The record changer (Feb-Dec 1948)

Plum Pudding II h? Edward Hill Christmas is very early this year and Santa Claus is very young. Dr. Robert Manson Myers is 27 and has published a remarkble volume on HANDEL'S MESSIAH: [ Touchstone of Taste (Macmillan, $5.00). Properly to review Dr. Myers' book would equire frequent and lengthy quotations, far eyond this journal's space allotment to the lassical department for, besides being a bioraphical history of Handel's most widely nown and loved ("at once the best known nd least known work in the field of ora)no." — Myers, p. 285) composition, it also resents a remarkably scholarly panorama of ie social mores of England from Handel's me to the near-present. Among other fasinating revelations, the good doctor's rearches have brought together the opinions, ro and con Handel, of a multitude of celerated British intellects from Johnson and ;urney through Walpole to Butler, Shaw . . and beyond. If MESSIAH be the focal matter of the le-is, let it not be supposed that the author as neglected to provide illuminating pararaphs concerning Handel's ventures in opera nd elsewhere. There is ample treasure beveen these covers and the book seems estined, in this writer's view, to have a long nd valuable career. The well-chosen and eautifully reproduced illustrations are themelves worthy of study and productive of ich reward. A previous Macmillan publication of quite ifferent nature (Gone With the Wind) used ) be advertised as "a book to read, to reead, to love and to live with forever." Maybe d. But from where I sit it seems as though lat sort of carrying on should be saved for lose labors of love that are of truly lasting alue and interest to adult minds. Myers for 'resident ! <«r» rust another paragraph or so on the MESSIAH and I'll leave off it for a few years (maybe). Beecham is out with * it, you now, and this time the absolute full of it is n Victor shellac. In a spoken preamble, the inductor permits himself a cogent peroraon on how and why he mounted the prouction as he did. The performance that follows is, for all radical and mechanical purposes, a successj1 fruition of Sir Thomas's idea. It is a ean job and a virile one, luminous in its ^position of the choric devices (the soloists re milk-and-water). It is stamped throughut with the insignia of professional enterrise; — it is, if you wilt, rather on the Cecil '•. DeMille order. As such, I cannot accord unqualified approval for I prefer less pericious drillmastering in religious works, ieecham lets one hear everything, the while estroying the listener's responsibility to Feel. erhaps one day someone will be moved to ive us "Messiah" in something like its orig inal dimensions. That will, indeed, be the day! «£» Even a radio program consultant cannot get out of hearing something refreshing once in a while and if this happens in midseason', the greater is the temptation to pass the good news along. Checking through the shelves recently, I came upon Columbia set MM-596 and stopped to play it over. Well, it seems that Georges Bizet, at the age of seventeen, already was something of a program maker, for it was then that he put twenty-five minutes of pleasure-packed entertainment into his only symphony. Blithely borrowing the styles of Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn and Rossini — in that order, Bizet would seem to have anticipated the Russian ProkofiefT in providing a "Classical Symphony." The Bizet fun-fest was not brought to light until some years after Prokofieff's delightful spoofing had become world beloved. Your collection deserves both works, by the way. Bizet is available only in the Rodzinski reading (N. Y. Philharmonic) but you have several choices of the Prokofieff, my own preference being Mitropoulos (Minneapolis) in Columbia MX-166. Among my recent discoveries in single discs the palm goes to a performance by William Primrose, violinist with Vernon de Tar at the organ, of Schubert's Litanei (labelled Litany), coupled with a transcription of Komm' Siisser Tod by Bach. (Victor 119117.) Available again is Victor 1756 on which you get Elisabeth Schumann singing, in her prime, four Brahms songs : Wiegenlied, Vergebliches Standchen, Nachtigall and Der Jdger. A must for Lieder fans ! Speaking of Lieder, the lamented John McCormack had no peer among Hugo Wolf interpreters. A ten-inch disc containing Herr, Was Trdgt der Boden Hier and Auch Kleine Dinge was in the Victor catalog as No. 1739 for just one year, back in 1937. It is a prime treasure. The same Mastersinger's deeply stirring edition of Schlafendes Jesuskind which, by the way, he introduced in America, once was to be had on HMV DB-2868, with Wagner's Trdume on the reverse side. Such gems of genuine phonographic literature as these must not go begging if we are to be considered civilized. If recognition of their value and acknowledgment of the desire to possess them is made known to this department, the matter will forthwith and faithfully be brought to the attention of Victor's repertoire directors. P. S. : The Schlafendes Jesuskind recording referred to above was never released in this country and is not to be confused with the early electrical ten-inch version, a poorly recorded piece of fine singing. The tenor's brother once told me that a record of the song had been made with piano accompaniment. Such was never issued, so far as I can ascertain. <«r» McCormack is featured also in Volume Two of the Hugo Wolf Song Society recordings, his songs here being Ganymed and Beherzigung , exceedingly difficult assignments. The album also contains very fine work by Alexandra Trianti, Herbert Janssen, Gerhard Hiisch and Friedrich Schorr. Available, after a long absence, at The Gramophone Shop, New York. Discs are not sold individually; the price of the set is $15.75. «£» Couplings by Olympia Boronat, Fernando De Lucia, Maurice Renaud and Janet Spencer comprise the fifth Heritage Series release, along with the Aida duets of Caruso and Louise Homer. Mme. Boronat confined her activities to the continent and so was known to Americans only via the turntable, Victor having brought out just one side : Tutte le feste al tempio from "Rigoletto," which now is repressed with a bit from "Don Pasquale." It is good to have available these examples of lyric virtuosity. Fernando De Lucia once was described to me as "a phenomenal artist whose records don't show it." That is about the case as regards the majority of the man's records — but anyone who has heard his 12-inch version of Ecco ridente in cielo with its grandiose embellishment of runs realizes that there really was a Golden Age of Opera at that. Alas, the "Barber" excerpt has not been chosen for Heritage release, but what we do have here is his highly personalized Dei miei bollenti spiriti (Traviata) a side worth the price of two, or ten. Overside contains an almost equally individual treatment of Addio, M ignon. A half dozen Victor records of Janet Spencer's voice were made in 1911 and four of them are quiet gems. This Bostonian contralto's calm approach to such things as 0 Rest in the Lord and Good Bye, Sweet Day mark her as having been very much a lady ; not at all the person to be cast for O Don Fatale (Don Carlos) which is given here, coupled with The Hills o' Skye. The rarity of these sides would seem to have determined their choice for re-release. The record's chief value will be for those collectors who strive for comprehensive files of preelectrical red seal records, for the singer's career was not particularly noteworthy in the annals of her profession. The art of operatic acting has known no more consummate exemplar in this century than Maurice Renaud. Were he in his prime today . . . but what's the use? He is dead, and that for which he lived is but a grotesquely mirrored glimmer on today's stage. Renaud's mastery of both arts, singing and acting, projects magnificently in his 1906 re(Continued on Page 24) UNE, 1948 17