CLASSICAL LP BESTSELLERS

The category "classical music," in the usage of the recording industry, may stretch all the way from Wanda Landowska to Wladziu Valentine Liberace. Within that range, the smaller companies count as a bestseller any disk that sells more than 15,000 copies, while with the larger outfits a hit record may approach half a million (the industry guards exact sales figures with almost paranoid intensity, with each company claiming that all others are cheating). Here, in order of popularity over the last decade, are the top five classical LP sellers of the leading classical companies:

RCA Victor

CHRISTMAS HYMNS AND CAROLS: Robert Shaw Chorale.

VICTORY AT SEA (Richard Rodgers): Robert Russell Bennett conducting members of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

PIANO CONCERTO No. 2 (Rachmaninoff): Artur Rubinstein, pianist.

GAITE PARISIENNE (Offenbach): Arthur Fiedler conducting Boston Pops.

SYMPHONY No. 9 (Beethoven): Arturo Toscanini conducting NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Columbia

RHAPSODY IN BLUE (Gershwin): Oscar Levant, pianist; Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Orchestra.

SCHEHERAZADE (Rimsky-Korsakov): Ormandy and the Philadelphia.

GRAND CANYON SUITE (Grofe): Andre Kostelanetz and Orchestra.

NUTCRACKER SUITE (Tchaikovsky):

Kostelanetz and Orchestra.

"MOONLIGHT" SONATA (Beethoven): Rudolph Serkin, pianist.

London

STRAUSS WALTZES: Mantovani and Orchestra.

THE MIKADO (Gilbert & Sullivan): D'Oyly Carte Opera Co.

SCHEHERAZADE (Rimsky-Korsakov): Ernest Ansermet conducting the Paris Conservatory Orchestra.

"EMPEROR" CONCERTO (Beethoven): Clifford Curzon, pianist; George Szell conducting London Philharmonic.

RHAPSODY IN BLUE (Gershwin): Julius Katchen, pianist, and the Mantovani Orchestra.

Angel

SCOTS GUARDS REGIMENTAL BAND & MASS PIPERS (VOL. I).

CALLAS PORTRAYS PUCCINI HEROINES.

TOSCA (Puccini): Maria Meneghini Callas, La Scala.

LA MER (Debussy): Herbert von Karajan conducting Philharmonia Orchestra.

OBERNKIRCHEN CHILDREN'S CHOIR.

Westminster

MESSIAH (Handel): Soloists and Hermann Scherchen conducting London Symphony Orchestra.

"MILITARY" SYMPHONY (Haydn): Scherchen conducting Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

"TROUT" QUINTET (Schubert): Paul Badura-Skoda, pianist, and Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet.

ST. MATTHEW PASSION (Bach): Soloists and Scherchen conducting Vienna Academy Chorus and State Opera Orchestra.

PINES OF ROME (Respighi): Argeo Quadri conducting Vienna State Opera Orchestra.

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