THE GRAMOPHONE

~Office: lOA, Soho Squa.re,

London, \V.I.

Edited by COMPTON MACKENZIE

TELEPHONE: Regent 7977, 7978.

TELEOllAMS: Parmaxto. Westcent. London.

Vol. VIII.

SEPTEMBER, 1930

No. 88

EDITORIAL

FOR the first t ime in eighty-eight months the page with which my Editorial begins will not behold on i ts left hand the a d vertisement of the Gramophone Company, and I cannot refrain from expressing my regret for the reasons which must have led to this withdrawal. " We should not dr eam of cutting down our advertising in any way. Rath er the contrary "Thus Mr. Alfred Clark, th e Managing Director, in a recent interview with the Daily Mail. So, when I heard of the decision to cut out one of the advertisement pages and by so doing to abandon a position which His Master's Voice has occupied from the very first number of our review, I began to ask myself wheth er I was entitled to feel quite ·so much optimism about the future of the gramophone as I have been able to feel for the last seven years. It is not for me to suggest the direct ion in which an immense organization like the Gramophone Company might dig its retrenehments, and certainly we and our r eaders may feel positive that such an obvious retreat as this from the leading advertising page of THE GRAMOPHONE would never have been made without good cause. At the same t ime, I cannot pass over the significance of such a step. . It can only mean that lVIr. Alfred Clark, on reconsideration of the position, has had to forsak e the bold policy he advocated so trenchantly for one more prudent, and we may rest assured that such prudence is necessary. But what does i t portend? I f i t portend a lack of confidence in the future of the gramophone's power to attract the amusement-sated world of to-day, I venture with th e utmost diffiden ce to suggest that a more imaginative artistic policy might"effect as much asa less imaginative commercial one. The unnecessary duplication of big works, and for that matter of small works too, the survival of prehistoric red-seal Celebrity lecord ~, the omission to provide the words and translations of foreign SO!1gs, the failure to publish a preliminary list of the. important works to be brought out during the Spring and Autumn seasons, the neglect to reissue big works at a really popular price in the way that publishers reprint books more cheaply after a passage of t im e,

even the discouragement of the public belief that His Master's Voice speaks daily with a more and mO\'e unmistakable American twang-these are but a few of the avenues of attack which might be examined before concentrating upon such a dangerously obvious line of retreat. However, I must not seem to be criticising when I am only too anxious to condole, nor must I let a sentimental regret for the loss of an old friend's face on the opposite page to these words of mine prevent my extending a grateful welcome to the loyal old friend who has moved up to hold the vacant place.

The parting to which I have alluded above comes with a certain sweetness of sorrow atier mv Editorial of last month and that attempt to indica:te some of the problems by which we are faced, for at the very moment when Mr. Clancy has called upon me to resume my idealist endeavour and recapture my youthful fire and zeal I have to sustain the shock of seeing the gra.mophonic equivalent of the Brigade of Guards evacuate pell-mel! the front .line trenches. I can only hope that this defeatist attitude will presently be exchanged for one that will at once command and deserve succcess .

The response in correspondence to the Editorial inspired by Mr. Clancy's letter last month has been considerable, and I do not remember ever receiving so many interesting letters in the month of August. Being by natUTe a lover of lost causes and impossible loyalties, my first impulse is to call upon the die-hards of the gramophone world to raUy round me and fight i t out to a finish in the last ditch; but we must postpone this heroic gesture, because from what I can see we may soon be called upon to spend our devotion in trying to resist the ruin of the gramophone by the imprudent way in which the commercial side of the business has h andled the advent of electrical reproduction . Flushed by the un~xpected succe~s i t gained at first over wireless, the industry ha~ rushed wildly ahead without sufficiently considering whether i t be in a position to hold the vast amount of new t erritory i t seemed to have conquered .

I took advantage of a brie£ transit through London