New Records

Bach: Suites Nos. 4 and 5 for Unaccompanied Cello (Pablo Casals, cellist; Victor, 13 sides). Played with profundity and simplicity by Cellist Casals (TIME, Jan. 30), Bach's rich but long-ignored music gets the production it deserves. Suite No. 5 completes Casals' recording of all six suites. Recording: excellent.

Bach: St. Matthew Passion (Elfriede Troetschel, soprano; Diana Eutrati, contralto; Friedrich Haertel, bass; D. Fi-scher-Dieskau, baritone; Helmut Kreps, tenor; Boys' Choir of St. Hedwig's Cathedral, the augmented choir and orchestra of the Berlin Radio, Fritz Lehmann conducting; Vox, 8 sides LP). One of the first postwar German recordings. Bach's great score is unabridged, the orchestra and chorus are fine, the soloists are good. Recording: excellent.

Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (Los Angeles Chamber Symphony, Harold Byrns conducting; Capitol, 2 sides LP). One of the most forceful of all Bartok's works, hard to beat for harmonic and rhythmic brightness and vitality. Performance and recording: good.

Bartok: Allegro Barbara, Rumanian Dance, Suite Op. 14, etc. (Bela Bartok, pianist; Bartok Recording Studio; 2 sides LP). A collector's item--and a must for pianists who want to hear how Bartok played his own music. Originally recorded in Europe more than 15 years ago, the numbers have been well re-recorded by Bartok's son Peter.

Bloch: Sacred Service (Marko Rothmuller, bass-baritone; Dorothy Bond, soprano; Doris Cowan, contralto; the London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, Ernest Bloch conducting; London FFRR, 2 sides LP). Bloch's beautiful and powerful setting of the Hebrew texts used in Reform temples in the U.S. Performance and recording: excellent.

Bruckner: Symphony No. 5 (the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Eugen Jo-chum conducting; Capitol-Telefunken, 4 sides LP). Bruckner himself called this work his "Tragic Symphony"; the tragedy is that he did not make it a little shorter and less repetitious. Performance and recording: fair.

Prokofiev: Sonata in F Minor (Joseph Szigeti, violin; Joseph Levine, piano; Columbia, 1 side, LP). This sonata, finished in 1946, is even a shade more beautiful than the earlier Sonata in D, which is on the other side. Performance and recording: excellent.

Schoenberg: Serenade, Op. 24 (Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting a string and woodwind septet with baritone voice; Esoteric Records, 2 sides LP). Composed in 1923, this is one of the first works in which Schoenberg utilized his twelve-tone technique. After a few hearings, something listenable begins to emerge. Performance and recording: good.

Schumann: Fantaslestuecke (Artur Rubinstein, pianist; Victor, 6 sides 45 r.p.m.) Rubinstein can be hard! to beat when he settles down to it; here, playing one of Schumann's most poetic pieces with great simplicity and beauty of tone, he is incomparable. Recording: excellent.

Thomson: Louisiana Story (the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting; Columbia, 1 side LP). The suite from Composer-Critic Virgil Thomson's Pulitzer Prizewinning score for the semi-documentary movie of the same title is just as exciting and powerful when separated from its celluloid twin. The wittily drawn Five Portraits on the other side, conducted by Composer Thomson himself, are worth hearing too. Performances and recording: excellent.

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