arranger Nicolas Slonimsky; Columbia: 8 sides-$4.50). Proving that Brazil's Villa-Lobos is not the sole South American composer of well-made songs, dances, Parisian-sounding salon pieces. Others: Brazil's Fernandez and Mignone, Uruguay's Pedrell and Broqua, Argentina's Ficher, Chile's Santa Cruz, Peru's Sas, Colombia's Uribe-Holguin.

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 ("Pathetique") (Wilhelm Furtwaengler conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Victor: 12 sides; $6.50). Most neurotic of symphonies, straightforwardly performed in one of the most brilliant of all orchestra recordings. Made in London several years ago; no royalties go to Germany.

Schumann: Frauenliebe und Leben (Helen Traubel, soprano, with Pianist Coenraad V. Bos; Victor: 8 sides; $3.75). Romantic Robert Schumann wrote Woman's Love and Life--eight songs to poems by Chamisso--to hymn domestic love. Warm-voiced Soprano Traubel puts proper schmalz in such lines as (to a wedding ring) I place thee, holy object, upon my lips, my heart.

William Billings: American Psalms and Fuguing Tunes (The Madrigalists, Columbia: 6 sides; $2.75). One-eyed William Billings, Boston tanner and self-taught musician, wrote his "fuguing tunes" (not fugues but canons, like Three Blind Mice) for 18th-Century churchgoers. Long in disuse, Billings' choral works have been republished by Music Press Inc., a new Manhattan firm much of whose output is recorded by Columbia. Included in the album is Billings' chesty Chester, favorite of Revolutionary soldiers.

A Victor Chenkin Recital (Columbia: 8 sides; $3.50). U. S. disc debut of a Russian-born singing actor who first appeared in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, has since performed in Paris and Manhattan. In costume and makeup, Actor Chenkin is equally plausible as a bearded gaffer or a youngster with Jewish ritual earlocks. Here he sings in Yiddish and Hebrew, deftly sets forth the garrulity, gaiety, self-pitying anguish of an Eastern European Jew. Typical song: Scholoch S'udes, in which a rabbi unctuously presides at a banquet.

Singing for Pleasure and Practice (piano accompaniments by Frank La Forge; for high and low voice; Victor: 6 sides; $2 each). Fine for parlor vocalists: Pianist La Forge furnishes a professional accompaniment for your rendition of The Two Grenadiers, A Dream, I Love Thee, etc., with a song booklet which gives pointers on interpretation.

POPULAR

I Could Write A Book (Bob Chester-Bluebird), the hit of Rodgers & Hart's Pal Joey, played good and straight.

Mene Mene Tekel (Keynote). Able Negro chorus renders Harold J. Rome's delightful Tin Pan Alley spiritual from Pins & Needles II. King Belshazzar. that mean old razzer-dazzer, never paid no income taxes and was big shot of the Babylon-Jerusalem Axis.

As Long As I Live (Benny Goodman Sextet with Count Basic; Columbia). Harold Arlen classic handled with blandishment and no blare. Grade A small-combination hot.

Victor and Columbia both released Hal Kemp memorial albums for lovers of the celebrated goosy style.

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