The talking machine world (Jan-June 1928)

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Each month W . Braid White will suggest methods of s t i mulating retail sales of high-class music Creating a Record Demand for Finest Music A SHORT time ago, the Victor Talking Machine Co. announced that it was publishing a recording of the C minor Symphony of Johannes Brahms, by the world-famous Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, whose conductor is Leopold Stokowski, known throughout the country as one of the most interesting and skilful orchestral directors of the day. In fact it is not too much to say that the Philadelphia Orchestra is at this moment the Rockford Hardware is made to stand up under wear and tear. In beauty, workmanship and finish it is designed to give the utmost in service and satisfaction. Actual samples of any items you use gladly sent on request. Write for the Catalog, No. 18, and keep it handy. Rational frock Co.. Rockford, /II. U. S. A. Coble Address: NATLOCK Branch Sales Offices: Chicago, III. Cincinnati, O. Detroit, Mich. Evansville, Ind. Grand Rapids. Mich. Hi«h Point, N. C. Shebovean. Wis. St. Louis, Mo. Indianapolis, Ind. Jamestown, N. Y Los Angeles, Cal. Milwaukee, Wis. Seattle, Wash. By W. Braid White finest body of players in the United States, quite probably equal to any similar body to be found anywhere. I shall not indulge in a lot of silly loose talk about "world's best," because nobody knows just which orchestra is entitled to that distinction. Nor does it matter. What does matter is that the Philadelphia Orchestra is today generally regarded as the best in the U. S. A., which means in comparison with the New York, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland orchestras, all of which are very fine. What makes a symphony orchestra very fine? First, permanence; and second, a good conductor. It is not enough to get together a nucleus of players, whose numbers must be swelled for every unusual piece of work by the addition of outsiders hired for the occasion. The players must be hired by the year and held exclusively to this one work. Then also the conductor must be the same man year in and year out, at least so long as he can produce results. Conditions of this kind are not easily managed, and much money is called for if they are to be realized; but in Philadelphia, in Boston and in Chicago, as well as in New York, the ideal, to a greater or lesser extent, has been translated into fact. That is why these orchestras are so good. Stokowski What makes the Philadelphia the best of all is probably the personality and skill of the conductor, Leopold Stokowski, a man still young, of remarkable ability, who began life as a pianist and has become one of the small company of great orchestral conductors. Stokowski is of mixed English and Polish ancestry, combining fire and practical wisdom to an astonishing extent. When he took hold of the Philadelphia Orchestra, it ranked last among the great American bands. To-day it ranks first without a doubt. I say all this in order to make readers understand that it is not a small or a simple thing which the Victor Talking Machine Co. has done in thus obtaining the co-operation of the greatest American Orchestra in order to record so stupendous a work as Brahms' First Symphony. So accustomed are we in these days to the marvelous that it is hard to awaken a sense of enthusiasm even for a really big achievement. But I think it easy to show that here is something worthy the enthusiasm of even the most blase mind. The Music Maker Brahms died in 1897 at the age of 64. He had been composing since he was 17 years old, but he did not hasten to sound the trumpets and the drums. His first symphony was published and had its first performance only in 1876, when Brahms was already 43 years of age and had an European reputation. It is thus a quite mature work, in which Brahms may be said to have put everything which he felt, thought and knew. Accepted at first with much reserve, and even attacked in some quarters as unduly austere and obscure, it has steadily made its way into public favor and is now the favorite (or one of the few real favorite) war-horses of great virtuoso American conductors like Frederick Stock of Chicago, Walter Damrosch of New York and Leopold Stokowski of Philadelphia. Chicago is said to be a hard-boiled town, but the audiences who for years have thronged Orchestra Hall during the nearly one hundred orchestral concerts given each year under Stock's baton have learned to love this symphony so much that it Intelligent promotion of sales of good music means more substantial success for the retailer is usually impossible to buy a seat on a Brahms First Symphony night, unless one goes to the box office a day or two ahead. Composer and Orchestra A great orchestral symphony represents an amount of thought, inspiration, labor and downright skill simply incredible to the outsider. Consider that the composer must first think out his musical thoughts, then rough them out on paper, then distribute the musical ideas among first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, contrabasses, flutes, piccolos, clarinets, oboes, English horns, bassoons, contra-bassoons, French horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, kettle drums; and even, if he wishes, harps, cornets, bass drums, snare drums, celesta, tam-tam, bells and so on. Of course a composer, even a very modern young wild man of music, need not use every instrument named above. But in any case he will have his choir of four kinds of stringed instruments, his wood-winds, his brass, and his percussions. The task before him will be to distribute his musical sounds among these instruments so as to produce from moment to moment the precise desired effect of tone-color, tone volume, emphasis, suspense, or whatever it may be. This distributing of the parts among the instruments is comparable tQ the art of the orator, who has to clothe his thoughts in appropriate words. So, the restrained passion of Lincoln's Gettysburg address, compared with the purple patches of Bryan's Cross of Gold Speech is like the quiet but penetrating and soul-moving ardor of Brahms compared with the glittering verbosity of Berlioz. Brahms and Lincoln, the names fit into each other as one contemplates the two personalities. Each was slow to speak, and rough outwardly, but within was gentler than a woman. Each was gifted with that supreme power of expressing in the most direct and straightforward language the deepest and most moving thoughts. Each was sneered at as uncouth, and each has come to be an immortal. Lincoln used words, Brahms tones, but the analogy is extraordinarily close. The Great Architect Brahms was above all a musical architect. His music has all the perfection of design, all the exquisite beauty and the unbounded wealth of detail which we find in great masterpieces of building, such as the Cathedral of Chartres, or the Basilica of Santa Sophia as it once was. He can no more be comprehended at a single hearing than the west front of Rheims at a single glance. Knowing this, the Victor Talking Machine Co. hit upon the happy idea of providing upon a separate record a short talk by Mr. Stokowski, outlining the themes or melodies on which the symphony is built, and playing these upon the piano so that the hearer may have them "in his ear" when the symphony begins. Carrying on the same principle of explanation, they have provided a folder to go in the special record album, containing a short and clear description of the course of the music. A symphony is architecture in tone. All music is this more or less; but music has the disadvantage of coming to the percipient bit by bit, like a stream flowing past. It is as if one had to look at a picture through a narrow slit moving across the field of vision. Music, then, must be heard over and over again, but that in turn has the enormous advantage of fastening it upon the memory so firmly that, if it be in truth the tonal expression of a great man's thoughts, (Continued on page 40) 38