Music

The most “alive”, witty, sprightly and at the same time most significant event of the past week or so in New York’s segment of the music world was the Town Hall concert Sunday evening of Bernhard Herrmann and his New Chamber Orchestra, with Harriet Cohen and Russell Bennett, pianists, as soloists.

If this be an implied criticism of the more firmly entrenched figures in our music world, you and they may make the most of it.

Five of the seven pieces on the program were “first times” in America; another was a “first time anywhere”; all but one of these six selections were worth playing, and the soloists were worth hearing. That ought to make three reason for what is beginning to look ik### enthusiasm on my part. Haydn’s “Philosopher” Symphony led the “first times”; Bax’s “Saga Fragment” and Vaughn Williams’ “Charterhouse” suite enlisted Miss Cohen’s services; Milhaud’s jazzy “Creation du Monde” and Bennett’s “Six Variations on a Theme by Jerome Kern”, with Bennett at the piano and Kern in the audience added to the formidable score run up by this young group and its youthful conductor. I have not mentioned Gnessin’s “Inspector General” ballet music because this was conspicuously out of its class. The Russians call Gnessin “the Jewish Glinka.” It is regrettable.

All of this music is not important nor was it all admirably performed But there were displays of vitality and humor and catholicity of taste.

Bruno Walter conducted the Philharmonic-Symphony last Sunday in Carnegie Hall on an extremely high level. The Franck Symphony has rarely been more ingratiatingly treated. Respighi’s “Church Windows,” full of Latin sound and fury, and Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyl” made up the rest of the program.

Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra found new nuances to exploit in “Tristan” excerpts, the Gluck-Mottl ballet suite and Mozart’s G Minor Symphony, besides introducing Carnegie Hall and New York to Henry Eichheim’s effectively written “Bali”, in which a rich tapestry is woven around native musical elements.

Yesterday Ruth Slenczynski, the prodigy, played another amazing program in Brooklyn’s Academy of Music.

Adele T. Katz will speak on “Music of the Court”, Thursday evening at the Y.M.H.A., 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue.

Mario Chamlee will give his first New York recital at Town Mall Wednesday evening, with Erno Balogh at the piano.

Bruno Walter, by the way, will make his last appearance of the season with the Philharmonic-Symphony next Saturday evening.