RECORDS

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 6, 18 August 1933, Page 10

RECORDS

Whol who and What whal

(By

Bolton

Woods

Records To Buy THIS WEEK’S SELECTION Swecney LTodd-The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, by Tod. Slaughter and Company (for those with healthy nerves and a certain sense of humour ONLY). Regal-Zono G21706-07. A Village Concert — Humorous Sketch, The Roosters’ Concert Party. Regal-Zono G300738. "Butterflics in the Rain" and "The Song of the Nightingale" (with vocal chorus and effects), Fred Hartley's Quintet, Regal-Zono G21704. Sincerity (Clarke) and For You Alone (Geehl), Male Duets by Herbert Thorpe and Foster Richardson. RegalZono G21692._

Me. FRASER, olf Ohbura, writes again sending in a rough musical sketch of the old "Mandalay" tune he and so many others liked so much in the days of yore. Perhaps in a future programme the setting might be revived. Without any definite promise that it can be done, the suggestion will be handed in to the right quarter. The old original tune was a favourite, all right. "A.L.0.," of Roseneath, Wellington, and "Peter the Hermit," also write to say the name of the composer of the old setting asked for is Gerald F, Cobb. Composer at 7. [Sao ALBENIZ, beginning" his * musical career as an. infant-prodigy pianist, devoted his interest through life . chiefly to his own in-

strument, although his first composition, produced when he was only seven, was a military band piece. After courses of. study at Madrid, Brussels and Leipzig, he toured Burope and America with Rubin- . stein, and at the age of 20 settled down in his native Spain as a teacher. He soon gave that up, however, and most of his short life-he was only 49 when he died in 1909-was spent between

Paris and London. One of his dance tunes in the Spanish idiom will be broadcast from 3YA on Wednesday, August 23, when Backhaus will be heard in the engaging "Tango." The same recording will be heard from 1YA on Tuesday, August 22, at 8.19 p.m. ’ A. Strauss March. THAT any type of musical composition to which Richard Strauss might turn his hand would "come off,’ all who are familiar with this, natural and fertile creative artist know. This time it is a bracket of military marches that has claimed his attention, and the State Opera Orchestra of Berlin re-

veals all its beauties in a recent recording. In his seventieth year, this Munich-born son of the Bavarian Court horn-player, occupies the topmost pinnacle in German art life to-day. His introduction of quite new artistic ideas into so commonplace a thing as a military march will be at once apparent to all who hear it from 3YA on Wednesday, August 24, at 9.17 p.m.

Still a Favourite. IR JULIUS BENEDICT, though counted as among our English composers, was really a German who made his home in London. He occupied a leading place in the Victorian world of music; for about forty years he was looked up to as one of its leaders. Remembered now almost wholly by his opera, "The Lily of Killarney,’ he won several successes, not only in that direction, but in sacred oratorios and cantatas. He left besides some purely orchestral musie which is still occasionally played, also a number of songs. "Carnival of Venice." HE brilliant concert variations on * the well-known "Carnival of Venice" air were long among his most popular drawing-room pieces, in an age when vocal accomplishment was more usual than it is now. The variations have

been ~arranged for almost every imaginable instrument and combination of instruments, even to a quartet of fiutes! Cherubini once said, jokingly. "The only thing that was worse than a flute solo were tivo flute solos!" To hear the London Flute Quartet play Benedict’s "Carnival of Venice" is quite pleasurable. as will be proved at 8YA on Monday, August 21, at 8.40 p.m. The Tauber ‘Duet.’ HERMAN IKLEIN, one of the very best English critics of singing, and himself, in his day, a tenor soloist, has Some _ interesting things to say about Richard Tauber’s duets, sung by one voice, The pieces. as has already been mentioned previously on this page, are two Mendelssohn duets.

"I would That My Love Might Blossom" and "Shimmering Silver." Mr, Klein says, "The record affords, when repeated three times, the delightful variety of listening first to the upper and afterwards to the lower line of the acrobatic Tauberesque combination, and finally to the ensemble of both. It is a clever device in its way if only because of the perfect synchronisation that it achieves."

And Now A. J. Alan. L_ASTENERS, all of whom are still experiencing the thrill and that satisfied fecling after hearing the B.B.C. recording of "My Adventure at Chislehurst," will be interested to learn that the most popular regular broadcasting artist in-Great Britain is shortly to make his debut on the commercial recordings. ‘A recording of the famous Greenwich pageant is also promised. and will be "something different" and full of novelty. B.B.C.’s Latest. (SENTRALISATION of gramophone record activities is the latest phase of programme direction at the B.L.C. A new department has been formed Called the "Gramophone Programmes Section." It constitutes a _ distributing centre for all gramophone records broadcast, and has a director and a staff of 17 to operate it. All gramophone programmes will be made up at headquarters and the records sent round to various provincial stations as needed. The initial stock of 10,000 records comprises the usual miscellaneous collecilon, and by all accounts the dance records Will have a short life and a gay one, being discarded after a few weeks. The experiment will be followed with great interest by all true gramophiles, both inside and outside the B.B.C. A New "Record." THE comic papers haye missed at least one gem of sheer inanity. A new record has been established in non-stop piano playing. The champion now is Mr. Charles E, Clark, of Derby. At Ilkeston on Wednesday, March 29, at 12.80 mid-day, he started. We went on through Thursday and Friday, and by 10.80 on Saturday, April 1 (Al Fools’ Day), his new record was &2 hours. We are told that his manager- . companion, Mr. Albert Webster, at _ some point or other in the proceedings, fell off the platform and was taken to the hospital, Victorian Candour. N Victorian days people were apt 10 express’ their opinions and prejudices with a downrightness and vigour. Take, for example, this astonishing passage about Wagner's ."Meistersinger" from the mild Ruskin in a letter to Mrs. Burne-Jones, dated June 30, 1882: "Of all the clumsy, blundering, boggling, baboon-blooded — stuff I ever saw on a human stage, that thing last night beat --- as far as the story and acting went; and of all the affected, sapless, soulless, beginningless, endless. topless, topsiturviest, tongs-and-boniest doggerel of sounds I ever endured the deadliness of, that eternity of nothing was the deadliest-as far as the sound went. Cobber’s Bellowing. "FT NEVER was so relieved, so far as Y can remember in life, by the stopping of any sound-not excepting railway whistles-as I was by the cessution of the cobbler’s bellowing; eveu the serenader’s caricature twangle with n vest after it. A's for the great Lied, I never made out where it began, or where it ended-except by the fellow's ‘coming off the horse block." A modern living critic says Wagner was largely flambuoyant and theatrical. He loved pomp and circumstance. He wrote mystically about the music of the future ‘just as Hitler and his associates talk

majestically about the "third realm," meanwhile accompanying it with a show of parades, salutes, storm-troopss and other sorts of childish stapidity. Singing in Dialect. a N times gone by, the lusty choristers of northern England used to give more distinctiveness to their singing than now, by strictly following out the local pronunciation. On one remark-

nble occasion, indeed, at the Crystal Palace, the chorus singers of Yorkshire and Lancashire introduced some striking features into their vocalism, by adhering to their respective local accents, The chorus, "We Fly By Night." was finely rendered: by the alternations of Yorkshire bass voices and Lancashire altos, "We fioy by noight!" volleyed the former, while the latter broke in with their soft, melodious, "We flec by neet!"-the effect’ being, as the musical critics say, marvellous, "Father O'Flynn." HE words of this grand old ballad were written by an Episcopal clergyman in Ireland, named Graves. They were set to music by that sound Irish composer, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. This is a fair picture of the priest, who very often bears the crushing sorrows and shares the little joys of the poor. He is truly the father of his flock and scorns to shirk his traditional duty. Happily his sense of humour enables him to keep a stout heart and wear a smiling face amid a host of perplexities and minor wor‘ries,

Irish Wit. F these ‘men of God" many stories are told, one of. which is worthy ‘of quotation as it shows the readiness of repartee for which the Irish are justly famous. A priest laboured hard with one ofehis flock to induce him ro give up the habit of drinking, but ti: man was obdurate. "I. tell ye. Michael," said the priest, "whisky is your worst enemy, and you should keep as far away from it as you can." "My inimy, is it, Father,’ responded Michael, "and it was your riverence’s self that was tellin’ us inthe pulpit only last Sunday to love our inimies!" "So 1 was, Michael," rejoined the priest. "but was I anywhere telling you to swallow ‘em?’ The two recordings of "Father O'Flynn" that I know best are Reginald Whitehead’s on Parlophone (B10575) and Peter Dawson’s on H.M.V. (B88388). A Veteran Recorder. (GEORGE BAKER, the ever-excellent baritone, has been making records for over a quarter of a century, and is one of a quartet of surviving original record-makers, namely. Peter. Dawsen, Mark Hambourg. Stanley Kirby and himself. "G.B." claims to have sung for about 3000 records, since the early days when he first sang "Tommy Lad." being engaged then as an "extra." His first contract was for "Nellie Dean." and her best seller was "Star of My Soul,’ from Sydney Jones's "The Geisha." Mr. Baker looks forward to the time when metal strip records will have superseded the disc. A Vision of Naples. [NCLUDED in 1YA’s programme for Sunday, August 27; at 8.54 p.m., ix piano recording by William Murdoch containing two Debussy "Preludes." One, "Les Collines d’Anacapri," affords a movement in light, a sunny vision of the hills of Naples; a lively taranteila rhythm rolling along to the nonchalance of a popular refrain, and further, in the words of Alfred Cortot, "The delicious and banal nostaglia of a love cantilena mingles intensely with the vibrations of too blue a sky, wounded by the untiring and piercing animation of a rapid flute." Secondly, there is "Bruyere." "the pastoral and familisr poetry of a thicket where the penetrating perfume of the earth joins the dull splendour of purple patches." In painting these lovely scenes Debussy excels, in reproducing the composer’s tone-pictures William Murdoch is equally at home.