April Records

Not often do records bring a 150-year-old composition to the ears of U. . music lovers for virtually the first time, but this month that rare event occurs. In 1785 the Canon of the Cathedral in Cadiz, Spain, commissioned some 80 minutes of music from Austria's Franz Joseph Haydn. The music was for the three-hour service on Good Friday, when in Catholic churches seven sermons are usually preached on the Seven Last Words of Christ.* Joseph Haydn furnished an orchestral introduction for these discourses, seven slow interludes, a brief finale. Even without the religious connotations, the Words of Our Saviour on the Cross were a string of exceptionally beautiful Haydn slow movements. But the finale was a little brisk, almost jolly, in view of the fact that it was meant to describe the earthquake after the death of Christ.

Composer Haydn, who never went to Spain, arranged his Seven Words not only for orchestra but for chorus, piano, string quartet. In none of these forms has the work been much performed in the U.S. Year ago the string version of the Seven Words was given its U.S. debut, by the Primrose Quartet. On sale last week was the first recording of it (Victor: 17 sides; $9), a fine one by the same outfit, whose boss is crisp, Scottish-born, cricket-playing William Primrose, world's best viola player.

>Every recording studio has, for its popular output, a mastermind who can spot a hit tune, lead an orchestra, tell whether a "take" (trial recording) is any good. Victor's mastermind is twinkling-eyed Leonard Joy, who has been in the game for 15 years. Last week his latest bossing and conducting job was on the counters: an album of songs and dialogue from the Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin musicomedy, Lady in the Dark, recorded by the star of the show, Gertrude Lawrence (6 sides; $2). Between this one and Decca's earlier album by Hildegarde, there was no contest vocally: Hildegarde has the voice. But glamorous "Gertie" Lawrence still has what it takes on the stage, and the Victor set captures that for keeps. Conductor Joy's accompaniment discreetly evokes the footlights.

For Leonard Joy, there was nothing complicated about recording with Actress Lawrence. He has conducted for singers since the early Duncan Sisters days (1926). Leonard Joy's most trying recording session was for Eddie Cantor's Now's the Time to Fall in Love, when between the countless jittery "takes" the orchestra rushed to telephones: it was Wall Street's "Black Friday" in September 1929. Conductor Joy has had an arranger (Cornetist Del Staigers) who once, everyone swears, fell asleep on an arranging job, completed it satisfactorily before he woke. There was a trumpeter who had aerophobia (fear of high places); Mr. Joy had to hire the trumpeter's wife to soothe him in a 23rd-floor studio. Between these diplomatic feats, Leonard Joy picks names for pieces by inarticulate musicians (sample: Child of a Disordered Brain for an Earl Hines piano number) and looks for sellers. To make two versions of Star-Dust by Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw--was his idea; each has lately gone over 100,000 copies. Other records of the month:

SYMPHONIC, ETC.

Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frederick Stock; Columbia; 8 sides; $4.50). Meaty, romantic music, done to a turn and served with the proper helping of gravy, in one of the finest of Brahms recordings.

Johann Strauss: Rediscovered Music, Volume II (Columbia Broadcasting Symphony, conducted by Howard Barlow; Columbia; 6 sides; $3.50). More polkas and waltzes from the great Library of Congress collection, sparkling and well-iced.

Bach: Concerto in C Major for Three Harpsichords and Strings (Manuel and Williamson Harpsichord Ensemble; Musicraft; 5 sides; $5). Top-drawer Bach recorded with harpsichords for the first time. But, as on earlier discs, these exquisitely cultivated Chicago harpsichordists leave out the oomph which was Bach's.

Debussy: Rhapsody for Clarinet (Benny Goodman with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, conducted by John Barbirolli; Columbia; 2 sides; $1). Clarinetist Goodman tootles iridescent Debussy with proper subtlety, but the recording is poor.

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E Flat Major (Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski, with Oboist Marcel Tabuteau, Clarinetist Bernard Portnoy, Bassoonist Sol Schoenbach, Hornist Mason Jones; Victor; 8 sides; $4.50). A sweet, 18th-Century woodwind "bash" (jam session), spotlighting the pure purlings and tootlings of Philadelphia's high-priced soloists.

Beethoven: Missa Solemmis (Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony, with Soprano Jeannette Vreeland, Contralto Anna Kaskas, Tenor John Priebe, Basso Norman Cordon, the Harvard Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society; Victor; 24 sides; two volumes; $13). Beethoven, a great-souled humanitarian rather than a churchgoer, wrote his Solemn Mass for the installation of an archduke as an archbishop (he finished it three years too late). One of the greatest and most complicated of choral works it receives here a great recording--assembled from three different concert performances in Boston.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica") in E Flat Major (New York Philharmonic-Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter; Columbia; 12 sides; $6.50; and NBC Symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini; Victor; 13 sides; $7). Two versions of Beethoven's heroic symphony whose original dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte was canceled because the Bonaparte pretensions displeased the composer, present the customers with a tough choice. The Walter version is warm, well-recorded the best of recent Philharmonic discs. The Toscanini job is full of Beethoven's energy, but the recording--taken from a radio performance--sounds boxy.

Roy Harris: Quintet for Piano and Strings (Johana Harris and the Coolidge String Quartet; Victor; 7 sides; $4). One of the most eloquent of contemporary chamber works (1939) gets a fine performance from the composer's wife and the Coolidges.

Popular

NBC's Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street (Victor album; $2). For radio listeners to the mock-pompous announcements and the excellent hot playing of "Dr. Henry Levine and his Bare footed Dixieland Philharmonic" and "Maestro Paul Laval and his Woodwindy Ten."

My Sister and I (Benny Goodman; Columbia; Bea Wain, Victor). They remember the tulip gardens and windmills, "but we don't talk about that." An icky little something, but it sounds like a hit. Singer Wain's is the best vocal.

Bible Tales (Golden Gate Quartet; Victor album; $2). For fans of Noah, Jonah, other nightclub spirituals (TIME, Jan. 27).

*The words: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." "This day shall thou be with Me in Paradise." "Behold Thy Mother. Behold Thy Son." "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" "I thirst." "It is finished." "Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit."

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