The Gramophone, Novemher, 1926

212

that the price of these four records, with the album, works out at thirty-four shillings, because I know how exasperating i t is for so many of our readers to be unable to afford to spend a sum like this on one piece of music. In this case the extra two shillings a record is genuinely worth while, because I do not believe that any other combination could approach this performance. Casals is, without doubt, the greatest hving 'cellist; there are many people who consider that Cortot is the greatest living pianist; and there are few people who would not put Thibaud among the first half-dozen violinists. When three great artists play for the ensemble rather than for individual effect, the result is as inspiring as the performance on this set of records. But I must correct an unjustified claim in the R.N!. V. bulletin. This is not the first piano trio to be recorded in complete form. The N.G.S. has already recorded Schubert's Trio in E flat.

There is another piece of chamber music this month in the Vocalion l ist which is a l i t t le gem. I t is a 10 -inch disc of the first two movements of the Tartini Trio in F majo?' for two violins and piano. Deliciously played by Fachiri, d'Aranyi, and Ethe[ Hobday, i t is also extremely well recorded. I strongly recommend i t as a disc of consolation for those who cannot afford the Schubert Trio.

The Parlophone bulletin has a.rrived and looks most inviting, but unfortunately no records have arrived with i t , and so I am leaving Pa,rlophone records out of i t when I say that the outstanding vocal record this month is a Columbia disc of .Aroldi Lindi in the Death of Otello and that splendid aria Ora e per 8empre addio. Lindi is a Swede, but he has a very good Italian accent and every word is as clear as a bell. The beautiful orchestra.] accompaniment, too, is exactly right, so realistic, indeed, that the singer's dying exhalations of breath manage not to seem absurd. I don't know that I ever managed to sit so authentically in the front row of the stalls at the opera as when I put on this disc.

The Columbia people a.re going in rather heavily for stunt records and have now produced a 6,600 voice record of the 'Nonconformist Church Union Festival Choir at the Crystal Palace. I expect i t sounds better on the record than i t did in reality, and that is all I can say. That, too, is all I can say of the 4,000 boy and girl violinists, during the performance of which I was trying to speculate how many of the 4,000 would have to be playing off the note before a musician with as fine an ear as i t is possible to have would know that the sum total of sound was off the note. Perhaps Mr. Wilson will work this out for me with logarithms 1 I hope these witches' sabbaths are commercially successful, because we want our ninth symphonies. Otherwise I should feel inclined to say with George Robey at the end of another Columbia record" but if i t's all the same to you, I'd rather stop in gaol." I suppose i t might be difficult to procure them, but I suggest that 4,000 septuagenarian double-basses playing Silver Threads among the GoZd would make a good stunt record; so, too, would 7,255 middle-aged cornet-players celebrating The Last Rose of Summer. .And best of all, what about 10,000 errand boys whistling Valencia? That ensemble should be easily obtainable, and I think i t would give the bulletin writer a good chance to let himself go. .

I have already mentioned Mr. Seamus O'Doherty with enthusiasm, and here comes another charming record of his from Columbia. Personally, I cannot resist a South of Ireland tenor, and Mr. O'Doherty sings as engaging as any of them The Old Bog Road and Miss Kitty O'Toole. Finally from the Columbia bulletin I should pick a dance record of Ted Lewis and his Band, Iyone, My own Iyone, which is as delightful an a,bsurdity as I have heard for a long time.

In the Vocalion list :Mme. Olara Serena gave us a very fine disc of Sullivan's Dearest Hemi and Bantock's Lament of Isis. The songs are beautifully recorded, and I like Mme. Serena's contralto as much as a,nybody's a,t the moment. But the most important thing about the Voca.lion l ist is that my dancing friends agree with me that these latest issues of Vocalion dance records are more like the real thing than any others. This augurs well for the Vocalion system of electric recording when i t is used for more ambitious works.

Among the vocal records in the H.M.V. l ist one is glad to have these two exquisite arias from Don Giovanni, J.lli tradt, quell 'alma ing1'ata and Non mi di1', though I do not feel that ~Iiss Evelyn Scotney, since she gave up singing rather like Mme. GalliCurci, has yet managed to evolve a style of her own; nor do I think that Mozart suits her. Walter Widdop sings a recitative and a,i r from Handel's J eptha, and I should suppose that he does i t very well, but I must confess to finding them sadly dull. There is also in the H.M.V. list a fine record of Paul Robeson.

I t has just struck me that I omitted another conductor who ha,s imposed himself with complete success on the gramophone. That is Mengelberg. His Tannhauser overture of Columbia is still their best orchestral record. A great piece of recorded conducting.

The delayed Parlophone r~cords have arrived in t ime for me to say something about them after aU. Wben Brahms' Second Symphony was first recorded for the gramophone I advised readers shy of the classics to make ha.ste to acquire i t for i ts melodies, and received several letters of protest from purchasers who had failed to find any melody in i t at all. I ca,n only repeat what I said then, with this addition, tha,t all readers who have played through this symphony ten times and faHed to discover by the end of that t ime i ts really exquisite melodious-