Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 4, No. 10 (1930-07)

The Phonograph Monthly Review 337 July, 1930 the rhumharmonium, I may refer to the inven- tion by Professor A. Erarsky of the Moscow Syn- odal School in 1890. He invented small organs with a keyboard, played like a piano. They were used in children’s orchestras at the school, and such composers as Tschaikowsky and Taneev were enthusiastic enough about them as to con- duct the orchestras of children, and Taneey even wrote a composition for them. In relation to special mechanical music, George Antheil’s “Bal- let Mecanique” was written originally for Leg- er’s film of that name. At the Baden-Baden fes- tivals of music, composition for mechanical med- iums are accorded respectable places on the pro- gram. The “Friends of the Disc” I have mentioned above is the phonograph equivalent to the numer- ous film clubs of Paris. A small body of mem- bers meets monthly to hear new and old records on an electric gramophone: classic, popular, dance and folk music. When the noise-machine was demonstrated, two pre-war tinted films were shown, and an accompaniment of period records was played. The noise-machine furnished the stresses. This society meets at the Studio 28. The inter-relationship is carried on in the Film- Club which also meets at Studio 28. The disc continues to be a fascination to the Frenchman, and he accepts it as a major and not incidental form of entertainment. Not only do the numerous “phono salons” attest to this—we have some “penny-arcades” in America but usu- ally in ragged neighborhoods, seldom elegant ones like those in Paris—but also the recitals that are frequently held. The Pathe people have built on the grand boulevard a “salle panatonal” with daily recitals, for which admissions of one and two francs are charged. Recently at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees Columbia held a gala, where not the artists in person but the records were the attraction. The editor of the very best perio- dical devoted to music, La Revue Musicale, gave his personal attention to this gala, for which the usual fees for recitals were charged, and concen- trated his critical consideration upon the discs. At the oriental museum Guimet an entire recital of eastern music on discs was given, and this mu- seum together with the Musee de la Parole is or- ganizing a foundation for the publication of rec- ords of the eastern folks. All the dailies and leading periodicals of Paris devote space to the consideration of the disc. Every movie journal, whether more critical, like “Du Cinema,” or trade, considers the disc as worthy of criticism along with the movies. Re- gularly periodicals appear devoted entirely to the consideration of enregistered music, and one has been now existent for a relatively long period: “L’Edition Musicale Vivante,” edited by the noted critic and teacher of music, Emile Vuiller- moz. Vuillermoz is also one of the pioneer film- critics of France. This combination is met with frequently, notably in Henry Poulaile, author of a book of importance on Chaplin, and speaks again for the splendid harmony of interests typi- fying the Frenchman. Notable novelists and es- sayists like Pierre MacOrlan, Andre Obey and Franz Hellens write pertinently upon mechanical music. Hellens is a Belgian, and his work appears in the interesting revue published in Brussels, called “Varietes.” Recently an entire number of the elite woman’s journal, “La Revue de la Femme,” was given over to mechanical music, with articles by several of the aforementioned writers relating to that music in the home, cine- ma, musical education, poetic utterance and the future. Critical interest in phonographic music in France is further attested to by the simultan- eous publication of three serious books on the gramophone: by such eminent musicographers and critics as Andre Coeuroy, Boris de Schloezer and Charles Wolff. The de Schloezer volume is in- cluded in a series devoted to modern knowledge. In his survey, Panorama of Contemporary Mu- sic, M. Coeuroy has devoted considerable space to mechanical music. He refers to the Africans 'who are “stylists in noises,” to the Italian har- monizers of noises, to Mozart’s composition for the mechanical organ, to Weber's rondo of 1811 for the harmonichord. Strawinsky uses a hand- organ in Petrouchka, Pleyela rolls accompany Gremillon’s film, “Tour of the Deep,” Jaubert the Frenchman invents the “prodigious magician,” the Germans, Hindemith, Toch and Munich, write for the mechanical piano. Coeuroy, like Sabaneev indicates that mechanical music and mechanical entertainment have an old history and a long fu- ture. This future is extended by the talking film, whose future is the future of noise, its con- trol and its fashioning. In England there is perhaps the liveliest of journals “The Gramophone,” edited by the Scotch patriot and novelist, Compton Mackenzie. The articles are very wide in scope, from those on folk-music to dissertations on the relationship of technical apparatus to the art of musical rendi- tion, articles very serious and important. Mr. Mackenzie also writes upon the current records for a large London daily, and Mrs. Mackenzie for another. The “highbrow” weeklies have long in- cluded the discographic criticism. Compton Mac- kenzie is the moving spirit of the largest of popu- lar societies for the support of gramophone mu- sic, The National Gramophone Society, which has to its credit the publication of records not un- known to chamber music connoisseurs in Ameri- ca. We in America have never really looked upon the gramophone as much more than a piece of furniture or a mechanism, seldom as a medium of expression. Only now is there any appearance of a disc-critic, although the radio from its start has been included in the journalistic enterprise. As to the mechanical piano, it is well-nigh an antique. But in England and France the me- chanical mediums are, one might say, just begin- ning to come into their own, even though they have long been exploited. At the Columbia Gala a film was shown to a deeply interested audience of the making of a disc, and the veteran pianist, Francis Plante, was shown recording for the