Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 5 (1928-02)

February, 1928 The Phonograph Monthly Review 165 A Re^Review By All Members of the Staff I T is exceedingly difficult always to keep abreast of the times without losing a great deal of the past: for record buyers the task is virtually impossible. The past months have brought ever-growing release lists to our attention; before one is half studied another is out and the first forgotten. (Recall your own mental notes on the works you “meant to buy someday”!) And so the taking of a phonogra- phic inventory, re-reviewing briefly the signifi- cant recorded works of the past year and a half, may be of considerable value. Not all the pre- sent readers of the magazine are familiar with its early issues; many critical estimates need the revision that time often necessitates; and—but further reasons are hardly necessary. The early days of the magazine coincided with the troublous period of change from the acoustical to the electrical process of recording; the first issue reviewed the first symphonies to be made under the new process side by side with the still appearing major acoustical work. At that time the old process, then at its height, oftentimes put the crudities of the new to shame. One thought shrieking string tone and sour wood winds inseparable from the new method, and more than one verbal tear was cast over the passing of cool, dark beauty of the old at its best. But the battle was as short as it was one- sided. Today the electrical process is used exclu- sively and we have masterpieces of which the finest works of the old days gave no omen. The new life infused into the entire phonograph movement is due entirely to the introduction of the new methods of recording and reproduction: the death blow that radio was supposed to have dealt proved rather a resurrecting touch! But before going on to summarize the record roll of honor, which of course will consist of elec- trical recordings exclusively, a farewell salute should be fired in memory of the acoustic master- pieces, now being so rapidly retired to historical and antique shelves to make way for replayed versions. The unbounded enthusiasm with which these works were greeted may seem a little ridiculous today—and yet those veterans who boasted large record libraries long before mi- crophones appeared on the scene understood and shared that enthusiasm. There was something about those old Odeon and Polydor works which will never be recaptured. Works like the Odeon Beethoven symphonies — the pioneers! — the Morike works, those of Dr. Oskar Fried, Pfitz- ner and others for Polydor will never be for- gotten by those who knew them. Even today when they are exhumed for comparison, they do not always come off second best. Orchestral works take precedence here as they do with most of our readers and we of the Staff. And among the single-disk issues first place must go unquestionably to those two master- pieces, the Coates reading of the Siegfried Death Music and the Stokowski performance of Bach's colossal Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Next come the Toscanini-Mendelssohn Scherzo , one of the first great electrical masterpieces; Dr. Morike's best new process releases, the Rosen- kavalier Waltzes and the Overture to the Bar- tered Bride; Stokowski's brilliant G otter ddm- merung Finale and much debated Blue Danube Waltz; his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun , and also that by Klenau for Columbia; Hamil- ton Harty's Overture to Abu Hassan; the Coates Wagnerian series, led by the Journey to the Rhine , the Magic Fire Music , and the Ride of the Valkyries; and the same conductor's Prince Igor Overture , Prokofieff pieces, and prelude to Hansel und Gretel; Mengelberg's Egmont Over- ture and Artists' Life Waltz; Stock's Meister - singer Prelude and Suk Fairy-Tales Dance; the Herz-Brahms Hungarian Dances and Tristan and Isolde excerpts; Stokowski's sensational 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody and Invitation to the Dance; and in the lighter group—the Odeon Light Cavalry Overture; Whitman's Mississippi Suite; and the Victor Symphony's La Gioconda, Poet and Peasant Overture , Madame Butterfly Fantasia; and finally the Viebig Fledermaus Overture. The works recorded on two records (in either three or four parts) are led by the exquisite Kleine Nachtmusik of Mozart played by Dr. Fried, one of the first—and to date the finest—of the Polydor electrical recordings. Next in this group, which includes some of the most brilliant releases ever made, come the Sorcerer's Ap- prentice played by Gaubert; the Tannhduser Overture in the hotly debated versions of both Mengelberg and Coates; the latter conductor's Tannhauser Bacchanale , La Valse, Fountains of Rome , and Don Juan; the Odeon Good Friday Spell , Beethoven Battle Symphony , and the Par- lophone Jena Symphony; Stokowski's Rienzi Overture; Herz's dazzling Spanish Caprice; Beecham's Prince Igor Dances; the Edison Bell De Falla and other Russian Ballet orchestra sets; the French H. M. V. La Peri; the N. G. S. Corelli Christmas Night Concerto; Henry Wood's 3rd Leonora Overture; Goossens' L'Arlesienne Suite and 1812 Overture; and the Victor Sym- phony's William Tell Overture. Going on to symphonies, outstanding recorded versions are available of Beethoven's Second (Beecham), Eroica (Coates), Fourth (Harty), Sixth (Weingartner), Seventh (Stokowski), and Ninth (Weingartner or Coates) ; less outstand- ing are the Ronald, Furtwangler, andWeingart- ner Fifths . Brahms First and Fourth rise high as two great peaks in American and English re- corded literature; Tchaikowsky's “Pathetique” (Coates) and Haydn's “Clock” (Harty) follow;