In our tendency to focus on America's largest and best-known orchestras, we too often overlook the country's second-line ensembles, the abilities of which are amply evident in a trio of new releases. The Louisville Orchestra uses its less massive, more intimate sound to advantage in capturing the village-like atmosphere of Walter Piston's exuberant ballet score The Incredible Flutist (Louisville LS-755). Milton Katims leads soloist Bela Siki and a full-sounding Seattle Symphony Orchestra in a vibrant, energetic performance of Robert Suderburg's surprisingly accessible 1974 Piano Concerto (Odyssey Y-34140). And Sergiu Comissona conducts the players of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in an interpretation of Mendelssohn's "Scotch" symphony that is notable for its forthrightness and clarity of line (Turn-about QTV-S 34604),

An event of major importance for American Elgarians is the appearance here of The Apostles and The Kingdom (Connoisseur CS3—2094; CS-2089), two full-length sections of a never completed post-Gerontius oratorio trilogy based on the lives of the Apostles. Far more adventurous than their predecessor in terms of musical expression and dramatic content, though lacking somewhat in the kind of emotional unity provided by Gerontius's Cardinal Newman text, these two works were a marked departure for Elgar—one that foreshadowed many of his late-career orchestral compositions. Both sets feature committed English casts, with particularly fine singing by Sheila Armstrong in The Apostles and John Shirley-Quirk in The Kingdom, and the London Symphony Orchestra which, under Sir Adrian Boult's direction, expertly delineates the composer's striking leitmotifs.

Angel has added a third Delius opera to its catalog with the premiere recording of Fennimore & Gerda (SBLX-3825), an austere, fragmented work based on the writings of Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen. Notable in 1920 for its bareboned musical and theatrical construction, the work today seems merely empty, capturing a feeling more of superficial broodiness than of the intended texture of philosophical melancholy. Robert Tear and Elisabeth S8derstrom do their best to bring emotional strength to the rather thin principal roles, and the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, under Meredith Davies, performs with appropriately grim determination.