PERSONALITIES of the week

Radio Record, Volume IX, Issue 2, 19 July 1935, Page 10

PERSONALITIES

of the week

TWO ORCHESTRAS ANY Continental orchestras take their names from their original conductors. An English example is the Manchester organisation, the Halle Orchestra. European examples include Marek Weber, Paul, Godwin, Edith Lorand, ete. The Association des Concerts Lamoureux, Paris, is named after its founder, Charles Lamoureux (1834-99),

and its concerts at the Salle Gaveau are among the most important musical eyents in Paris. The present leading conductor is M. Paul Paray. Of American symphony orchestras, the fine combination which was established in Detroit in 1914 is among the best-known and most popular. The orchestra gives

regular concerts, and its programmes are outstandingly ambitious, The present conductor is Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the noted pianist. GERALDO’S TANGOS ERALDO, of dance-band fame, has definitely revolutionised the tango for Mnglish consumption, and by writing and arranging his own conceptions of this exotic dance he has focused public attention upon it. At the outset of his career in England, Geraldo was warned by booking agents and other professional musicians that, in their opinion, it would not catch on. He persisted, and his championship of this dance form has certainly borne ample fruit. Among the’ better-known tangos that he introduced and made into big sellers may be mentioned "Donna Clara," "There’s Something in Your Byes," "Jealousy," and "Lady of Spain," which last he now uses as his signature tune. "As performed in the ‘cafes chantants’ of Madrid and other cities of Spain, the tango has become nothing but an incitation to desire," says Grove’s dictionary. Gerald’s tangos are models of politeness. "JAZZ? NOT DYING "py AZZ" is inevitable, It wili not- ~ eannot-die," says Carroil Gibbons, "unless the entire world goes backward. And that is impossible. Like everything else new or novel, dance music, as known to-day, has got there in face of bitter strife. So did wireless. So did talkies. So did. the gramophone, and the motor-car, Remember the days, not so long ago, when people grumbled about ‘canned’ music. Now it is nearly all canned, but I would hesitate to say that the death knell of music in the home has been sounded because of this. Do not think, highbrows; that because a person enjoys ‘jazz, he or she js unfit to be treated to the classics, or that he or she cannot appreciate them. Remember Drnest Newman’s tributes to Duke Ellington, whose ‘sincere admirer he is!’ ANOTHER JUBILEE ITHIN a month or two, Sir Landon Ronald celebrates his 25th birthday as Principal of the London Guildhall School of Music. After three times refusing this post, owing to pressure of work, it was largely through the’ persuasiveness of his friend, Sir John Pakeham, still a leading member of the Court of Common Council, that he consented to take the appointment in 1910. He took it for three years only, but is still there. Under his experienced attention a class at the school specialises in good comic opera. At the time of Sir Landon’s appointment the demand for young people capable of singing and acting in comic opera was tremendous; the demand for grand opera a nil, Since then times have chang-

"HIKING" HISTORIAN ‘PROFDSSOR GHORGH MACAULAY TREVELYAN, O.M., C.B.H.; is a great hiker. In the course of an admirable essay on the subject he says: "In the medicinal use of walking, as the

Sabbath Day reflection of the tired town worker, companionship is good, and the more friends who join us on the tramp the merrier. For there is not time, as there is on the longer holiday. or walking tour, for body and mind to attain that point of training when the higher eestasies Of walking are felt through the whole being, those joys that crave silence and solitude. And, indeed, on these humbler occasions, the first half of the day’s walk, before the Human Machine has recovered its tone, may be dreary enough without the laughter. of good company ringing round the interchange of genial and irresponsible yerdicts on the topics of the day. For this reason informal walking societies shonld be formed among friends in town for week-end or. Sabbath walks in the neighbouring country. I never get better talk than in these moving parliaments, and good talk is itself something. A Sunday well spent Means a week of content. "phat is, of course, a Sunday spent with both legs swinging all day ovet ground where grass or heather grows. IT have often known the righteous forsaken and his seed begging for bread, put I never knew a man go'for an honest day’s walk, for whatever distance, great or small, his pair of compasses could measure out in the time, and not have his reward in the repossession of his own soul." ‘PARKINGTON’S NAME HD most frequent unofficial broadeaster at -the B.B.C. must be Gershom Parkington, who, apart from his justly popular quintet and saxophone orchestra, appears on occasion as a ’cello soloist, Wasily recognisable as a musician, he has a wave of hair reminiscent of portraits of the Abbe ‘Liszt. He has. interested himself closely in the musical side of dra-

matie work-a task which demands a certain amount of genuine enthusiasm ; most musicians. find it galling to be "faded out" by an inexorable producer after a dozen bars or so, In private life Gershom Parkington is a collector of clocks’ and watches. His house rustles and echoes with the ticking and striking of timepieces of every size and century, Some of them play tunes every hour, A rare piece in his eollection is a Cromwellian alarm clock. He has also night-clocks in which a candle is placed behind the face and lights up the hands and figures. When he has an afternoon to spare, he coaxes an elderly motor-car into action and prowls about the Home counties in search of additions to his collection. Still under forty, his Christian name,

Gershom, a Biblical one, means "a stranger in a strange land." A NATIONAL CHORUS HEN, seven years ago, the B.B.C. decided to reorganise the national chorus on a permanent and purely amateur basis, with the help and goodwill of existing choral and other similar societies, the tests frightened Singers. Wach applicant was expected to sing a suitable solo from a Handel oratorio, pass a sight-reading test, and sing up and down the scale to the limits of his or her compass. The response was far from exciting, mounting to four a week, until Mr. Geoffrey Shaw gave a broadcast talk. Then things began to happen. Applications jumped to 300 a day, and from, 3000 choral singers

the present national chorus of 250 was recruited, after auditions; with what results listeners full well know. Dyery member must become or must remain a member of an accredited amateur choral society,