Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 1, No. 5 (1927-02)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 221 Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: I enclose check payable to your order for $4.05 (.05c to cover exchange charge) for yearly subscription for “Phono- graph Monthly Review” beginning with the January issue. I feel sure that your publication will accomplish a great deal toward inducing the recording companies to put out more records of the higher and finer kind, particularly in the orchestral and chamber music branches. I have been greatly interested in your reviews and com- ments on the monthly releases. Your article in the December number on “String Quartet Music” was one of the best expositions of the intimate and appealing quality of that form of music that I have ever seen. This is my favorite type of all music and it struck home very forcefully. Columbia is doing marvelous work in their Masterworks series, and improving the recording wonder- fully. I know you will continue to work hard for more of this type of music and it is up to the rest of us in giving encouragement to the producing companies and buying the records. Evidently the day of recorded music of wonderful beauty has arrived—such as we would not have dreamed of ten years ago. Sincerely yours, William A. Guyton Jr. Chicago, 111. Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: Dear Sir: After attending a meeting of the Boston Phono- graph Society (my first, this year) and seeing the tremendous amount of enthusiasm shown, I gave serious thought to some of the questions brought up. The first question was that of a suitable name for the society. I might suggest several, but the one I am naming, occurred to me to be the best, because it seems to suggest more clearly than any other, the purpose of the society i.e. Boston Society for Advancement of Recorded Mtisic. An exception might be taken to this name for the reason that the society is not particularly interested in Player Pianos or records but I might add that it would not be amiss to become so, if only as a side issue. The question of membership arose at the meeting. At this point, I might suggest that if music dealers generally, could be interested in this movement, I believe it would help greatly. Although the society is intended for everybody interested in music, it seems to be through the dealer and his store that these people can be reached most effectively. A dealer’s sales organization should be interested themselves, as a means for more effective selling through the knowledge of recordings of the better class. Their customer would be richly rewarded by having a knowledge of and understanding the music which they purchase for their reproducing instrument, whatever it may be, in these days of improved reproduction. The social side of the organization, might be pointed out as well as the advantages of its teachings. Wherever people meet in groups and are all interested in a common thought, much sociability is found to result and “A good time can be had by all” at the society’s meetings. I trust the suggestions offered may be of some assistance in developing further a movement well started. Very truly yours, A. C. G. Boston, Mass. Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: Dear Sir: You will find enclosed my cheque for $1.05 for which you will please send me, at the above address, the current (December) number of the Review, and the forth- coming numbers for January and February when issued. If I do not send you a full year’s subscription it is because I move about more or less during the year, and my experience in receiving periodicals at changed addresses is so unfortunate that I have entirely abandoned the practice of subscribing to them by the year. Among my pet verbal aversions is the hackneyed phrase “fills a long-felt want”, but I confess that I can think or no other at the moment that so well expresses my feeling toward The Phonograph Monthly Review; the wonder is that such a periodical was not started long ago. Several years ago I wrote to the Victor Talking Machine Company to enquire if there was not a publication in this country similar to “The Gramophone” in England, and in reply they gave me the names of two papers which proved to be trade organs, and were almost totally without interest for me; but the Review promises to supply my needs most effectively. In my judgment The Phonograph Monthly Review will be valuable to phonograph lovers—among whom I count myself one of the most ardent—just so long as it deals with the products of the various producing interests without fear or favor, and with high critical accumen—and no longer. The first two numbers, which I have read from cover to cover, and some of the articles several times over, are very satisfy- ing in this respect, and give high promise for the future, and it is to be hoped that the lofty standard which the Review has set for itself will be faithfully maintained. I very much like the style in which the paper is written, its enthusiasm in praising what is most worthy among the new records, and its justice to its readers in withholding favorable comment on those which fall below the highest standards. I am sure that your readers will look to you to inform them accurately as to the merits or the demerits of records and instruments by whomsoever produced, and it is to be hoped that the Review will not fail them in this respect. For me, quite the most valuable department of the paper is its reviews of the new records, and I hope that this depart- ment may be kept on the high level of the October and November numbers. I rather begrudge the space given to other subjects such as the articles on famous composers, etc., as this information can be had elsewhere, but everything pertaining specifically to the phonograph, new processes of manufacture, the artists and people in any way connected with their production will be of absorbing interest to at least one of the Review’s readers. I regret that the Review is not advertised more widely. There are five places in this city where records are sold, and in no one of them was the magazine known until I called attention to it. Three weeks ago in Boston, starting from the Hotel Brunswick in quest of a copy of the November issue, and hoping to find one somewhat nearer than your Milk Street office, I traversed both sides of Boylston Street, starting at Berkeley Street, and enquiring in every music store, I found no one who had even heard of the Review until I reached C. C. Harvey and Company’s store where no copies were to be had, but who undertook to get me one. And this in the Review’s own home town! However, I have no doubt that the paper will quickly make its way as it richly deserves to, and I offer it, and all connected with it, my heartiest wishes for its success. Yours very truly, Fred Middlebrook. Orlando, Florida. Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: Dear Sir: I had the recent pleasure of running across your fine publication in the city library here, and after reading some of the interesting articles and reviews therein, I decided that your company was the proper source from which to get information concerning phonograph records. My chief hobby is collecting piano records, and one of its phases is to get records by every pianist of sufficient note who has recorded. So far, I have got, or am able to get, thirty great pianists which include, besides those in the current issues of the Victor, Columbia, English Columbia, H.M.V., and Brunswick catalogues, Grunfeld in the Victor ‘out of print* list, Ganz and Lhevinne on the Pathe or Actuelle, D’Albert on the Odeon through the Okeh company, and Saint-Saens and Grieg in the H.M.V. historical catalogue. However, my list of pianists fails to include some of the greatest names in contemporary or near-contemporary piano playing, and I should greatly appreciate any information as to how to get any records by any of the following: Goodson, Hess, Hutcheson, Leginska (she made one Pathe record that I know of, but I think it is no longer available) Mirovitch, Sauer, Schnabel, Bloomfield-Zeisler, Gieseking, Rosenthal, Dohnanyi, Jonas, and Schelling among living artists, and Joseffy, Carreno, Pugno, and Leschetizky among those who have passed away. I should also like to know whether D’Albert has made any fairly recent records for the Odeon or any other company. It seems to me that the four deceased above would have made some records sometime during their careers since the dates of their deaths, from 1914 on, all lie well past the time when fairly decent piano records were made, and as for the former, I think it doubly strange that some of the recording companies in this country, especially since the advent of the electrical process, have not issued records by