Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1930-12)

100 The Phonograph Monthly Review De Falla: La Vida Breve—Spanish Dance, and Saint- Saens: Le Deluge — Prelude, played by Jacques Thibaud, with piano accompaniments by Georges de Lausnay. Vic- tor (November special list) 7272 (D12, $2.00). The De Falla Spanish Dance is quite the rage these days, for fiddlers as well as orchestras. To my mind the piece sounds pretty thin for violin once it has been heard in a spirited orchestral performance, yet the music’s irresistibly buoyant surge would be impossible to conceal if it were played on an accordion. Thibaud stands up to it rather less sturdily than Max Rosen—whose recording preceded this by a month or two—but he points the phrases brightly, and his violin tone is thin and resilient without wiriness. The thrice- familiar Saint-Saens prelude on the other side sounds very fatuous and invertebrate in contrast with the vivid blood coursing through the veins of the Spaniard’s music, but Thibaud does it with the proper unctuousness to very polite piano accompaniment by de Lausnay. Kreisler: Liebesfreud, and Drigo-Auer: Liebesleid, played by Efrem Zimbalist, with piano accompaniments. Columbia 50257-D (D|12, $1.25). Zimbalist takes the familiar Kreisler-Viennese air with great decisiveness: a crisp, vibrant performance that con- trasts effectively with the quiet, yet firm playing in the plain- tive Drigo melody. Both performances avoid much of the suavity that becomes so cloying in the average versions of this type of encore piece. Guitar Torroba : Preludio and Fandanguillo, played by Andres Segovia. Victor 1487 (DIO, $1.50). Torroba is the composer of the Sonatina in A released among Segovia’s first recordings. I can find no information on him in either Grove’s or Pratt’s dictionaries. Presumably he is one of the contemporary Spanish composers who have been led by Segovia’s sublimation of the guitar to compose directly for that instrument His pieces are well turned and fit the guitar idiom perfectly. The musical ideas are not astoundingly original, but they are genial in the prelude, and fantastic in the fandanguillo. The dance has some of the rhapsodic bravura of Turina’s fandanguillo, but nothing comparable with the latter piece’s tonal sorcery. As in the previous Segovia discs one is amazed afresh at the extra- ordinary command of tone colors and individualization of the melodic lines, all reproduced perfectly, for the guitar takes to recording with unusual felicity. Band Starke: With Sword and Lance, and Latann: Light of Foot, played by the Grenadier Guards, conducted by Captain George Miller. Columbia 2316-D (D10, 75c). Two vigorous marches played with crisp forcefulness and good festive spirit and crisp rhythms. Lindemann: Unter dem Grillenbanner, and Holzmann: Feuert Los!, played by the Grosses Militaerorchester, con- ducted by Prof. Hackenberger. Victor (German list) V- 6089 (D10, 75c). The broadly flowing melodic lines of these performances contrast vividly with the sharper outlines of the British Band’s playing, yet the marches here possess an even stronger swing, and aided by strong sonorous recording, they are no less effective in their own way. Theremin Exercises Two exercise and accompaniment records for use in the study of the Victor Theremin (discussed in the Theremin article in the October 1930 issue of the P. M. R.) are now re- leased for public sale. The discs are green label, ten-inch, and are listed at $2.00 each. Disc TH-1 contains spoken in- structions and scale, arpeggio, broken scale, and pitch con- trol exercises on the piano, to be imitated on the Theremin. The B side comprises piano accompaniments for playing My Old Kentucky Home and In the Gloaming on the Theremin. Disc Th-2 contains similar accompaniments for Bartlett’s A Dream, Staub’s Sous Bois, Rubinstein’s Melody in F, the Largo from the “New World” symphony, and Stults’ Sweet- est Story Ever Told. The accompaniments are simply and yet flexibly played and are effectively adapted to their pur- pose. In addition they might also be used to good advan- tage in accompanying any solo string or wind instrument performances of the same piece. O. C. O. POPULAR Concert Jack Hylton’s orchestra, one of the top-notch British bands, is far too seldom represented on American lists. This month, however, Victor puts out a Hylton coupling of well-turned concert performances of Body and Soul and with a Song in My Heart (36027), the latter one of the most graceful tunes of last season. Both pieces are treated smoothly and sonor- ously in orthodox concert jazz style. I should like to hear Hylton in some of his more original work for his orchestra is obviously a tremendously capable one with a good ear for tonal niceties. Of quite another style is the Blgckstone Trio’s old fashioned and highly sentimentalized performances of Love’s Old Sweet Song and Silver Threads (Brunswick 4933). Conventional Hawaiian playing is available on Okeh 4921— Honolulu March and Mahina by Palakiko and Paaluhi. Vocal Ensembles First place goes to the Ritz Quartet (Brunswick 4905) for its vigorous, clean-cut performances of two grand old songs— Away to Rio and Old Man Noah, both written and sung with joyous gusto. In contrasting style, but scarecly less merit- ously recorded, are the fine examples of modern quartet work from the Revelers (Victor 22547)—Sing Something Simple (very neatly turned) and Happy Feet (in lustier and more buoyant fashion). The remaining discs are rather overshad- owed by these two, but the Kanawha Singers get a good rhyth- mic swing into Climb Up and Ella Lee (Brunswick 459), with praise for the spirited banjo and guitar accompaniments. Less interesting are the Four Stars in crooned Hawaiian versions of As Long as You Love Me and My Yesterdays (Okeh 41457), and the very affected Reign Massa Jesus and Ding Dong Bells by the modestly termed World Famous Williams Jubilee Singers (Brunswick 7174). Stars Chevalier invariably projects so sharply individualized a personality through his songs that one delights in his discs no matter what he sings. It’s a Great Life (Victor 22542) is one of his most spirited songs in English, but the more lyrical My Ideal is less becoming to his unique talents. Libby Hol- man’s stage success should focus recognition on the fine discs she has been turning out for Brunswick. The recorded versions of her hits from “Three’s a Crowd” (Brunswick 4910), done in more tragic and broader fashion than the Etting and Morgan performances reviewed last month, will command many admirers. From Okeh I like best Bob Blue’s jaunty My Baby Just Cares for me (41464), sung with no less vivacity than by Eddie Cantor in “Whoopee.” Ruth Etting is represented this month with two Columbia doubles: Laughing at Life and I’m Yours (2318-D), and I’ll be Blue and Just a Little Closer (2307-D), all except possibly the last song excellent examples of her clean enunciation and the nice swinging vivacity with which she infuses the ortho- dox “torch” style. Miscellaneous Songsters Jeannette MacDonald leads for Victor with the big hits from her latest film, Lubitsch’s “Monte Carlo,” Beyond the Blue Horizon and Always in All Ways (22514). The former song, with its pulsating accompaniment, is one of the best of the month’s musical offerings, and Miss MacDonald in spite of the somewhat excessive whiteness of her voice does it brilliantly. The coupling is more frankly lyrical but not as well suited to the singer’s pre-eminently dramatic style. Aileen Stanley seems anxious to make up for her long re- cording silence and appears again this month with Wasn’t It Nice? and I’ll Be Just Thinking of You (22524), one with an emphatic touch of bravado and the other of marked pathos. Johnny Marvin does a very deft and well-polished perform- ance of Bye Bye Blues, coupled with a less distinctive I Still Get a Thrill (22534); Gene Austin offers his customary bland wares in This Side of Paradise and If I Could Be With You (22527); and Jimmie Rodgers, the yodelling brakeman, is promoted to the regular list with a very blue and highly yodellized narrative of High Powered Mama, and the sec- ond installment of his popular ballad, In the Jail-House Now (22523).