Vol. XX

,OCTOBER 1942

HARVESTS OF TH REE YEARS

By W. R. AN DERSON ' . . ' , .

LET us look back on some of the boons offered to us since the war began; I have been thumbing my copies for the last three years, remembering one or two stalwarts who have gone from our sight, in varying ways; onc is that grand musician Weingartner, the gramophile's greatest loss for a very long time. I am inclined to hope that un-named "Symphony Orchestras" and their presumably super-brethren, " Grand Symphony Orchestras," have gone for ever, together with un-named conductors. I myself don't mind who does the job; but as regards mere buying-andselling, obviously the Great Un-named will nevermore be the" done thing."

What I should most like to linger over is the latest issue of our own good GRAMOPHONE, wherein I find traces perhaps somewhat elementary, but hopeful, of almost the first attempts in the long history of the gramophone to treat i t and its products philosophically. What is a gramophone, and what is i t meant to do? But I will not pursue that, to me, most fascinating of all studies, in re gramophony. I merely commend the correspondence to any others who may be pleased (and even, mayhap, amused) to read i t . It is as good as W. J. Brown postscripting-though less muddy. Can I say more?

The economics of business might have been expected to bear much more hardly upon us and our fare than they have done. Obviously the pressure here has causcd us to hear more American records than in the ordinary way we might have had. I see in American papers a good deal of complaint (recently mentioned in our own columns) about the poor surface of domestic prcssings there. How much more fortunate, we are told, to be in England. Let us give thanks for that. I was amused by Mr. Ridout's remarking somewhere upon the oft-recurring appearance of the "No scratch" record, over a whole generation. Again, I wish everybody would remind himself what a gramophone really is, how i t is made, and what is to be reasonably expected from it. We have all had to grow u wjth i t . In earlier days, nobody could be blamed for whoops which may have proved to be not entirely justified. We ought, I think, to havc blamed ourselves, twenty years ago, if we expected things the gramophone could not then remotely attain. But we arc a hopeful people (should we have so many wars if we were not?) ; and i t is pleasant to grow up in optimism. We miss, now, those heights of gadgetry which made the old days so exciting. We have the more time, I suggest, to attend to the music. Records remain a rich resource for musical comfort.

You might be surphsedto see' the total number of orchestras in three years. With a possible slip or', so (a:nd I don't count as performances, , 'anything of th e "gutted concerto" ofder of fahtastry), I make i t fifty-seven. ' Some have appeared Oli ce, or only a few t imes-the Raymonde, the New York" the "New Friends' of Music, Little Symphony Orchestra, Royal 'Artillery Strings, the ,Queen's Hall (rather ' a pang as one r emembers tile dId 'days when this body was in, every month's list), the Cleveland, and a few others; with, naturafly, such foreigm;rs as the E.I.A.R.,

, .

A Note from the Ed~tor

INSTEAD of listening to new' records this month I have had tO ,spend my t ime listening to old records in . order to make another set of. recordings for Collector's Corner, a new series of which will start fairly soon. Therefore these few words must be an apology to our l:eaclers, and as I am not cO,nvinced that ap? logies provide very interesting reading matter I shall say no more.

The censorship, anxious to do all' i t can to help win the war, has now imposed itself on Barra. The only practical result of this is to delay my 'correspondence m<?re intolerably than before, and make i t im.possible for me to send ;Cmy material to THE GR.."u\{OPHONE at the last moment. Whether this wilf . .contribute ' towards shortening the war I have my doubt~', but as waste oftirue, .Like' waste. of 'everythini else, appears to be an essentlal part of the grand strategic plan I I must not grumble, cmd next month I will try to ma!<:e up for the absence of an editorial this month.

COMPTON MACKENZIE.

Concertgebouw, Dresden, Berlin, Copenhagen, and so forth-,~ome friendly, some not. One wonder~ what is the position of the Dutchmen, by the way: I see there was an unfortunat broadcast of records made by Mengelberg, who is accounted by loyal Dutchmen ,a traitor; but the orchestra may be entirely loyal, and I hope is.

The L.P.O. runs away with something like thirty-six pieces , or works--<juite the top s<;ore--closely pursued by the Boston Proms. with t lul:tv-four, The ,Halle, much used of late, partiy b-wing, r understand" to particular circumstances concerning recordmg in London, ,has over a score, and the Phily about ties with i t , the Boston Symphony com.ing next with sixteen. The

No. 233

.'.. "-.. Paris ConserV<;ltoire>until things shut down, was pretty constant"and so was Boyd Neel, _whom we still,welcome occasionally in i;lroqdcasts, blJt who, I read, ha.. gone back .to'medicine, for -war-time. We have not ,had a great deal from the .B.B.C. Orchestra, the Columbia Broadcasting body, or the L,S.O., none of which has done more than about ten pieces for us. The Bournemouth 'band :has been he<lrd with pleasure in small things. Cleveland, San Francisco, and Cincinnatihave just put in an appeal,"ance, with the Nqtional Symphony (of Wasllington), and a few visits from the Chicagoans, under their veteran, Stock. Sadlers' Wells surprised us by recording so effectively, and we would fain hear more from Minneapolis.

The conductors seem to number, some sixty-four; I do not include the ,Great Un-named, who gave seventeen performances. , We should not be very surprised, perhaps, to find familiar f<lces beneath, this mask-though ,not perhaps such great ones as Sir WaIter's, ,when he played his" anon." game of the Great Unknown, with the novels.

The conductor who heads the list as to the number 'of performances is Fiedler, with thjrty-four. Beecham and Weingartner gave q sco,re apiece. Other,fig\l(cs at:e: Koussevitzky , and Neel" siXfeen, Heward, Toscanini, fourteen, Ormandy and Lambert, twelve each, Stokowski, teo, Sargc;nt and Boult, nine each, I3arlow, eight, Sir Henry, six, Mitropoulos" five. Cameron may perhaps be el'pected to reappear, after his Proms. session, in rec>ordings. So far he is in my l ist but once.

These figures do not, of course, necessarily indicate any rclative order of merit, or even popularity. I should like to pea, one or two other conductors, but these <Ire scarcely days, I take i t , in which tPClY for particl.11ar dainties, whether in works~r interpretc;{s.

As to the works, we need not list all the composers who have come into myparticular department in the three yeqrs of war. They number close on a hundred; a good many of the minor order, necessarily. These minors include few fresh-comers, I wish 'there were mote sl.1ch try-outs. We h<ld, for example, agreeable bits of Abel, AllSell, Britten, Butterworth, Pergolesi, a.nd Weinberger. Of the majors, so~e must, I suppose, be reckoned as sufficiently recorded for wartime purposes. Otherwise we might have pressed for re-recordings of some of the greater Elgars (which I see readers have mentioned in their .letters). All the Elgar we got was three Pomps and a Salut. The post~war revolution may bring us a Gerontius, perhaps?

Duplications have been few, happily (I use that qualification because so very many works can now be had in a choice of pe~formances that surely l i t t le reason can remain for producing still more). Th._ chief works duplicated are symphonies-

B