Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1928-11)

62 The Phonograph Monthly Review November, 1928 English Columbia L-2058 (D12) Rimsky-Korsakow: Antar —Third Movement, and Borodin: Prince Igor—March, played by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philhar- monic Orchestra. (Imported through The Gramophone Shop, New York City.) This is a re-recording and the Antar excerpt is possibly cut. The entire work would be welcome on records as one seldom has the opportunity of hearing it in concert. The third movement is a sort of scherzo supposedly demonstrat- ing the joy of power, one of the three gifts given Antar by the fairy Gul-Nazar, Queen of Palmyra, in return for his saving her life. The music smacks of Rimsky-Kor- sakow’s professorial studies in its rigidly blocked out phrases and lack of sonority. But it has color and vitality; there are many foreshadowings of Scheherazade, and Bee- cham plays it with considerable dynamic force. The Boro- din March is sturdier stuff, more treasure from that inex- haustible mine, Prince Igor. The performance is zestful and brilliant. The recording on both sides is somewhat coarse, but not sufficiently so as to detract seriously from one’s enjoyment of this happy Russian coupling. English Columbia L-2087 (D12) Delius: A Village Romeo and Juliet—Intermezzo, “The Walk to the Paradise Gar- den,” played by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Phil- harmonic Orchestra. (Imported through The Gramophone Shop, New York City.) Beecham was one of the first and still is the finest inter- preter of Delius’ music. He gave the opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet” its first English performance in 1910. His performance of this Intermezzo in his American concerts last season marked probably the first representation of the work in this country. Most of the rare Delius performances here are sadl^ inadequate and uncharacteristic of the composer’s genius, and Beecham did much to arouse a new apprecia- tion of Delius in America, for no one who heard his ex- pressive and eloquent reading of this excerpt, as moving in this exquisite recording as it was in concert, could fail to be deeply stirred. Even apart from the miraculous beauty of the music itself, this record is one of indescribable^ love- liness. Seldom have I heard English horn, oboe, and ’cellos sing more tenderly or more ecstaticly. Like the recording of On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring this may be acclaimed as a perfect blending of performance and re- cording to provide an undistorted and glowing exposition of Delius’ music. The story of the opera is told in full in the splendid biography of the composer by Philip Heseltine (who com- poses under the name of Peter Warlock). The child lovers, Sali and Vrenchen, wander forth in the search for respite: “I know a place not very far from here,” says Sali at the close of the fifth scene, “where we shall be quite unknown. In the Paradise Garden we will dance the night away. . . . Come! Let us go!” The curtain falls and “the succeeding Intermezzo is an Andante of intense and sustained expres- siveness,” (I quote from Lawrence Gilman’s notes in the Philadelphia program book),” full of Delius’ characteristic mood of ecstatic contemplation and impassioned tender- ness.” The musical web is all melody; every instrument is given a rapturous song. The main theme, heard about mid-way through the first side, soars upward with a trip- let figure and sinks nostalgically down again,—a perfect musical embodiment of the love of the Sali and Vrenchen. As Heseltine says, this Intermezzo “is an epitome of the entire drama . . . charged with an atmosphere of mystery, a sense of spiritual exile; through it all there blows a wind as from a far country. ...” That the phonograph can record and preserve the mir- acle of a Beecham performance of this rare and fragile beauty is in itself an unanswerable refutation of the oft- repeated condemnation of our musical instrument as a “soulless machine.” H. M. V. 1442-3 (2 D12s) Delius: Brigg Fair, played by Geoffrey Toye and the London Symphony Orchestra. (Im- ported through The Gramophone Shop, New York City.) Brigg Fair is aptly subtitled “An English Rhapsody.” The reminiscent pastoral introduction conjures up a quiet Lin- colnshire countryside as a setting for the glorious metamor- phoses of the quaint and unforgettable folktune. Unto Brigg Fair I did repair, For Love I was inclined. (This tune, by the way, was collected by Percy Grainger, to whom the work is dedicated, and has been recorded in his arrangement—a rather ineffective one—by the English Singers.) Less concentratedly subjective than The Walk to the Paradise Gardens, it is no less characteristic of its com- poser. Not even Appalachia would serve better to make his restrained, intoxicating charm better known. This recording is approved by Delius and in truth is a “com- poser’s version.” A little more vivacity and stress on the work’s dramatic values would make it more effective as an abstract performance, but the spell of tonal and emotional witchery is never broken. I doubt if I have ever heard more realistic reproduction of muted strings than in the slow section (part 2). Mr. Toye has planned his dynamic scale in exquisite proportion; we get real pianissimos and pianos,, and when the score calls for them, magnificent, but unexaggerated fortissimos., Delius is the Proust of composers, and while his works may be caviar to the general musical public, they will al- ways hold an enchantment for some people comparable to that of no other composer even among the masters. To analyze the secret of this enchantment would demand many pages, insight and sensibilities of infinite delicacy and yet god-like power, and expressive gifts equal to Delius’ own. These records catch the essence of his magical poetry. That is adequate praise indeed. Polydor 95088-9 (2 D12s) Glazounow: Stenka Razin, play- ed by Alexander Kitschin and the Berlin Philharmonic Or- chestra. Imported through the H. Royer Smith Company, Philadelphia.) I approached these disks with particular interest for I was anxious to hear the work of Kitschin (who has recently recorded a complete Tchaikowsky Fifth) and also to dis- cover whether this symphonic poem was really as colorful a work as I had remembered it from a sole concert hear- ing a number of years ago. Stenka Razin was written when Glazounow was only twenty and while it is not an overwhelming work, it does surge and sparkle with real vitality and life. Here is none of the artistic hardening of the arteries we find in most of this composer’s competent, orthodox, and very unstimulating writings. It is named after a famous Cossack, insurrectionist and ruler of the Volga in the seventeenth century. The score contains a program which I paraphrase from the translation in the Boston Symphony program books: The Volga immense and placid! For many years those along its banks had dwelt in peace when suddenly appeared the terrible hetman Stenka, who at the head of his savage band ran up and down the Volga devastating and pillaging the villages and towns along its shores. In Stenka’s vessel, laden with treasure, sat his captive, a Persian princess of wondrous beauty. She foreshadowed in a dream his defeat and her death, and her dream came true. Stenka was surrounded by soldiers of the Tsar. Seeing his ruin at hand, he cried: “Never, during all the thirty years of my going up and down Mother Volga have I made her a gift. Today I shall give her what is in my eyes the most precious of earthly treasures.” Saying this, he threw the Princess into the Volga. The savage band began to sing the praise of their leader and they all rushed upon the soldiers of the Tsar. The music is built on three themes: the Volga Boat- men’s Song, which runs throughout the entire work in a thousand transformations; a short, energetic, savage theme typifying Stenka Razin; and a bland, seductive melody picturing the captive Persian princess. The piece is inter- esting, readily apprehended, and yet possessing originality and force. Kitschin plays it with a tremendous heavy power which speaks well for his Tchaikowsky Fifth. I admire the way in which he brings out the horn and brass passages; the coloring is very dark and very Russian. He would be an ideal man to play Moussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, I think. The performance and recording are of the same super- lative excellence discussed in greater detail in the follow- ing Polydor reviews. Polydor 66722-3 (2 D12s) Lalo: Le roi d’ys—Overture (three parts), and Bizet: Carmen—Prelude (one part) played by Albert Wolff and the Berlin Philharmonic. (Im- ported through the H. Royer Smith Company, Philadel- phia.) These and the following works by Wolff arouse a desire to get up and shout triumphantly. At last the Polydor