New Records

Bela Bartok published only six string quartets, but as far as many a musician is concerned, they gave the intimate and delicate world of chamber music its rudest shock since Beethoven. With his First Quartet, composed in 1908 when he was 27, Bartok stalked into a field of harsh, hybrid harmonies and fierce rhythms that jolted Budapest listeners upright in their seats. In the Second (1917), Third (1927) and Fourth (1928), he cultivated the field; his harmonies became more astringent, the rhythms more incisive, the textures ever tighter. Listeners found much that was either impenetrable or unpalatable, but they also heard tonal colors never produced by four stringed instruments before. In the Fifth (1934) and Sixth (1939), Bartok reaped his harvest. Like Beethoven's last (Op. 155), Bartok's final quartet, composed six years before he died, is full of deep and timeless beauty.

Last year, when the Juilliard String Quartet performed the entire cycle of six, Columbia saw a chance to get them all recorded in one set. Out this month, on three LP records, is the result. The performances are superb, and so is the recording.

Other new records:

Beethoven: Serenade, Op. 25 (John Wummer, flute; Alexander Schneider, violin; Milton Katims, viola; Columbia 2 sides LP). An early, infectiously light-hearted work for an unusual assortment of instruments; the players here make it sound good. Recording: excellent.

Bowles: Concerto for Two Pianos, Winds and Percussion (Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, pianists, with winds and percussion conducted by Daniel Saiden-berg; Columbia, i side LP). Novelist (The Sheltering Sky) and Composer (incidental music for Broadway's The Glass Menagerie, Twelfth Night) Paul Bowles has here thought up some novel noises which are barely incidental to music. Recording: good.

Chopin: Waltzes (Alexander Brailow-sky, pianist; Victor, 14 sides). A full companion album to Pianist Brailowsky's complete album of Etudes. Companionable playing, too; brilliant and brittle. Recording: good.

The Heart of the Ballet (Leopold Stokowski and his Symphony Orchestra; Victor, 10 sides). Just in time for balletomanes who want a musical refresher before Britain's Sadler's Wells Company arrives in the U.S. next week. Includes excerpts from the music for Giselle, Swan Lake, Les Sylphides, The Nutcracker, etc., all well-Stokowskied. Recording: good.

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