Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1928-10)

October, 1928 The Phonograph Monthly Review 27 these Sokoloff disks. Listen to the very opening bars for an index to the entire work. Here, for once, the initial theme is allowed to flow instead of to stride. The dancing figure in the strings, and the clarinet and oboe melody have both vitality and thistle-down lightness. Sokoloff’s touch is as delicately restrained throughout the entire work, and yet the broader passages at the end of the first movement are given just the proportionate sonority and firmness. I have heard the second movement played by a score of different conductors, but none of them ever found the same pulsating romantic glow that Sokoloff reveals in these measures. The recording is subdued; there is nothing sensational about it. It does not have the clarity or the power of either the Columbia or Victor sets. But I, for one, find the luxuriant charm of version to lie very largely in this restrained quality of the recording. The tonal loveliness of the orchestral playing is so warmly colored that concert hall realism and amplification would shatter the spell. As it is, we get something in the nature of chamber music; on a larger scale, of course, but possessing the same subtlety and intimacy of appeal. I suppose I must sound the usual warning: if you wish display, brilliant orchestral pyrotechnics, and flooding sonorities, you will not find them here. But if you delight in dainty nuances and unobvious beauties of interpretation and execution, you will delight in this performance. Sokoloff reveals himself as an artist of finer sensibilities than even his Rachmaninoff Symphony would give one to imagine, and he restores to the “Unfinished” its original lustre and bloom. German H. M. V. (EJ-223-4 (2 D12s) Wagner: Die Meistersinger—Prelude, and Goetterdaemmerrung—Sieg- fried's Journey to the Rhine, played by Dr. Karl Muck and the Berlin State Opera House Orchestra. (Imported through the H. Royer Smith Company, Philadelphia.) The Prelude is on three record sides; the Rhine Journey on one. Everything that was said last month in praise of the orchestra and the recording in Dr. Muck’s Parsival Pre- lude can be repeated here piu fortissimo. This is beyond a doubt the finest playing we have ever heard by a Ger- man recording orchestra. Has Dr. Muck an innate genius for recording? Even the best of Dr. B lech’s works have never evidenced as supreme a clarity and tonal purity as Muck’s Parsival and Meistersinger preludes. The performance is magnificent, as I hardly need to say. I cavil only at the breaks necessitated by the three-part recording; but perhaps I am too used to the two-part Coates version (also complete) where the break is made at the appearance of the masters’ theme in diminution. I still long for a shade greater breadth at the beginning and during the working up to the final peoration, but per- haps such dreams are unreasonable. The incredible great- ness of the music arouses an insatiable appetite for equally super-human powers in the performance, but, alas, while a genius may capture such breadths on paper, they are impossible to attain in performance. Few conductors could come as close to the ideal as Dr. Muck! This easily surpasses the Stock and Blech versions. I have not yet heard the new Coates record, but his acous- tical version gives reason to expect much of the new one. Dr. Muck guides Siegfried on a very leisurely journey. The playing is superb and many points of the orchestration are brought out that usually escape notice. I admire this version, but first place in my heart is reserved for the impetuous spirit and youthfulness of Coates’ reading. Columbia 50084-D (D12, $1.00) Strauss: On the Beautiful Blue Danube—Waltz, played by Felix Weingartner and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. What a boon it would be to record buyers if the mul- titudinous versions of the Blue Danube now available could be classified according to the type of their inter- pretations by such designations as Royal Blue Danube, pale Blue Danube, and the like! Already there are as many shades of readings as boasted in the color repertory of the manufacturers of silk stockings. There is Stokowski’s brilliant and bombastic tour de force; there is Shilkret’s jazz version with an organ and banjo; Dr. Blech plays it in the sturdy full-voiced Germanic tradition; Josef Lhevinne thunders out the Schulz-Evper arabesques. There from EUROPE come these wonderful discs BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS Played by Wilhelm Kemff o Sonata A Flat Major, Op. 26 3-12 in. Polydor Records. Price $1.50 each o Sonata C. Major, Op. 53 (Waldstein) 3-12 in. Polydor Records. Price $1.50 each o Sonata E Flat Major, Op. 81a 2-12 in. Polydor Records. Price $1.50 each Note—“The finest piano recordings to date” BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA Under Direction of Albert Wolf o Pelleas et Melisande (Orchestral Suite) Faure (a) Prelude (b) Fileuses (c) Sicilienne 2-12 in. Polydor Records. Price $1.50 each o Le Roy d’Ys (Overture) Lalo 2-12 in. Polydor Records. Price $1.50 each String Sextet G Major, Op. 36. Brahms Spencer Dyke String Sextet 4-12 in. N.G.S. Records. Price $2.00 each Gotterdammerung (Trauermarsch) Wagner Berlin State Opera House Orchestra Under Direction of Dr. Karl Muck 1-12 in. European Victor Record. Price $2.00 All Records Shipped Via Insured Parcel Post Send For Our Free Catalogues of Imported Records Headquarters for Edison Bell Needles—ad- vertised on Page 13 of this issue. H. ROYER SMITH CO. Dealers and Importers of All M a\es of PHONOGRAPH RECORDS 10th and Walnut Streets, Philadelphia “THE WORLD'S RECORD SHOP”