Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 5, No. 6 (1931-03)

180 The Phonograph Monthly Review Alexander Brailowsky remedy. For virtuosity there is the Strauss-Godowsky Fled- ermaus Waltz; just issued is the only recorded version of Chopin’s B Flat Minor Scherzo. For H. M. V. he has made the Brahms-Handel Variations, and some outstanding single records—notably Chopin’s B Flat Polonaise and his celebrated version of Ravel’s Fountain . Brailowsky’s well recorded Poly dor records are now being repressed by Brunswick. His brilliant recordings of Chopin, all of whose work he has played in concert, combine a grace with their power that should make them well liked. Very fine also is a Scriabine and De Falla coupling. More force than fluency, more bril- liance than subtlety, are found in the Chopin E Minor and Liszt E flat Concertos, which are good examples, nevertheless, of his dramatic style. The Liszt Concerto, as yet unrecorded by any of the great Liszt pupils, is also to be had by Mischa Levitzki (H. M. V.). An intellectual rather than an emotional artist, Levitzki has a remarkably clean, brilliant technique, but rarely much poetic imagination. His version of Liszt’s Sixth Rhapsody (Victor) is noted for playing and recording. Rather introspective in style, the young Pole, Miecyzlaw Munz, has made a record for Homochord. Of all the pianists to be introduced to the American pub- lic during the last decade, the one to win the most unquali- fied esteem among musicians was Walter Gieseking. Foremost in the espousal of the moderns of a group of pianists which includes E. Robert Schmitz, Richard Buhlig, Eduard Erd- mann, etc., he is also unequalled as an interpreter of De- bussy, one of the very great Bach and Mozart players, ex- quisite in Scarlatti and the Brahms Intermezzi. His one solo disk in the Brunswick catalogue should be owned by every piano record collector—Debussy’s Le plus que lente, and Niemann’s Silner Cascade —a remarkable example of the most delicate tone color successfully recorded. His promised participation in one of the Brandenburg Concertos failed to appear. Fortunately, Homochord have used his services more extensively in Ravel’s Fountain, Debussy’s Reflections and Arabesques, Schubert’s B Flat Impromptu, pieces by Grieg and Richard Strauss. More moderns, Bach, or a Mo- zart concerto would be unsurpassable of their kind. Altogether of a different mold is Vladimir Horowitz (Vic- tor) who, with his amazing speed, brilliance, and opulence of tone, has sent even a Boston audience into a frenzy, and has succeeded generally in electrifying his hearers everywhere. At present his technique is inclined to eclipse his other great powers, and musically, he has impressed less than Gieseking or Iturbi; in this respect, however, he is not yet in final form. His record of the Paganini-Liszt Etude in E Flat is an astonishing piece of work, from standpoints of both recording and playing. His Danse Exotique, Carmen Variations, and Debussy’s Serenade to the Doll, are perhaps preferable to his other records. Horowitz’ youth places him not far from the class of prodigies, the most uncertain of musical quantities. Another of the tribe who seems to be establishing himself as an exception is Shura Cherkassky, who has just been re-record- ed (Victor) in his Prelude Pathetique and other pieces. Max von Sauer (from a caricature by Dr. Ricardo M. Aleman) Through choice, personality, or any of the hundred-and-one chances that confront the concert pianist in the making of his career, a number of prominent European artists have either not come to America at all or, having come, have failed to show some of the characteristics that seem necessary to excite the American concert-going public. Certainly, the visits some years back of Schnabel, Risler, and Lamond did not provoke the recognition that their ability might have warranted. An artist who, I believe, visited America a de- cade or more ago, is Michael von Zadora. Although some of his records (Polydor) are of a rather light nature, he has made a very fine Bach disk. The more recent visit of Leonid Kreutzer was a greater success, without becoming more than one of the minor sensations of a season. His recordings (Polydor) of Chopin contain the more usual fare, but he has also done the Mozart Sonata in A (Theme and Variations). Lucie Cafferet (Polydor) has toured more widely in this country where her playing has been praised more for bril- liance than for depth. Some of her recordings from Mozart, Couperin, and Smetana, are from the unhackneyed reper- toire. More esteemed among gramophiles have been some artists whose introduction to this continent is solely by repute and through their records. Josef Pembaur, of the old school, has given a musicianly performance of Liszt’s A Major Concerto (Odeon) that has met with wide favor. Some importance attaches to the recent recording of the Spaniard, Ricordo Vines (French Columbia) in pieces of Albeniz and Debussy; now in his fifties, he was the first established pianist to cham- pion these two composers and others of the modern French and Spanish schools. William Kempff is quite widely known in Germany for his Beethoven, and, more recently, his Brahms. Also he enjoys the distinction of being the only pianist today who improvises, on purpose at least, in public. As an artist, he presents many similarities to Bachaus, and his series of sonatas for Brunswick-Polydor (“Pathetique,” Op. 26 in A Flat; “Moonlight“Waldstein;” “Appassionato “Les Adieux;” and Op. 90, in E Minor) are sound, artistic versions of those works. Walter Rehberg, whose father, Wil-