Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1929-10)

c MUSIC LOVERS’ AXEL B. ]OHKSOH, Managing Editor Published by THE PHONOGRAPH PUBLISHING CO., Inc. General Offices and Studio: 47 Hampstead Road, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass. Telephone Jamaica: 5054 '.Cable Address: “Phono” THE PHONOGRAPH MONTHLY REVIEW appears on the twenty-eighth of each month. All material is fully protected by copy- right and may be reproduced only by permission. Yearly subscription price $4.00 in the United States and $5.00 m Canada and other foreign countries, postage prepaid. Single copies 35 cents. All communications should be addressed to the Managing Editor at the Studio, 47 Hampstead Road, Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass. All unsolicited contributions must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. All checks and money orders should be made out to THE PHONO- GRAPH PUBLISHING CO., Inc. General Review T HIS month’s Victor list provides the long- awaited complete version of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, played by the com- poser with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Dr. Stokowski. Owing to a typographical mistake the work was referred to in an advertisement in our last issue as being in D minor. The correct key, however, is C minor. This is by far the most popular of Rachmaninoff’s four concertos, and all those who enjoyed the old records of two movements only (one of the great achieve- ments of the acoustical era) or who have had the pleasure of hearing the work in concert will lose no time in hearing this new, un-cut recording. The ranks of prospective purchasers of music of this kind have increased so largely since the issue of the former version that the success of the new one should be propor- tionately greater than that of the old one. The other Victor album is Haydn’s “Surprise” Sym- phony played by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, and reviewed last month when it was released in the special Educational List No. 6. There are two other orchestral records, one by Mengelberg and the New York Philharmonic- Symphony, and the other by Bourdon and the Victor Symphony. The former plays a fine ver- sion of Meyerbeer’s Coronation March coupled with a less striking re-recording of Mendelssohn’s War March of the Priests. The acoustical per- formance of this familiar march was coupled with Dr. Mengelberg’s famous performance of the Entry of the Bojars; when are we to get a re-recording of this splendid work? Mr. Bourdon is in his very best form in a highly spirited per- formance of the overture to If I Were King. Setti and the Metropolitan Chorus and Orches- tra are represented on three disks: alone in chor- uses from Samson et Dalila and Romeo et Juliet, with Martinelli in the opening scene of Samson et Dalila, and with Pinza in arias from Forza del Destino and Norma. All of these are worthy exam- ples of the best work of these distinguished ar- tists. The three remaining Red Seal releases in- clude recordings of the Schubert Ave Maria and Bach Air for G string played by Elman, Pade- rewski’s performances of Schumann’s Prophet Bird and Stojowski’s By the Brookside, and Rich- ard Crook’s finest phonographic representation to date, a very brilliant record of the Meistersing- er Preislied and Lohengrin’s Narrative. Men- tion also goes to a vigorous band coupling by the Victor Military Band (American Patrol and Sem- per Fidelis March), organ solos by Archer Gib- son played on the organ of Charles M. Schwab’s residence in New York, and an uncommonly in- teresting Hungarian fantasy—Life in Hungary —played by the Hungarian Rhapsody Orchestra under Schaffer. The Columbia list is topped by Harriet Cohen’s recording of the first nine Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s great masterpiece—The Well-Tem- pered Clavier. This fine set has been very suc- cessful abroad, appealing not only to those who specialize in piano records, but to all classes of music lovers, and the album should be no less See last page for Table of Contents Copyright, 1929. by the Phonograph Publishing Company, Inc.