Abstract

Records

If one wants a just and satisfying performance of Beethoven's First Symphony there is German conductor Felix Weingartner's in the recent Columbia set; if one wants such a performance with, in addition, the unique and exciting qualities of tone, texture and phrasing that are conductor Arturo Toscanini's, there is now the one that he has recorded with the BBC Symphony. It occupies seven sides, to which Victor, with complete lack of sense of fitness, has added the three sides of his performance of German composer Johannes Brahms's Tragic Overture to make a five-record set. The beautiful voice and phrasing of the Metropolitan's new German baritone, Herbert Janssen, are heard on a Victor record in Schubert's "Serenade" and Schumann's "Two Grenadiers."