Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 4, No. 8 (1930-05)

May, 1930 The Phonograph Monthly Review 255 the best European concert orchestras. Dajos Bela’s striking treatment of the Valse Triste should find particular favor. Despite an exceptionally strong Master- works list, it was an unheralded black label disk among the Columbia releases that caught my at- tention most strongly: the first recording of mu- sic written in quarter, eighth, and sixteenth tones. Carillo’s Preludio a Cristobal Colon, played by the singularly named Thirteenth Sound Ensemble of Havana, is not easy music to listen to. It is not complex architecturally, but tonally it is at once decidedly nerve-racking and irresistibly fas- cinating. Whether this is to be the music of the future remains a very open question, but no one who follows technical developments sincerely can afford to overlook this very curious example of the attempt made to enlargen the musical vocabu- lary. More material on the quarter-tone idiom and the “Thirteen Sound Ensemble” will appear in the next issue. The Masterworks release includes a well-varied group of orchestral recordings, plus a lengthy Grieg ballade for piano played by Godowsky. The eminent earnestness and care of the ballade and Scheherazade performances are eclipsed in in- terest—for me— by Defauw’s unsoftened, ener- getic reading of the Bach suite in D, an exhilarat- ing version of a work that has been missing from the electrical repertory far too long. The desira- bility of the set is further heightened by the in- clusion of Sr. Arbos’ warm performance of a gracious Corelli Sarabande on the last record side. Sir Hamilton Harty and his alert orchestra are in characteristically vivacious form in Rim- sky’s Flight of the Bumble Bee and the prelude to Khowantchina, abetted by the brightest im- aginable recording; while in the remaining work, Gabriel Pierne is the first to give Dr. Blech any serious rivalry in Berlioz’ Roman Carnival over- ture. Columbia is lucky in having access to the series of French Odeon recordings from which this is taken. I hope that it will take further ad- vantage of its opportunity to make these works easily available to American buyers. Among the black label Columbias one ten-inch vocal disk struck me as exceptionally attractive: Alexander Kisselburgh’s singing a traditional British air and a florid aria by Arnold in the same direct and gracious manner that made his earlier record of When Dull Care and Some Rival Has Stolen My Love Away so delightful an ex- ample of the way such unspoiled and tender mu- sic should be sung. Victor gives us the anticipated recording of Prokofieff’s “Classical” symphony in Koussezitz- ky’s justly celebrated performance. The con- siderable degree of amplification in the recording itself gives the music an intensity not usually present in concert performances, but the resulting keying up in brilliance does the work no harm and no doubt will give it a wider range of appeal. Prokofieff is often regarded either as a musical barbarian or a somewhat affected apostle of an impotent neo-classicism. The “Classical” sym- phony effectually spikes both errors. The Victor Company is to be congratulated in the warmest terms for giving us so effective a recording of this rarely vivacious and heart-warming music, a work to be heard with delightful profit by every type of music lover. No less pleasurable is the unexpected release of an album devoted to excerpts from the reper- tory of Yvonne Printemps and Sacha Guitry. No one who has heard the Guitrys in the theatre will pass by their records, and conversely, no one who makes their acquaintance for the first time through the disks will ever miss an opportunity of hearing them in person. In the Act II finale of “Mariette>” and even more strikingly in Mile. Printemps’ song, J’ai deux amants, we have as veracious and stimulating an expression of per- sonality through the shellac disks as can be found in the entire recorded repertory. J’ai deux amants, with its captivating mingling of laugh- ter and song, is the most sheerly charming rec- ord I have yet to hear. An ignorance of French is no excuse for not hearing it and no handicap to its enjoyment. After the buoyant humor of Prokofieff and the Guitrys the natural history sportiveness of Saint-Saens in the Carnival of the Animals is decidedly zestless despite Dr. Stokowski’s alert, sure performance. Mr. Shilkret continues his series of albums devoted to American composers of light music with a Rudolph Friml set, of which the high points are selections from “Rose- Marie” and “The Vagabond King,” and deft sal- on piano solos by the composer. The rest of the month’s issue is as varied and extensive as ever, but I was particularly interested in the Moisei- vitch piano disk of pieces by Prokofieff and Medt- ner that already has been the object of consider- able discussion in our correspondence columns. The Victor Company, it is a pleasure to note, corrects the odd labeling error in the original H. M. V. pressing. The most important releases in the “foreign” supplements of the various companies are Rich- ard Tauber’s rousing performance of Die beiden Grenadiere and Drei Wanderer, and earnest Beethoven choral performances by the Berlin Lehrer-Gesangverein (Odeon) ; the first electric- al recordings of China’s greatest actor—Mei Lan- Fang, and readings from Racine and Moliere by M. Stephan (Victor) ; re-issues of attractive waltz disks by the Waltz King’s son, Edith Lor- and, and Dajos Bela (Columbia) ; and a long list of Mexican, Central American, and South Ameri- can songs and dances (Brunswick). Abroad the principal new releases are Eng- lish Columbia’s Chopin concerto in F minor played by Marguerite Long and the Paris Con- servatory orchestra, an Elijah album, original piano pieces by Cyril Scott, madrigals by Wil- bye and Morley sung by the St. George Singers; a new version of the Erocia conducted by Max von Schillings for Parlophone; and from H. M. V., a new recording of Beethoven’s conducted by Pablo Casals with his own Barcelona orchestra, a re-recorded Iolanthe album, Vaughn Williams’