The record changer (Mar-Dec 1947)

ARRAGO 5 By EDWARD HILL spite divers world uncertainties and live-allaying restrictions, the launch■i new and expensively touted enter-t is greater now than during any ;dus era of prosperity, paper or iwise. Canny tycoons on both sides e water are splurging obese budgets Tact war-found dollars. For "love , soap" substitute "Love Those Cus ,|e London Gramophone Corporation lat this writing, established a dozen »ore sales outlets in leading American v, and folks with $2500 to lay out may 'oer themselves among "the fortunate ; equipped to receive the Muse from 'ingles simultaneously. The riff-raff ' must content itself with but three ':ers at a paltry $1495 (for which -I'd want the entire United Nations Tal Assembly to stand by for interon commentaries). The instrument is £ one, to be sure, but no more satisfy for use in the average comfortable If than some domestic affairs costing <nth the price. Personally, I'll go * awhile longer with mv RCA-Victor il R-99. This 1936 vintage instru, which should have sold in the hun=; of thousands and didn't, may one ^be revived with whatever technical ovements are desired to bring it upte from the sales-feature angle. I am 'Pg., jr. Philip Roden of Jersey City sends that his article, "John McCormack His Records" is appearing serially in , Gramophone. Of great interest and p is this gentleman's discography on f nor and one hopes that the event ;in the future, be made available in form. * a previous article, I mentioned some lists who recorded under names other * those with which they are principally tified. Now I must apologize to my ers for having omitted to request ional information on this phase of ore. The oversight was unintentional. :i matter of self-revelation: in my "•entered literary duncehood, a most jjcular favorite of mine own was •ed. — Evan Williams (nee Harry I <i Williams) sang for the black labels Tilliam T. Evans. number of years ago Victor released lir of albums entitled, "Stars of the "opolitan," consisting of selected opc highlights extracted from other already extant and of re-couplings of f previously contained in the gen-catalogue listings. Comes now Volume «e, called, "A Treasury of Grand a." (from the book of the same name) h may be reviewed in one word: rKRUPT! Unless, of course, you bethat Don Ottavio's celebrated // mio "O deserves treatment similar to that Irded to "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top." (It may be that the sometime first tenor of The Revelers quartet eventually will absorb or/and accept the classical tradition but it would seem rather late in the day for Mr. Melton to be considering singing as a career). Zinka Milanov's Aid a moment is about tolerable, as is Mr. Warren's Prologo. Here, if you lack them, are the soldier's chorus from Faust and the Prelude to Lohengrin in the long-available Toscanini version. Gladys Swarthout gives the usual synthetic lusciousness which (de) characterizes almost all of her work to the hackneyed Habanera, and, joining competent Licia Albanese in the first act duet from La Traviata, we encounter Jan Peerce. Need I go further? Decca has brought out an item which belongs in every civilized home in the English-speaking world, so, if there be any among you who pretend to an appreciation of the exquisite or/and have a sense of the sublime or/and ridiculous, drop everything, phone your dealer and have him hold a copy of No. 40012 until you get to his shop. Whereupon you'll have the best, most thoroughly enjoyable single disc that's come along since V-J Day. For on this record you may hear Bing Crosby, Master Entertainer Number One, intone the Lullaby from Jocelyn over an obbligato by one J. Heifetz, who also has some fun with that old parlor junk, "Where My Caravan Has Rested" on the other side. Both ditties receive exactly what's been coming to them for a long, long time. This record comes in partial fulfillment of a dream which I've long entertained: that Crosby one day would turn teacher to certain pretentious punjabs in lyric life. I hope that the lad may be prevailed upon to investigate the semi-serious field ever more extensively in the future, to the end that there may issue forth from him such things as "Caro mio ben" and Sidney Homer's "A Banjo Song," both of which are naturals for him. Then, too, there is the thought that, whatever Crosby does is almost sure to be aped by Sinatra ; whereupon the latter's devotees possibly may, like lemmings, make for the open sea. And wouldn't that be just too damned bad! Of the recordings taken at Melba's Farewell Performance at Covent Garden, the one most frequently referred to is the touching Valedictorian speech delivered by the diva at the evening's close. There are, in our midst, those whose bent of pseudo-emotion is given the necessary jolt of erotic ecstasy at the point where Mme. Melba broke into a choking sob and could not continue. Presumably these morons are champing at the bit to get hold of copies of discs reported to have been made at the death-bed of Emma Calve. Excuse me whilst I vomit. . . . Bringing to the music library what The Limited Editions Club long since has been making available to the booksy, we have with us the Concert Hall Society, an institution dedicated to the distribution, via vinylite <\\^c^, of worthy music hitherto eschewed by the "major" companies. For $105 (which includes tax) one may subscribe to a year's output, comprising eleven albums of magnificently recorded and consummately performed editions of deserving works by eminent composers of several periods in musical history. Included in the first season's repertoire we find Prokofieff's second string quartet, a two-piano sonata of Stravinsky, Beethoven's "realization" of some Scotch songs — and relatively unfamiliar addresses by Aaron Copland, Henry Purcell, Brahms, Debussy, William Schumann, Samuel Barber, Paul Bowles and Bela Bartok. A catholic gallery, to be sure, and an enterprise calling for investigation by serious seekers after the comprehensive. None of the recording artists is BoxOffice; each performs the assigned task in a manner calling for the superlative encomium. Editions are limited to two thousand copies, for reasons cleverly set forth in the society's prospectus. Concert Hall Society is at '250 West 57th Street, New YoTk City. The brochure is worthy of your interest. And for those who, for one reason or another, are not moved to subscribe to limited editions, there are recordings for general distribution, the three initially released albums of which are now available, and which are reviewed below. BEETHOVEN: Irish Songs, for tenor and piano trio. Soloist : Richard Dyer-Bennet. These are folk-poems done into iambic by Burns, Scott, Smyth and others and commissioned for chamber musical settings by the Scotch philanthropist, George Thomson. Beethoven's work consists mainly in having provided pretty preludes, interludes and postludes, together with the simple harmonization necessary to the fulfilment of concert requirements. Mr. DyerBennet sings the songs very well, lavishing no opulence on music which calls for none. PROKOFIEFF: Music for Children. Soloist: Ray Lev, pianist. Twelve brief bagatelles of about the same consequence as Debussy's "Children's Corner Suite" and no less worthwhile. One might wish that a reprint of the composer's delightful article of reminiscence, which appeared in last October's Atlantic, had been included as an endpaper of the album. GRIEG: Sonata in A minor for Violoncello and Piano. Performers: Raya Garbousova and Artur Balsam. A gentle work by a gentle man who enriched music without ever having given rise to controversial bombast. One doesn't talk much about Grieg, as a rule. To listen to him is quite sufficient. There are not many composers of whom such can be said. ■ — o — Packaged in gilt, pressed on vinylite and priced promiscuously are reissues of some historically interesting items sung by Caruso, Tetrazzini, Journet, Alda and Ancona — made available by Victor. Best in the series is Frances Alda's Otello coupling. Least worthy of perpetuation is the work of Louisa Tetrazzini, a first-rate secondrate coloratura who, having had a facility in chromatic scales, is sometimes presumed (thru the mists of antiquity) to have been a great singer. (Continued on Page 49) 47