Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 12 (1927-09)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 493 mg Mr. Frye’s kind suggestion that we meet Mr. Baur back-stage at the Follies on the grounds that there might be too many counter-phono- graphic attractions to divert our attention, we were given the privilege of meeting Mr. Baur at his room in the Hotel Statler, where we had the pleasure not only of making his acquaintance, but of hearing one of the most remarkable trib- utes to the phonograph that we have ever known. Mr. Ba*ur had been under the strain of the tax- ing demands of his stage appearances, particu- larly heavy, inasmuch as the Boston run was the Follies’ first and the whole show was constantly subject to the most sudden and disconcerting changes, as its final form was gradually being worked out, but this dampened his vitality not a .bit, and as he animatedly talked—and sang—one began to realize how it was a person like this could turn out the number of successes that Baur’s records had to their credit and still do concert work—with equal success. Intense vital- ity and a mercurial, instantly likeable personal- ity combined to form one’s first impression, and then one almost forgot the personal Baur in the revelation of the artist Baur, his aims and his work. His singing career began a little over four years ago—when he was still under twenty!— when he was engaged as soloist at the Park Avenue Baptist Church of New York, which in- cludes John D. Rockefeller among the many noted members of its congregation. He began to make records almost simultaneously, at first for nearly a dozen various companies, then later for the three leading ones alone. Curiously enough— and to the phonograph enthusiast, very signifi- cantly—it was his record success that led to his concert engagements; throughout he has been primarily a recording artist, making his concert appearances in response to the insistent demand made by his record public. The phonograph can justly claim him as its own, in contrast to the artists whom it adopts after they have first be- come known in the concert hall. ndeed, it is rumored, that he is at present star- ring in the Follies, largely because of the im- pression his records made upon Florenz Ziegfeld and Irving Berlin. The latter has referred more than once to Baur as the ideal singer to interpret his songs, and the unanimity with which the pub- lic has endorsed this praise is a tribute not only to Baur’s abilities, but in a measure to the phono- graph as well, which boasts proudly of its share in his astounding rise. . With dim ideas of popular superstitions of singers holding the phonograph in great disgust, recording only for business reasons, and violently antagonistic toward the recording companies, we at first approached Mr. Baur rather gingerly on the subject of his attitude toward the phonograph and the companies. A real surprise was in store and his refreshing acknowledgement of his debt to both instrument and recording directors. “The latter,” he insisted, “are the best friends the young singer has; they have invariably helped me in hundreds of ways to learn the secrets which count for success in recording.” On listening to Franklyn Baur one of Baur’s records, one is impressed with the perfection with which it is recorded—always, no matter what the type of song may be or what company may have made the record, and it is evi- dent that he knows the vital secrets well. But on learning his methods of study, one wonders whether the credit he so generously gives to the recording directors should not go to him instead. For with him, the actual taking of a record has been but the beginning; in his Studio he has taken the samples and studied them phrase by phrase, note by note. “When I heard this” ... and he sang a phrase from Just a Cottage Small ... “I thought, ‘How could that be improved?’ And fin- ally I decided that this” . . . and he sang the same passage with a strikingly more effective phrasing . . . “was the best way. And later the work was recorded in its final perfected form, after each detail had been heard and carefully tested.” Such painstaking work as this, added to his al- ready remarkable natural gifts, have given him a vocal and a recording technique which perhaps never will be surpassed. It is this technique which enables him now to turn out records that never fail to hit their mark exactly. He accom- plishes everything he sets out to accomplish, not an effect is ever lost: would that many a so-called celebrity singer had learned a similar mastery of his medium! F r°m other sources, also, Baur has added to his technique of phrasing and interpretation and again the phonograph claims its share of the credit.. For it enables him to study the playing of Kreisler, of the leading orchestras and string quartets, and to gain an insight into the results they obtain. “The finest thing I know of in the study of vocal phrasing is the listening to good violin or other stringed instrument records; Kreisler s works of course, above all, but Casal’s, also, or the whole string choir of the New York