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

64 The Phonograph Monthly Review November, 1928 lack of animation. The recording is good, but hardly up to that of the Wolff disks. Columbia 50086-D (D12, $1.00) Berlioz: Damnation of Faust—Dance of the Sylphs, and Rakoczy March, played by Sir Hamilton Harty and the Halle Orchestra. A good record but one that is vaguely disappointing. Harty begins the March with just the right feeling of alert vigor. I like the way he brings out his horns. But toward the end I feel the need of more sonority, more “punch” to the performance. And why the diminuendo on the final chord? I prefer ths to Stokowski’s version, but it is not all we expect from Harty or of the music. The Dance of the Sylphs is well read by Harty, but the recording by no means catches the delicate, almost inaudible effect that Berlioz intended. The ending is good, however, with the quiet taps of the timpani recorded very well indeed. After hearing Wolff’s records, this seems more than a little lack- ing in gusto, color, and warmth. Victor 21669 (DIO, 75c) Bellini: Norma—Overture, played by Rosario Bourdon and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Norma is not the most significant of the popular overtures, but for all its simplicity its light tunefulness falls pleasantly enough on one’s ears. Bourdon plays it in masterly fashion, which is of course to be expected from him. Victor 35933-4 (2 D12s, $1.25 each) Grofe: Metropolis—A Blue Fantasie, played by Paul Whiteman and his Concert Orchestra. I wish that I migh hail this as a masterpiece of symphonic jazz, but the promise of its title is hardly borne out by a hearing of the work itself. The performance and record- ing are maganificent, but the composition is simply another of the inevitable croppers to which jazz composers come when they try to lift themselves up by their boot straps. I yield to no one in admiration of Ferdy Grofe’s skill in instrumentation, but even the subtitle “Fantasie’’ does not permit a composer sublimely to ignore all principles of musical construction and development. Grofe’s material is extremely slight in the first place, and his treatment is highly amorphic and over-ambitious to the point of bom- bast. For ali that, however, there are many moments of real interest, and of course the kaleidoscopic 'orchestral coloring and the brilliant performance alone make the disks well worth hearing. If only the composer had been con- tent to write naturally and forget the idea of achieving an American musical masterpiece. The brief fugato passage following the vocal chorus (of the wordless or wa-wa variety) on part three is a fine example of what he might accomplish if the fine example of what he might accomplish if the delusion of grandeur had not overcome him. There is a great deal of Lisztian fustian and far too many mean- ingless piano solos, but Grofe deserves credit in that his material, wdiile not particularly distinguished, is by no means as reminiscent and imitative as is so often the case with works in symphonic jazz form. The strong sense of amateurishness in the working out of the composition, contrasts incongruously with the virtuosity of the performance. The work is a welcome addition to recbrds, but every one who believes in the potentialities of symphonic jazz will be disappointed that Metropolis is not the long- awaited major work to follow and bear out the promise of those of Gershwin. R.D.D. Light Orchestral Brunswick 20070 (D12, $1.00) Limehouse Blues, and Dear Old Southland, played by Red Nichols and his Five Pennies. Nichols does not fall prey to the Messianic delusion of the concert jazz orchestra; these performances are kept strictly within the Imitations of the dance form, but they are doubly ingenious and worth studying for that reason alone. They are riot, however, his best or most significant works by any means, but they are good for dancing and better for simply listening. The guitar work and fiddling deserve special praise. There is a Lisztian piano chorus in Dear Old Southland, but it does not sound at all like the incomparable Schutt. The last-mentioned piece, by the way, is a rather neat popular transcription of Deep River, a haunting tune that the jazz idiom does not weaken in the slightest. Brunswick 4021 (D10. 75c) Ragging the Scale, and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, played by Louis Katzman and the Anglo-Persians. Fine straightforward concert versions, superbly recorded. It is a pleasure to hear Ragging the Scale again, especially in as interesting a version as this new one. Odeon 3230 (D12, $1.00) Strauss: Gypsy Baron—Selection, played by Edith Lorand and her orchestra. Another meritous record in Miss Lorand’s familiar man- ner. Performance and recording are good. Odeon 3229 (D12, $1.00) Moszkowski: Serenade, and Paderewski: Minuet, played by Dajos Bela and his or- chestra. Dajos Bela has not maintained his usual standard so well of late. The performance here is very matter-of-fact and the recording extremely shrill. Instrumental PIANO Columbia 160-M (D10, 75c) Schubert-Godowsky: Moment Musicale and Paderewski: Caprice in G, played by Leff Pouishnoff. Godowsky’s arrangements are always interesting; this one of the Moment Musicale is particularly so. Pouishnoff plays it with easy-going gusto. The Caprice is a neatly- turned pianistic trifle, played here with appropriate fleet- ness and eclat. The recording is good. Columbia Masterworks Set 93 (3 D12s, Alb., $4.50) Schu- bert: Impromptus, Op. 142, played by Ethel Leginska. Parts 1 and 2. Allegro moderato, F minor. Part 3. Allegretto, A flat. Parts 4 and 5. Andante con variazioni, B flat. Part 6. Allegro scherzando, F minor. A complete Op. 142 was a good choice for Centennial re- cording. Nos. 2 and 3 are well known in concert and on records, but it is pleasant to have the complete set in one group. Miss Leginska strives very hard to avoid reading any personality into the music except that of Schubert’s own. Her playing is competent musicianlike, marred only by a sense of undue carefulness. The recording is good and the set as a whole is one of unsensational merits, a trifle lacking in animation and character, but admirable in its avoidance of exaggeration and a brilliancy which would be quite out of place in these graceful and charming tone poems. Columbia 162-M (D10, 75c) Albeniz-Godowsky: Tango in D, and Bizet-Rachmaninoff: L’Arlesienne—Minuet, played by Jose Echaniz. Echaniz plays the familiar tango rather slowly and with restraint. Both it and the Bizet minuet are good unassuming performances of delightful, if slight, music. The disk is an excellent seventy-five cents’ worth. Victor 35936 (D12, $1.25) Wagner-Brassin: Die Walkuere —Magic Fire Scene, and Debussy: Arabesque No. 1 in E, played by Julius Schendel. Schendel is a new name fo me. Is he a pianist of some note? His playing here is competent and clear, but lacking in subtlety or much moving force. He does well with the Magic Fire Music, but I long to hear a re-recording of J'osef Hoffman’s great performance. Somebody at the Victor Company was napping for once when the Debussy piece was labeled “Deux Arabesques” and the annotation made in the supplement that “Deux Arabesques is a piano composition by the great French composer,” etc. What Schendel actually plays is not the “Two Arabesques,” but the first one, E major. Victor 6847 (D12, $2.00) Chopin: Prelude in D flat (“Rain- drop”), and Prelude in A flat, played by Ignace Jan Paderewski. Paderewski plays smoothly here and with considerable restraint, although he might have contented himself with a trifle less rubato in the beautiful A flat prelude. The recording a remarkably fine in both this and Schendel’s disk.