186

The Gramophone, October, 1929

that the charm of his conversation at dinner more than compensated for the absence of any kind of nicotine when dinner was over. Alec Ross and'r sat by the window of my bedroom, puffing smoke out of i t into the scented air of Sir Clifford Allbutt's garden. vVe sat by the open window and talked under our breath like a pair of schoolboys who might at any moment be caught by a house master in the crime of smoking. But r cannot expect that as many of my readers are going to be able to conjure up from the past from one dark blue 12in. Columbia disc the morning of Saturday, October 19th." I am counting -not foolishly, r hope-on the support of every reader of THE GRA~mpHoNE for the first number. r need not take up any more space in pointing out how imperative i t is that the readers of an established paper like THE GRAMOPHONE should do all they can to help i ts younger brother to walk, but r do .want to take this opportunity of saying how important r think i t is nowadays for both the great industries of the radio and the gramophone to work together even more closely than hitherto. They are, indeed,

THE DOLMETSCH FAMILY RECORDING ON VIOLS.

L of t to right : Rudolph (bass), Cecile (trable), Carl (tenor), NJ;rs. Dolmetsch (bass) ,

Arnold (treble), Nathalie (tenor).

pictures that I have been able to conjure up, and so, to speak fra,nkly, r shall have to warn them that they may find these fantasies for viols a l i t t le dull. However, there must be some readers, at any rate, who will have pictures in their own minds of the Dolmetsch family playing their old instruments, and certainly all those who have learned to make Haslemere a place of musical pilgrimage will be glad of a permanent record of music that they will have enjoyed in the happiest circumstances.

To come back from the past into the extremely urgent present, I must remind readers that before my next editorial appears in print the first number of Vox will have appeared. I t will, unless some calamity intervenes, be on sale everywhere on the becoming so inseparably involved that the least attempt to disentangle them can only end in harm to both. Furthermore, I wish to take this opportunity of saying I do not believe that either the radio or the gramophone is going ultimately to injure l i terature. What I do anticipate with some confidence is that just as Radio has done much to kill the superfluous magazine, i t will finally help to kill that pest of modern life, the superfluous book. I even think i t is possible, granted certain developments, that the gramophone will play i ts part in this desirable slaughter.

* No calamity has intervened, but unforeseen circrunstances have made me postpone the date to Saturday, November 9th.EDITOR.