Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1930-11)

48 The Phonograph Monthly Review Correspondence The Editor does not accept any responsibility jor opinions expressed by correspondents. No notice will be taken of un- signed letters, but only initials or a pseudonym will be printed if the writer so desires. Contributions of general interest to our readers are welcomed. They should be brief and writ- ten on one side of the paper only. Address all letters, to CORRESPONDENCE COLUMN, Editorial Department, The Phonograph Monthly Review, 5 Boylston Street, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. Three Favorite Piano Records Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: After a long but fruitless search I have given up hope of ever finding a certain piece of piano music, although I had been repeatedly assured by more than one phonograph en- thusiast that such records existed, namely: Gounod’s Ave Maria as a piano solo. To settle the question of the existence of such records for once and all I feel that there could not possibly be a better place than the editorial rooms of our magazine, the P. M. R., devoted exclusively to canned music as well as to my fellow readers of it. I have noticed that many of my fellow readers had often gone to considerable trouble to furnish some puzzled, music loving soul with valu- able information about some particular matter in the phono- graph field of music, a fact, which raises my hopes rather high that my own inquiry, trivial as it may seem to high- brow music lovers, will be answered quite authoritatively by either a member of the editorial staff or a member of the body of readers. . And while I am in the midst of asking for information I should also like to have you, dear editor and you, dear reader, a few records of piano solos which might appeal to my par- ticular taste recommended. I am just beginning to get in- terested in records of piano m,usic having bought my first phonograph only three months ago. For a radio I do not care very much, for reasons which most phonograph lovers will only too readily understand. Now, and I suppose that this has happened to most phono- graph lovers, I have bought records of music by some of the so-called greatest composers and made by artists of inter- national reputation but find, that for many of them I do not care in the least after having heard them once and they are as a rule two dollars or even more. So far I have discovered only three piano records which give me supreme satisfaction whenever I play them and I have played them at least twenty times since I have them. The records in question are: Kamennoi-Ostrow, (Rubinstein, Op. 10, No. 22), played by Harold Bauer. Nocturne, (Grieg, Op. 54 No. 4), played by Olga Samaroff. Nocturne, (Chopin, Op. 15, No. 2), in F Sharp Major, played by Paderewski. It seems to me that the three records mentioned above will suffice to enable you or some kind reader to recommend some other piano music which might appeal to my somewhat simple and primitive taste as some of my good friends term it (friends are frank that way, you know), but I will add that I heard over the radio in' one of the local stores not very long ago a piano solo of the already mentioned Gounod’s “Ave Maria ”, just a piano solo, no fiddling or singing with it and it made such an instantaneous hit with me, that it sent me day after day for a whole week to, what one of my fellow readers, Mr. Wallace E. Dancy in the August number, called a record broker, with the disappointing result mentioned at the beginning of this letter. Braga’s “Serenata de los Angeles” which, of course, is primarily a violin solo, and Haydn’s “Minuet in C Major” I enjoy also very much. These are the only leads I can give you, dear editor and dear reader but I think,. that I can safely bank on your knowledge of human nature to manage to get my number right. Yes, I did read the list of the “Ten Best Foreign Records” by one of your staff reviewers, which he would rather have known as the “Ten unusually interesting foreign Releases” but I suspect, that it might be some of that highbrow music which for some reason or other I seem to be unable to prop- erly appreciate and I haven’t got the guts to have them played for me and then refuse to buy possibly any of them, if they do not appeal to me. Yet, i have a sneaky feeling that among those very ten might be a few which I might cherish for ever after. I wonder—. New York City August Hauber From the Dean of P.M.R. Subscribers Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: On checking up my accounts for September I find that through some lapse of memory I sent you two checks of four dollars each, one dated Sept. 9th, one dated September 15th, in payment of subscription to Phonograph Monthly Review for the coming year. ... I might say that being as I am, in my ninetieth year, I am not making any subscriptions to papers or magazines beyond the current year. Please look the matter up and let me hear from you. As you will note I am one of your original subscribers, be- ginning with the October, 1926 issue, and have had in reading your magazine one of the greatest pleasures of my old age (next to playing the records themselves). Beaver, Penna. H. W. W. The Good Samaritan Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: No one who lives in the large Eastern cities can realize what the absence of the best in music means to the dweller in the middle and south-west. Concerts and recitals are rare and almost invariable carelessly played. To those hungry for Wagner and Brahms and Bach the radio offers poor consola- tion. The phonograph is our good Samaritan; it means every- thing to us. Without it we would be entirely out of touch with the musical world (I have played the “Bolero” a score of times before it has been performed anywhere in this part of the country). The “Lohengrin” and “Carmen” sets that Bruns- wick puts out give me opera at home, inexpensively, comfort- ably, and free of the tiresome stretches of padding one has to endure in the opera house. And Gilbert and Sullivan. . . . I order the D’Oyly-Carte albums the moment they are an- nounced. Your magazine helps keep up the good work. It is invaluable to me in making mail order purchases. The new cover reflects the entire magazine’s new tone: alert,.up-to-date, eager to illumine every conceivable aspect of recorded music. Congratulations on your fifth birthday, and many happy re- turns! Wichita Falls, Texas J.J.F. Ingenuous Intricacies Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: Lest some reader should wonder what I meant by referring to Mozart’s “ingenious intricacies,” in my review of the Lener Juartet in the October issue of the Phonograph Mon- thly Review,— may I correct the linotypist’s error, and re- store the original letter U instead of the intrusive I, in the word “ingenuous”. Certainly, ingenuousness, not ingenuity is characteristic of Mozart’s intricacies. Jamaica Plain, Mass. Nicolas Slonimsky A Field for Cultivation Editor, Phonograph Monthly Review: Every so often we hear from the eminentissimos that the dear public’s musical education is progressing rapidly, thanks to broadcast and recorded music; that soon the popular clamor for Bach, Beethoven and Brahms will drown out the saxophone maestros; and that the professional Hanslicks are headed for the discard. On what these recurring enthusiastic pronouncements are based is not readily discernible. At least from the observations of this ancient phonophilistine, the signs are not encouraging. Some time ago I met a principal of a high school and was invited to view an expensive phonograph which the school had purchased. The good man who in his heyday must have been no mean musician himself, having at his first and only public recital, when memory failed him, faked the entire Chopin B minor Sonata and gotten away with it, rather sur- prised me by asking that I select some suitable records for