BRUCKNER'S MASS
Bruckner's Mass in E minor is sung by the Aachen Cathedral Choir and now recorded for the first time. It is one of three Masses, symphonic in its technique and full of 8-part writing where the bass occasionally descends to the low E flat. An organ effect is produced in the accompaniment by wood wind, without flutes, and brass. Bruckner and Bach both wrote Church music because they were of a deeply religious character; hence devotion and inspiration meet in their works. The Album is H.M.V. D.B. 4525-30. Another recording of the "Great C Major Symphony " of Schubert provides Bruno Walter and the L.S.O. with a chance to display their happy association in music of the greatest order. It is the most triumphant swan song in existence; a song of many moods but of a pulsing vitality. It might almost be called evidential music, of man's conquest of time and mortal destiny. Kreisler, with untiring skill, has recorded his rendering of the Hymn to the Sun of Rimsky Korsakoff; a tasteful duet for violin and piano; on the other side of this 12-inch record we have Cyril Scott's Lotus Land which Kreisler often plays as an encore.
H.M.V.
DEBUSSY'S TWELVE STUDIES
The twelve studies (for pianoforte) of sy among Debussy are scarcely amo his better known works, except No. 11 the arpeggio study of which Horowitz has made a glittering record (H.M.V.). Decca for the first time produce the entire set, the pianist being Adolph Hallis (K 891-6). They are all very fine examples of impressionism hich, in the case of Debussy, was a personal style and never, as it can become so easily, an affectation or a mere cover for mental vacuity. What would Chopin have thought of these studies? Surely it would have amazed him to discover these new of resources pianoforte tone and idiom. Watson Forbes and Myers Foggin record a sonata for viola and pianoforte in D by Richard Walthew; on the fourth side is a Mosaic for viola and pianoforte by the same composer, K 897-8. Decca C. G. M.