Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol. 6, No. 5 (1932-02)

83 February 1932, Vol. VI, No. 5 same conclusion.) “I made no attempt to orchestrate it at the time, but last year when the British Broadcasting Corporation re- quested me to write a large work for their military band, I decided to get my hand in —not having written for band for several years—by scoring the Fugue a la Gigue be- fore attacking my own work, which was to be the Prelude and Scherzo, Hammersmith, I am playing here in an orchestral version. My publisher, rightly fearing that opportu- nities for military band performances of the fugue would be small, insisted on issuing it in an orchestral arrangement, where of course it is likely to have many more per- formances. I still feel, however, that the band version is far richer and more effec- tive.” (There is such a scarcity of really fine material for military band that we would be lucky indeed to have the original band scor- ing of the fugue added to the brilliant re- corded repertories of such first-rate bands as that of the B. B. C. or the French Garde Re- publicaine. The Fugue a la Gigue would oc- cupy only one side of a ten-inch disc and is such invigorating music that it would be quite likely to emulate the great popularity of some recent Bach arrangement “best sell- ers”, often works far less well adapted to transcription than this fugue.) Record collectors familiar with Mr. Holst’s recording of his Planets (Columbia Master- works Set 83) may well envy me the oppor- tunity of hearing him rehearse this gargan- tuan work, as well as Haydn’s Symphony No. 3, and his own ballet music from the opera The Perfect Fool (from which Albert Coates recorded the Dance of the Spirits of Earth on the odd side of his Victor set of La Valse). Mr. Holst was obviously delighted with the skill of the Boston orchestra and stopped to praise nearly as often to correct. On strik- ing a snag in the symphony, he chided gent- ly, “You’ve given me every detail so far that I’ve longed to get out of other orchestras ... now let’s get this right too.” Again, after a long tutti, he remarked that he had heard several wrong notes but would not go back to correct them. “I’m leaving that entirely to you. I’ve learned this week how capable and dependable you are, and the only prob- lems I feel I need to work out with you are those of ensemble, not those of slight indi- vidual errors which I know you’ll have cor- rected by tomorrow.” The brilliant playing of M. Mager in an exacting trumpet passage in the Planets brought forth impulsive, warming praise: “Thank you, first trumpet, thank you very, very much!” His rebukes held no sting: “I’m afraid there was something wrong there. That passage is very important, and the rest of the orchestra is playing so beau- tifully ...” Again, he stressed a detail in the violas in the Haydn symphony: “I know that this is almost never heard, but do try to bring it out... it is so characteristic!” Papa Haydn himself would have warmed to the heartfelt way in which that was said. Manners reveal the man. The talk I had later with Mr. Holst strengthened and con- firmed the impression I had already obtained. Vehement, mercurially alive, he has no pa- tience with generalities and platitudes. Once he wagged an accusing finger at me. “Now you’re asking the usual reporter’s questions. I’m not going to give personal views on con- troversal topics. Who am I to lay down the law? There are too many opinions, too many tastes. The only place I state my mind, and don’t stand for any nonsense either, is in teaching. And that’s my business!” He was reluctant to speak about the phon- ograph and recorded music. “You should tell me about it, not I you. I really know very little about it, although of course I have always been interested in conducting for re- cording, especially since the new processes were invented, making it much less trying work than when I first recorded my Planets and Beni Mora suite.” I asked Mr. Holst how he had come to record these works in the early days of sym- phonic recording when they were revolution- ary material indeed for the phonograph. He seemed surprised to learn that he was per- haps the first of the younger school of con- temporary composers to conduct their own works for recording. He had no thought of path-breaking when he received and accept- ed an invitation to record. (I should interrupt to note that the invita- tion which came as a surprise to Mr. Holst was from Mr. Louis Sterling, then Chairman of the Board of the International Columbia Companies. Mr. Sterling is a man to whom recorded music owes much, not alone for the inauguration of the Columbia Masterworks Library, but for his pioneer efforts in obtain- ing a fair hearing for contemporary music on the phonograph. This unsolicited invita- tion to a composer unknown to him person- ally, but whom he admired as a leading figure of the British musical renaissance, is entire- ly typical of Mr. Sterling, and as every phon- ophile knows, set the example of having com- posers conduct their own works for record- ing—a policy which has given us our present rich repertory of composers’ versions: Holst,