This month's records say it with words as well as music.
The writings of Thomas Jefferson, set to music by Composer Randall Thompson, are sung by the Harvard Glee Club accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (The Testament of Freedom; Victor, 6 sides). Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait (Columbia, 4 sides) is narrated by Negro Baritone Kenneth Spencer to a derivative score played by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. In both these cases the words are wasted on pretentious, slight music.
Then there is Broadway Actor Ralph Bellamy soberly reading Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat (Victor, 4 sides), and Orson Welles smacking and grumbling...
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