Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 3 (1927-12)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 83 December, 1927 *31 1 their achievements, not only in the concert hall, but also on records. (I even .know of their re- questing that one work, which they felt did not represent them at their best, be withdrawn.) No wonder these men can accomplish such wonders! As one of the younger members of the orches- tra said to me, “We all realize that every record released by our orchestra is a true musical photo- graph of our orchestral tone and performance. We can't have it represent us at anything but our best." I heard that the Conductor himself, af- fectionately called “Stokey", carries a portable in- strument with him on his vacations and trips and plays many records for his own enjoyment. Sto- kowski was back in Philadelphia for the assemb- ling of the orchestra at the beginning of this season, and it was then that this new symphony was “played in." Needless to say, this was not the only recording made then, and next month there may be the greatest surprise and best Christmas present of all for record buyers. Liv- ing up to our principles of never disclosing ad- vance information before we receive consent to release for publication, we cannot give away the secret. But those who have followed the contest, “Is Your Favorite Work Recorded?", and know that electrically recorded work is still needed to complete the list of imperatively needed major orchestral favorites, should have little difficulty in guessing! (And by the way, with this issue the actual contest part of the feature, “Is Your Favorite Work Recorded?", is being dropped; after count- ing up the recent releases of major works, it be- gins to look as if there was hardly anything left to “contest" about any longer!) Besides the Franck Symphony (set M-22), there is another addition to the Victor Master- pieces in set M-20, the complete Chopin Preludes, played by Alfred Cortot. It would be hard to over-estimate the significance of this issue to all piano record enthusiasts; it is one for which they have long been waiting. Among the orchestrals in the special November list of Red Seal records are Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite in a very spirited performance by Eugene Goossens; Liszt's Hun- garian Fantasie by de Greef and Ronald (replac- ing the old acoustic version) ; the Entrance of the Gods Into Valhalla, a worthy continuation of the Coates-Wagnerian series; and a new version of the Freischiitz overture by Alfred Herz and the San Francisco Symphony. The performance and recording of this eagerly anticipated work are fine indeed, but I could wish that Dr. Herz had another record side at his disposal so that it would not have been necessary to make the cuts which do so much harm in destroying the balance of the whole composition. Other notable releases from Victor are: a Haydn Quartet by the Elman String Quartet; a most remarkable actual recording of nightingales in Miss Beatrice Harrison's English garden; the much discussed and justly praised record of Hear My Prayer, in which Master E. Lough, a boy solo- ist, shows to such advantage (a record to be owned by everybody) ; and — from the foreign lists—a record by the Staats und Domchor under ■ 1 — . Prof. Hugo Riidel singing choral pieces by de Lasso (80160). There is also an unusually large miscellany of vocal and instrumental disks by celebrity artists. From Odeon we have the finest vocal record of the month: Emmy Bettendorf in two songs of Schumann, beautifully sung and recorded. The two orchestrals of the month, Mozart's Don Juan overture and Thomas' Mignon overture can hard- ly be called exceptional. In the former Dr. Weissmann hardly shows to his best advantage and it—with the Herz Freischiitz record men- tioned above—is further proof of the fact that today anything not fully up to the 100 per cent class falls short of what the constantly rising standards give us to expect. This month the Brunswick Company enters the foreign record market with a large and well di- versified release. The standards of recording and performance are equal to those of the other com- panies and while there is no particularly out- standing work in the first group, undoubtedly fu- ture Brunswick foreign lists will yield up “finds" like those we come across so often in the lists of other companies issuing foreign records. In the domestic releases, the outstanding work is Strauss' Death and Transfiguration, conducted by the composer. Unfortunately the samples of this have not yet reached the Studio and so will not be reviewed until next month, but judging from Reports from abroad and from the merit of an authentic interpretation, this set will deserve ap- preciative attention. Other works to look for this month are several Columbia disks listed for release on December 10th, which did not reach us in time for review. These include Borodin's Prince Igor Dance No. 17 (in three parts) by Sir Thomas Beecham and the London Symphony; Hamilton Harty's record coupling the Purcell-Wood Trumpet Voluntary and Davies' Solemn Melody; Madame Butterfly Selections played by the Columbia Symphony (Puccini again!) ; Toscha Seidel playing the Hun- garian Dance No. 1 and the Slavonic Dance No. 2; and another La Scala operatic release with Francesco Merli and Tancredi Pasero as solists. Mention might also be made here of some last minute news fro n our Paris Correspondent who reports the release of Charpentier's Impressions d'ltalie by the French Odeon Company (two rec- ords). No doubt our wide awake American im- porters will lose no time in making this avail- able. We have been severely handicapped in getting out this issue on account of our moving earlier in the month. We are now well settled in our new and far more suitable quarters, but it can well be believed that it was some task for all of us to pack, move, and re-arrange our extensive library, probably one of the largest and most varied record libraries in existence. I had de- cided to destroy or pack away in closets a large number of old acoustic works which are now considered absolutely obsolete. R.D.D. and I had gone over the files several times without coming to any agreement as to what should be condemned and what spared. When the Library had been