Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 4, No. 3 (1929-12)

December, 1929 The Phonograph Monthly Review 99 The symphony is one of eight in C major, and one of several lacking a minuet. (The best known of those with- out minuet, the “Prague” Symphony, No. 38, D major, has just been recorded for the first time under Kleiber’s baton for H. M. V.) The work is simple and readily apprehended as far as form goes, but the tenderness and purity of the slow movement, with its daring experimentation in instru- mentation (it is scored for strings with tw^o independent viola parts—and bassoons alone), are not readily to be fully sounded. And the forthright, excelling, determindedly willed-to-live finale,—it is not often we hear Mozart in so boldly out-spoken a mood. Beecham is unable to elicit all the nicety and finesse of his performance with the best American orchestras, but the Royal Philharmonic plays well, if not superlatively so. The recording is bright and strong. Victor (International list) 9485 (D12, $1.50) Mozart. Cosi fan tutte—Overture, and Verdi: Ballo in Maschera—Over- ture, played by Dr. Leo Blech and the Berlin State Opera Orchestra. Both performances are god additions to Blech’s im- posing overture series, but the choice of coupling these particular works strikes one as rather odd. In Europe the Verdi work was issued with the overture to Traviata, and Cosi fan tutte with the overture to Figaro (the latter is issued in this country on the odd side of Blech’s Tann- hauser Overture—International list). The Masked Ball overture is not especially attractive as an isolated concert piece, but Blech makes the most of it that may be made. The buoyancy and grace of the Mozart overture are well caught in the performance. Columbia 50180-1-D (2 D12s, $1.25 each) Glazounow: Stenka Razin, played by Desire Defauw and the Orchestra of the Brussels Royal Conservatory. Mr. Defauw is the dark horse of recording conductors. I look forward to more disks from him so that I can get a larger view of his powers than afforded by the few al- ready heard—Eulenspiegel, some Bach choruses, and this symphonic poem. Glazounow works over the indefatigable Volga Boatmen’s Song and an old Russian legend into a “neat but not gaudy” orchestral poem. Defauw plays it with all the darkly passionate intensity observed in its previous works, and while it is hardly the music to give full vent to his demonaic forcefulness, the recorded perfor- mance is remarkably fine. The Brussels Conservatory Orchestra sounds worthy to rank abong the best in Europe and the recording is first rate in every respect. Victor 35986-7 (2 D12s, $1.25 each) Werner Janssen: New Year’s Eve in New York (3 parts), and Nathaniel Shilkret: Skyward (1 part), played by Nathaniel Shilkret and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Victor’s efforts on the behalf of contemporary American music in what is conveniently called “concert jazz’’ idiom are highly commendable even when the results are not of supreme musical significance. Werner Janssen (born in New York, June 1, 1899) has written the score for a num- ber of musical comedies including Morosco’s Love Dreams, Ziegfeld’s Follies 1925-26, Boom Boom, etc. He does his own orchestrations. New Year’s Eve in New York, a “symphonic poem for full orchestra and jazz band,” was begun in January 1927 and given its first performance by Howard Hanson with the Rochester Philharmonic on May 9, 1929. It has been played by other leading orchestras, most recently in the Cleveland Orchestra’s first concert of this season. The composer terms it an “experiment—it is' a symphonic poem of the programatic order and Lisztian brand, but seasoned in the American manner.” Following a quiet introduction the music gradually grows in excitement and hilarity. The clock strikes twelve, as it has done in symphonic poems before this, but this time the accompani- ment is a realistic (indeed painfully so) representation of the din of horns, jvhistles, and all kinds of noise making to which the new year in the metropolis is ushered in. The jazz band strikes up and the rest of the piece is given up to unrestrained merrymaking. The score calls for siren, klaxon, wood-block, tenor banjo, alto and tenor saxophones in addition to the usual large orchestra, but as the annota- tor of the Cleveland programs gravely remarks, “the com- poser has refrained from the firing of pistols or the break- ing of chairs, which were some of the orchestral effects Scores of Catalogs in Twenty Languages have been combed to make up our lists of classical and other imported records — many rare, to be had of no other American dealer. We feature the pick of the following brands: WITTON PATHE ARTIPHON (needle-cut) BELTON A DECCA ORCHESTROLA BROADCAST TWELVE EDISON-BELL ELECTRON METROPOLE *PICADILLY "'DOMINION and others Write For Our Special Lists Needles Pick-Ups INTERNATIONAL RECORDS AGENCY Box Eleven :: Bellerose, L. I., N. Y. * (In transit) that enlivened the quadrilles of the great Phillipe Musard in the 1840’s.” Mr. Janssen has at least the merit of un- pretentiousness. His music is best when he lets himself go and writes unmistakably for “dancing with the arms and legs;” it is weakest when he endeavors to introduce contrasting episodes and to pour his “complex and cheer- ful” jazz into the old bottles of the conventional symphonic poem. On the whole he succeeds better than a man like Grofe, but not as well as Gershwin. Except for its hesi- tant or threadbare moments his music is amusing, and at its best genuinely gay. The orchestration is bright, occasional- ly highly ingenious. The performance is of marked bril- liancy^ and effectiveness. The title of Mr. Shilkret’s piece and his flair for what is known as “novelty” orchestration prepare one for highly varied instrumental effects, not excluding the actual drone and whir of aeroplane motors. The introduction of strains of the Marseillaise are somewhat baffling until one learns that' the piece “describes the impression of the transatlantic flight of Commander Byrd in the “America.” The com- poser’s realism stops just short of reproducing the splash with which the “America” landed off the French coast. Again the performance is exceedingly forceful and the re- cording brilliant in the extreme. Victor 7142 (D12, $2.00) Bach Christmas Oratorio—Pas- toral Prelude (“Shepherds’ Christmas Music”), played by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The Victor Company does not stop with the notable Stokow r ski-Bach album issued this month, but throws in an extra disk for good measure and special seasonal appro- priateness. The piece is labelled “Shepherd’s Christmas Music”; more strictly it is the Pastoral Prelude to Part II of the Weihnachts-Oratorium—a “series of lyrical medi- tations” held together by recitatives that tell the story of Christmas as it is related in the New Testament by Matthew and Luke (Lawrence Gilman). Schweitzer, one of the noted Bach authorities, has pointed out that this “Sinfonia” (as Bach himself termed the piece) is not exactly the ten- dor pastorale one might expect. The music is performed by two contrasted groups—“the oboes having a theme of their own, and being quite independent of the strings, whether they alternate or join with them. One can have no doubt as to the meaning of the Sjnfonia: it represents the angels (strings) and the shepherds (oboes), making music together.” But whatever Bach had in mind, his mind was truly “set welling with lovely tunes of a folk-song order.” The pre- ponderence of reed tone lends the music singular color and character. Stokowski’s performance is as warmly poetical as one could desire; the record reveals another facet of his —as well as Bach’s—genius from those which are most familiar to the musical public. A most happy choice for Christmastime release. Victor 7143 (2 D12s, $2.00 each) Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe —Suite No. 2 (Daybreak—Pantomime—General Dance),