Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 2, No. 7 (1928-04)

252 The Phonograph Monthly Review April 1928 Let me say, therefore, that in considering a record, new or old, one quality and one only is paramount. That is, its true musical value, first as an interpretation of the composer’s conception, second as an expression of the executant’s music- ianship or virtuosity, per se. There is nothing that can or should interpose to cloud or confuse the issue in these considerations. This being agreed upon, I have once more to submit that from the standpoint of pure musical value, many of the old acoustical records are superior to their latter- day substitutes. R. 0. B. writes to the Review in tones of mingled exasperation and revolt, denouncing vig- orously the contemporary cult of mere “bigness” and noisemaking in music, real or so-called. While he delivers a perhaps over-charged broadside, there is much of truth in his strictures, when soberly considered. While I am a great lover of the music of Wagner, and, when at its best, of that of his forerunners, Berlioz and Meyerbeer, one must realize that at the same time he—and they—sowed many dragon’s teeth in the demesne of tone and that some of them, like weeds, have grown and flourished rankly, choking out plants more tender but, by the same token, of a finer fibre. While this is so, at the same time—and it is a very significant fact—the innate human love for these finer things is so strong that it cannot be eradicated. The Beethoven centenary estab- lished that conclusively, even in this land in which we live, the very paradise of noise in all its moods and tenses. My next-door neighbor has a far finer phono- graph than have I. It cost, I believe, one thousand dollars and has all the newest improvements. He buys nothing but the orthophonic—or micro- phonic—recordings and as a rule when he puts one on the turn-table, he makes the rafters ring. In warm weather, when the doors and windows are open he not only fills his domicile but invades my own with cataracts, deluges and thunders of sound that—especially in the watches of the night —sometimes inspire me with dire thoughts of murder which he thus lets loose upon the shiver- ing ether, as he will proudly tell you is “classical” and “by the very best artists and orchestras.” He came in the other evening when I was solac- ing myself with a few discs in what to him was evidently a very feeble and inaudible fashion and listened politely for a few moments and when —I had been unaware of his presence—I had finished, he invited me to come and hear some real music. No—he didn’t express himself in just those words, but that was their import. Now, I do not want an orchestra of anywhere from fifty to over one hundred members going full blast within my humble abode. My music room is about twelve feet by fifteen and opens, through an archway, into another room consider- ably larger. It was not intended to receive, to any esthetic aim or end, the great waves of tone that a full orchestra gives out. Indeed, even a single singer with a voice of great power and compass would produce there a highly inartistic effect if singing as he (or she) would in a con- cert hall or opera-house. The hearer would be deafened, driven into the street or reduced to a state of exhaustion. The correct function of recorded music, with certain exceptions, is to fulfill the same function as an exquisite miniature painting, in which everything is as beautifully executed as if on the grand scale. The “Last Judgment” looks sub- lime upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but would be monstrously grotesque upon that of an apartment in any modern human habitation. But in that habitation a beautiful replica, in reduced fac-smile, of the Melossian Aphrodite becomes a fit thing for the excitement of esthetic emotions. The Greek ideal of art, which still remains the most harmonious, symmetrical and universally adaptable known to man, is founded upon the law of measure—and nowhere is measure more necessary, as a criterion and means of control, than in music, which in itself is an expression of mathematics worked out in intervals of tone. To the disciplined taste, nothing is so distasteful as those things which transgress the laws of pro- portion, which tend always to the excessive and the over-wrought and seek to overwhelm, to stun and to take by storm, rather than to charm, to captivate and to enchant. There are times, of course, in music, as in all else, when we wish to be swept out of ourselves, to be literally carried away upon the storm of harmony which irresistibly submerges us. But these moments are the exceptions, and should never be the rule. When we make them the rule we have sacrificed art upon the altar of emo- tional excitement, we are seeking not pure beauty but palpitations and thrills, the frisson nouveau of which in my former comments I spoke, a nerv- ous and not a spiritual reaction. The new records are many of them immensely exciting, but the spiritual element of what they have to offer is in no way an advance upon the old ones and is often inferior. This is due to the fact that as mere tone, the microphonic qual- ity is less aerial, less “floating”, as a vocalist would say, than the acoustic. As a rule, to the sensitive ear it has a sibilance, a wiriness, not otherwise present. It is impossible to convey tone over a wire, with rare exceptions, and avoid that condition. This accounts for the striking simi- larity of microphonic tone when heard over the radio and the phonograph. The metallic quality, in any event, is the bete noir of the listener to reproduced music. All forms of reproduction would be vastly improved if metallic media, save in certain specific cases, could be dispensed with. This is particularly true of needles. It is most unfortunate that the fibre needles of various types are incapable of a point sharp enough to enable them to bring out of the grooves all the nuances of tone they have recorded. This they can do to only a limited degree, though in some cases the effect they pro- duce is incomparably fine. But they can do little where brilliance is desired. I have experimented with many kinds of needles and none are satis- factory beyond a certain point. The fault of