Symphony for the Dodgers

Radio listeners last week heard a piece of music inspired by a baseball team. Lean, drawly Composer Robert Russell Bennett, who in his youth was a semi-pro ballplayer, played a new Symphony in D for the Dodgers on his WOR-Mutual program, Russell Bennett's Notebook. To the Dodgers and their music-loving President Larry MacPhail, the symphony was a great comfort. Although they were still out in front in the National League, they had just lost a game in Pittsburgh, which ended a seven-game winning streak.

Composer Bennett began his symphony with conventional jubilant trumpetings. That was "The Dodgers Win." "The Dodgers Lose" was a dirge, almost Oriental in its luxurious grief. The scherzo of the symphony opened with plaintive bassoon bleats: President MacPhail offering Cleveland the Brooklyn Bridge and Prospect Park in trade for Pitcher Bob Feller. Thudding minor chords were Cleveland's repeated "No." The symphony ended with "Red" Barber himself, the Dodgers' own radio announcer, rattling off an account of a ninth-inning rally against the Giants, a home run, and victory.

Symphony in D for the Dodgers had much of the Dodgers' elusive, faunlike charm, and rated a place with such sporting music as Constant Lambert's Prizefight, Arthur Honegger's Rugby and Skating Rink, the ballets Card Game (Igor Stravinsky), Checkmate (Arthur Bliss).

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