London, W.1.

THE GRAMOPHONE London Office: 58, Frith Street,

Edited by COMPTON MACKENZIE

TELEPHONE: Regent 1383

TELEGRAMS: Parmaxto, Westcent,:London

Vol. III.

MARCH, 1926

No. 10

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EDITORIAL

FORCE of circumstance has compelled me to revert to my quarterly review of records which will be included in the April number. I feel l ess guilty than I should, because so many read ers have written to say that they prefer the quarterly review, and of course i t does possess obvious advantages over the monthly review. Yet I must admit that the prospect alarms me, for in the whole history of the gTamophone there has never been a quarter so rich with good things as this one. For instance, when I was in town I heard one or two sides of the Columbia issue of Berlioz' Fantastic Symphony, and even that superfici al hearing told me that perhaps the absolutely best recording yet achieved had been given us. Then there are the Columbia piano records of Percy Grainger in the third Chopin Sonata. On my new H.M.V. machine well placed I would defy anybody to say i t was played on tbe gramophone. From H.M.V. there are some wonderful choruses, and from the latter I had t ime to hear bits of a superb K1'eutzer Sonata. P arlophone and Vocalion, too, have been issuing and will be issuing records of the highest merit. But I must ask for another month's grace before my r aptures seek prosaic expression. MyoId enemy neuritis has been having a great t ime with me, and I am writing these words with daggers running into me all the t ime. To anybody in physical pain I commend the Trout Quintet in the January bulletin of Columbia. Were there ever so many simple and lovely melodies crammed into one piece of chamber music before 'I I doubt i t . I have had i t played to me over thirty t imes since i t came out, and all my life I shall associate that quintet with the book I have just finished writing, that quintet and the two Raso'ttmovsky Quartets of Beethoven we possess on the gramophone (one an H.M.V., the other an N. G.S. production). I began" Fairy Gold" on October 25th. I finished on January 31st. I t is nearly 200,000 words long, and I owe the courage to stick to my chair for ten hours a night entirely to the gTa.mophone. I read that Mr. Filson Young (who nowadays is devoting a good deal of t ime and much gTaceful prose to boosting Rolls-Royce motor-cars) gave evidence at the B.B.C. committee against the gramophone. Apparently he thinks that wireless reproduction is less mechanical than gramophonic reproduction. I t is idle to reason with such wrong-