GRAMOPHONES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 138, 1 September 1927, Page 16

GRAMOPHONES

Those who feel they cannot afford a suite of six or more records and yet would like to possess a complete symphony, will find a source of unfailing delight in the Columbia recording of Beethoven’s Eight Symphony—complete in three 12-inch records. It has been recorded by Felix Weingartner and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. A fine rendition of Gounod’s famous supplication, “O Divine Redeemer,” and his “There is a Green Hill," has been recorded for H.M.V. by Florence Austral. Florence Austral has that opulent quality of voice which lends itself most admirably to this class of music. To say that one is uplifted by her singing is not to exaggerate one whit. They are, in the fullest sense of the word, very sacred moments.

* Two Gipsy numbers,, “Two Guitars” and “Black Eyes,” have been performed f°r H.M.V. by the Salon Orchestra. Gipsy music, with its strange restrained fire and its wild recklessness, has a strong fascination for most of U 3. Of these two delightful examples, “The Two Guitars” is, perhaps, the most typical; it begins with a slow, infinitely sad section, but ends up with an exhilarating dance-like movement. Indeed, one might almost say it begins with grief and ends with a whoop. The Salon Orchestra, popular, plays with polish and brilliancy.

Few songs are more familiar than “Bess than the Dust,” and yet, when Clara Butt sings it, one almost hears It for the first time. The gorgeous colouring of the music needs the richness of her deep contralto. Without it. the Oriental atmosphere would be lost. But in every way this record is commendable; it shows how complete an artist the singer is, and explains the hold she has on the music-loving public. While Clara Butt can sing as she does here she need fear no rival. On this Columbia disc (X 305) Is also recorded “Till I Awake” (from “Indian Love Lyrics”).

An unusually interesting H.M.V. disc Contains “Ah! Ne Fuis Fas Encore” (“Romeo and Juliet,” Gounod), sung by Lucrezia Bori, soprano, and Beniamino Gigli, tenor and “Piangi! Fi•ngi Fanciulla” ("Rigoletto,” Verdi), sung by Galli-Curci, soprano, and Giuseppe de Luca, baritone. One of the secrets of Galli-Curci’s success is, says a reviewer, in the Individuality of her voice. She is always GalliCurci, and could never be taken for anybody but herself. Her imitators try. but they cannot get that lovely humanity and her glorious youth. It is a magnificent idea to put two sopranos of such distinct types as Bori and Galli-Curci on one record. If one did not know that Bori had once lost her voice for some years, one would say that sorrow had never touched her, so spirituelle is her singing. Maybe the regaining of her voice has given her that ethereal quality which makes her work, even when she is throwing herself wholeheartedly into an opera, detached. It is as though she had realised as a great eternal fact that her voice was herself. a thing apart—a realisation of unconquerable faith.