Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1927-10)

32 The Phonograph Monthly Review October, 1927 troubled self, and the music flows its even course in de- lightful even if not in any profound fashion. The scherzo and trio might be singled out as the most interesting of the four movements. The record surface here is rather poor, but otherwise the recording and performance are quite up to the Society’s standards. Admirers of Dvorak’s music will find much to value this set; others who hear it will pause at least a few moments to enjoy its naive charm before passing on to more ambitious and heaven-storming works. Columbia Masterworks Set No. 73—Tchaikowsky: Trio in A minor, Op. 50 “To the Memory of a Great Artist.” (6 D12s, $9.00.) Played by Arthur Catterall (violin), W. H. Squire (’cello), and William Murdoch (piano). For many years Tchaikowsky (not unlike other musicians) looked upon the piano trio as a very inadequate medium of expression and refused to write anything for that combina- tion of instruments, despite all the pleas of Nadeja von Meek to the contrary. It was the death of his friend Nicholas Rubinstein that led to his turning to the trio to express his grief; the work is supersaturated with it; the composition is one of the great elegiac works of all music. The work is in two movements, a Pezzo Elegiaco (parts one to five), and a theme and twelve variations (parts six to twelve). The variations are supposed to represent various aspects of Rubinstein’s life and character; but as a matter of fact, the music is very unprogramatic in nature and is cer- tainly more interesting as absolute music than as any bio- graphical sketch of the “Great Artist.” It ranks as one of the finest works in trio literature and one of Tchaikowsky’s greatest compositions, classed usually with the Pathetique Symphony. It is far more effective in recorded form than in concert performances where its considerable length and the disadvantages of a very small instrumental combination playing in a hall combine to handicap it very severely. Here, a few variations can be heard at a time if wished, and in intimate surroundings. There can hardly be a doubt that the records will win innumerable new admirers for the work among music lovers who never had the opportunity of hear- ing it, or hearing it to advantage, before. This version is the first complete one and like the other Columbia chamber music sets, exquisitely played and re- corded. The reading is eloquent in the extreme, without undue sentimentalization, and the players wisely refuse to “slop over,” even when the composer gives them every en- couragement to do so. Mr. Squire’s ’cello part is particu- larly beautiful, in spite of the fact that Tchaikowsky did not always write in the most sympathetic manner for the stringed parts of the trio—making it sound occasionally like a sonata for piano with violin and ’cello obbligatos! Yet this feeling is much weaker in the recorded version than in the concert hall. Of the perhaps half dozen performances I have heard in concert, none was superior to this one; sev- eral were more brilliant, but the sustained atmosphere and eloquence of the work suffered in consequence. The trio is one that affects the admirers of Tchaikowsky almost hypnotically. Others are left cold by it, while dis- passionately admiring many of its musical merits. But every music lover should know it, and can know it best through this most adequate and praiseworthy recording. Columbia Masterworks Set No. 70—Beethoven: Quartet in B flat, Op. 130 (5 D12s Alb., $7.50). Played by the Lener String Quartet. One by one the few remaining gaps in the list of recorded Beethoven Quartets are being filled up as post-Centennial sets gradually filter in. Op. 130 is perhaps best known for the fact that its Finale was the composer’s last completed work, written in November 1826, to replace the original last move- ment, a fugue of rather grandiose proportions and consider- able obscurity, which was eventually published separately. The Finale, however, apart from the sentimental interest one has for it, is by no means the most significant movement in the quartet, although its dainty gaiety—how tempered did Bee- thoven’s rude gusto finally become!—make it fully worthy of this quartet. The present writer, never having been as impressed with this particular work in concert as with its companions, feared that his appreciation of the set would be further weakened, especially as he had fatuously imagined that the feast of Cen- tennial recordings had temporarily satiated him with Bee- thoven. A few hearings, one with the score, left him humbled. The beauties of this work are on such rarefield level, they are so minutely and so perfectly carved, that the intimacy the phonograph alone can give is needed for their proper dis- cernment. One thinks, “Can this be the Beethoven that wrote the Seventh Symphony?” It is! but what struggles of soul and body were necessary to sublimate the rough vitality of the symphony into the frail pure flame of life that burns so clearly in the quartet ! In the former Beethoven was exult- antly conquering the world; in the latter he is exaltedly conquering himself. The understanding listener’s heart is torn with the pity and the iron}' of it: the greatest dynamic force music had known finding itself at last freed of its coarse burly body, its Gargantuan power and pride, in these pages of music that are utterly removed from the flesh and its struggles, yet not removed from reality itself: rather in them the external world has been dissolved and refined into its very essence. I can find nothing of ni 3 'sticism and beyond-worldli- ness here; I think Beethoven himself would have scoffed at the suggestion of such qualities being read into his music. Never has he had a firmer grasp on humanity; but now he no longer battles to maintain his grasp: the fight has been fought—and he has discovered that neither victory nor de- feat has been achieved, rather a lofty tolerance and under- standing, that can express itself—as it does here—in the simplest of idioms, but which goes straight from heart to heart. A detailed description of the six movements is unnecessary. The performance by the Leners (what a debt every true music lover owes them!) and the recording are so perfectly im- mersed in the music itself that one pays the highest tribute of forgetting them entirely for the composition. There is nothing spectacular here, nothing to catch the passing fancy; these are no records to be “sampled” in a dealer’s shop to see whether one “likes” them or not; they will be meaning- less to all but a few—but what a heritage to those who are willing to accept it! As a business “proposition,” this set must be utterly imprac- ticable; it will probably be years before it can repay its cost. One feels for the manufacturers not only respect, but also an indebtedness that will be impossible ever to repay in full. Every one to whom such works as these mean much must join in the hope that such courage will be rewarded. Victor 1276—Deep River and Irish Reel. (D10, $1.50.) The Flonzaley Quartet in one of its all too rare ten-inch releases; coupling here two arrangements by Pochon, the second violinist. Both pieces are played with the Flon- zaley’s inevitable perfection of detail, and both are good examples of the powers of modern string recording. The Irish Reel is in lively contrast to the Negro song, but both prove again the contention that while highly trained musi- cians can devote all their artistry to certain works of a folk song or popular nature, they can never succeed in capturing the authentic spirit of the pieces, which by its very nature is lost by the refining process. The Reel here isn’t Irish and Deep River is by no means Negroid,—but nevertheless they’re great quartet playing and most enjoyable to listen to. R. D. D. ORGAN Victor 35832—Liebestraum and Pilgrim’s Song of Hope. (D12, $1.25.) The appropriately named Mr. Henry Gordon Thunder in his first Victor recording. The recording is quite effective and the performances unassuming and ap- proved readings, very much in the manner of Hans Barth’s series of “standard” well known piano pieces. Undoubtedly this disk is the first of a similar series of organ works. PIANO Victor 1266—Mendelsohn: Etudes in F major and A minor. (D10, $1.50 ‘ *gei Rachmaninoff’s. records are things to be looked to! and his original selection of etudes from Mer . . (are they from his Op. 104, Three Preludes and Three Studies?) is no exception to the excellence of his releases. Both are played with consider- able fleetness, occasionally a trifle blurred, it must be con- fessed, and both are effectively pianistic—and pleasant diversions from the too familiar Rondo ( A mso. It seems strange that Mendelssohn’s perhaps finest work for the piano, the Serious Variations, have never been recorded; many of the less well known Songs Without Words also