Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 11 (1928-08)

392 The Phonograph Monthly Review August, 1928 - : than eight English firms who specialize in expor- tations of records. Corresponding with one of them I found it had not less than 1200 very active accounts in this country. Another had 900, and undoubtedly the other six also had a large per- centage of American customers. And from cor- respondence with our subscribers I learned that many of them were spending twenty to sixty dollars a month in the purchase of imported records. Besides this, there were the many re- cord buyers in far away India, China, Africa, scattered to the ends of the globe, but still buying many records directly from London. The British public got full credit for absorb- ing all the records sold there, as there was no way of knowing what percentage actually went to foreign buyers. And consequently, when the most desirable British works were re-pressed later by the American Companies, the leading enthusiasts had long since been supplied directly and obviously would not duplicate their pur- chases. But lately the tide has been turning and the true extent of record sales here is becoming more and more apparent. The most desirable works are being made available here much more quickly than before, but even as it is the American im- porters are doing a flourishing business in put- ting these works on sale here within a few weeks of their British release (giving America the credit for their consumption). And now that we are actively engaged in producing major record- ings ourselves a great many are coming to be ex- ported abroad, both to England and to other quar- ters of the globe. When we look over our subscrip- tion files and see the large number of foreign readers, nearly all of whom reached the by chance or a correspondent's recommendation, we realize that here is a market which is surely absorbing vast quantities of the best records. Just the other day an enthusiast from India sent an order to an American dealer in our care for not less than $92.00 worth of records. How many dollars' worth are going to England every month? Of course Great Britain will always retain its indisputable crown of pioneer. We can never forget what our English cousins have done for us and the entire world phonographically. But the times change. As yet America has only begun to show what it can do, but with record sales and interest mounting here daily, with many major recordings to our credit already and many more rumored for release during the coming sea- son, it is becoming more and more evident that the center of both production and absorbtion is moving steadily westward. Recording Conductors By ROBERT DONALDSON DARRELL (Continued from the last issue) I N the preceding article it was my aim to dem- onstrate that records are fully revelatory of their conductors (the study of the disks is the study of the men who have made them) ; that musical performances in general but particularly those recorded are susceptible to analysis, com- parison, and evaluation by certain definite criti- cal standards and ideals; and that this critical study has a direct and considerable value. This last point has not been stressed, but it will be amplified further later on. For the present, the value of these studies may be indicated in the heightening of one’s phono-musical appreciative powers, in aiding one to choose more wisely re- cords for purchase, and finally in discovering, or emphasizing, the types of music for which the various recording conductors are best fitted, in the hope that their future repertory will be se- lected from only those works in which they truly excel, rather than those which are chosen causally or for merely exigent reasons. Without further preluding we can begin to examine our field more directly, classifying the more important recording conductors into several loose groups for convenience. The first group includes only those men who have an extensive recorded repertory, including a wide variety of musical types, and whose work we can conse- quently judge from many different angles and in many different aspects. Several of these men, represented largely by acoustical recordings, are less significant than the others, who have main- tained their prominence through the change to the new process. However, they should be in- cluded here if only for their historical importance. Leopold Stokowski Victor-H.M.V. Albert Coates H.M.V.-Victor; Columbia Leo Blech Polydor-Victor Eduard Morike Parlophone-Odeon Frederick Weissmann Parlophone-Odeon Hamilton Harty Columbia Willem Mengelberg Columbia; Victor; Brunswick Eugene Goossens H.M.V.-Victor; Columbia, Edison-Bell Landon Ronald H.M.V.-Victor Henry Wood Columbia Oskar Fried Polydor