AT THE START of this column of phonograph record reviews there should be, I suppose, some sort of convincing apologia for launching it. I should much prefer to hurry along to the notes on a stack of discs and albums of discs which I have before me, and which clamor to fill a column and more. It can be noted briefly, however, that the phonograph industry, which during the rise of the radio "noodled" (as musicians speak of playing fill-in music) unconsidered by the general public, is now tootling exuberantly. More about the reasons later, perhaps. There are trade statistics to prove the fact. 

First, the recent symphonic recordings, which convention might suggest as Christmas gifts. (On the expensive side, of course, and it is not a bad idea to know the recipient's taste, or fish for some hints about it.) The familiar Brahms First Symphony has been issued in a performance by Felix Weingartner and the London Symphony (Columbia album M383, $7.50) which can be recommended, in comparison with older recordings, for interpretation, mechanical excellence and price. Bruno Walter leads the same orchestra in the Schubert Ninth Symphony (Victor album M602, $9.00). I always thought this was Schubert's Seventh; I believe the New York Philharmonic Symphony thinks so; and Victor did when it released successive pedestrian recordings of it by Leo Blech and Sir Adrian Boult. However, on the basis of recent evidence, Victor's scholars have changed their minds—but lest anyone be confused, they have incorporated in the label on the album a non-controversial phrase: "The Great C Major." It is great, and Bruno Walter has successfully needled its divine energy into the grooves. Finally there is the Rustic Wedding Symphony of Karl Goldmark, which is not a symphony at all—the first movement, for instance, is a "Wedding March" with variations—but charming music of a good Central European savor, nicely dished out by Howard Barlow and the Columbia Broadcasting Symphony (Columbia album M385, $7.50). 

More briefly, the following are good: For fans of Lily Pons (there seemed to be more than half a million of them on her last tour): an album of mostly trivial songs, some with orchestra accompaniment led by her husband Andre Kostelanetz (Victor album M599, $6.50). Americana: Southern mountain songs by John Jacob Niles, a cultivated Southerner who sings in a strange falsetto which he avers is the authentic Appalachian style (Victor album M604, $6.50). Pianistics: brilliant Columbia recording of the Debussy Preludes, Book II, by Walter Gieseking (album M382, $6.00), and the Chopin Sonata No. 2 ("with the funeral march") by a spectacular young American, Edward Kilenyi (album M378, $5.00). Violinistics: Ernest Bloch's Concerto, haunting Wailing Wall stuff, beautifully played by Joseph Szigeti (Columbia album M380, $6.00). Toscaniniana: a solid performance, with the NBC Symphony, of the William Tell Overture (Victor album M605, $3.50), and an album oddly labeled "Encores," containing a blowing-up for string orchestra (NBC) of the wonderful slow movement and "scherzo" of the Beethoven Quartet, Opus 135, plus a sleazy but technically brilliant Moto Perpetuo of Paganini. 

Popular music, swing and sweet, will have to wait until next time. Tune of the month seems to be All the Things You Are, from Jerome Kern's Very Warm for May; my choice among recordings is Tommy Dorsey's on Victor. Note also that Alec Templeton, the blind, brilliant pianist and satirist who now has his own radio spot, has done three discs for Victor, of which the latest is a mordant caricature of Dr. Walter Damrosch analyzing, for his children's hour, the preposterous Three Little Fishes (Victor). —Carl J. Balliett, Jr.