Music: Critics’ Choice

Manhattan’s one-year-old Music Critics’ Circle last week set out to pick the winners among the year’s new U.S. compositions heard by its members. Between them, the 28 press critics in the Circle attend some 1,200 concerts a year, but obviously no one of them can get to all of Manhattan’s overlapping musical events. So Circle members first polled one another to select a program of the most promising chamber music, another program of the best orchestral works. Then, last week, they played host to themselves at two concerts, where like winetasters they sipped the new vintage and came to their verdict.

When the critics got together for a final vote, they ruefully agreed to hand out no prizes for new chamber music, none for any opera, ballet or choral work. Their one award was orchestral: it went to boyish William Schuman (TIME, April 20) for his Third Symphony, brimful of rugged counterpoint.