Among the Great Russians

New Zealand Listener, Volume 13, Issue 313, 22 June 1945, Page 8

Among the Great Russians

HE English sailor may with impunity resist all temptations to belong to other nations. Not so the English musician. Occasionally a staunch singer like Clara Butt will stick to her stark, homespun name, and it is greatly to her credit, but many a would-be prima donna has helped herself along with something synthetic in the Italian style, just as a ballerina chooses a name with a Russian flavour. When Sir Henry Wood wanted an impartial hearing for his orchestral transcription ‘of Bach’s Organ Toccata and Fugue in D Minor he brought it out under the name Klenovsky. He was probably right; he had had long experience of audiences and critics. The truth leaked out with quite a flutter of publicity many years later, in 1934; and I was a little surprised to hear Klenovsky’s ghost still walking at 1YA recently when the Toccata and Fugue was announced as "arranged by Klenovsky and conducted by Sir Henry Wood." Yet if this recording were to be accompanied always by the announcement that Klenovsky was really only Wood, it would give an unfair advantage to the great rival transcription of the same Toccata and Fugue made by Stokowski-unless of course the announcer were to tell us whenever the latter is played that Stokowski’s name is really only Stokes, | which would not be in the best taste.