Celebrities

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 30, 7 February 1930, Page 8

Celebrities

The Songs of Schubert "you have my heart, but Schubert has my soul," said the dying Beethoven to his closest friend, and truly that soul sang its sweetest in the songs that Franz Schubert left behind him. At thirty years of age, but ten months after his adorned Beethoven, Schubert was tu pass the same way to dust, but not to silence and oblivion. His 700 songs rpmain to testify that no composer in the whole history of music even nearly approached him in song writing. Necessarily but a fraction of this glorious treasury has been recorded, but even that fraction is sufticient to prove that not Mozart, nor ’ Haydn or Bach, not even Beethoven himself could metch him’in vhe lovely art of wedding a ballad to music. Perhaps the best known of all is the wild "Erl King," written when Schubert was only 19 years of age. Sophie Braslau, the famous contralto, gives a thrilling reading of this, changing her voice to suit the three protagonists in the dialogue with a vivid sense of the dramatic. This is paired with "Death and the Maiden,’ a tune of which Schubert was so fond that he based a quartet upon it. (Columbia 04161.) © "Der Lindenbaum," as‘ lovely and spontaneous as a folk-song, is paired with "Am Meer" (By the Sea) by the great German basso, Alexander Kipais (Columbia 04115). Another of his pairings is "Der Wegweiser" (The Signpost) a song with a sad but haunting and appealing melody, and the dark, gruesome "Der Doppelganger" (TM Phantom Double). (Columbia 04195). One of the most charming of all the song records is sung by Sir George Henschel, accompanying himself at the piano. The songs are "Das Wandem" and "Der Leirmann" (The Hurdy Gurdy Man). Sir George sings them with great artistry and feeling on Columbia 03594. Elsa Alsén, the famous American soprano, has chosen the exquisite "Du Bist Die Ruh" (Thou Art My Peace), the loveliest 6f all Schubert songs, and sings it with incomparable sweetness, paired with "Greatchen and Spinnrade," on Columbia 04194. xr

Can you solve a difficult problem? See . "TRIALS IN TACT" (on page 388 of this issue);