GRAMOPHONE NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 279, 24 November 1928, Page 9 (Supplement)

GRAMOPHONE NOTES.

ARTISTS AND THEIR RECORDS.

(By SOUNDBOX.).

Is there a licart that music cannot melt? iias! how is that rugged heart forlorn. —JAMES BEATTIE.

With a very pleasing tenor voice, John Turner sings two popular light songs most acceptably—"Somewhere a Voice is Calling" and "Sweet Early Violets." (B 2452, 10-inch.)

Two Tschaikowsky songs are 6ung by Maria Kurenko, the young Kussian'sop»ano, "Nur Wer Die Sehhsueht" ("Ye Who Have Learned Alone"), and "Wiegenlied" (Cradle Song). Feelingly sung, these songs will add to the laurels of this comparatively new artist.

"Monty" this month "meanders" on the choice of a career for his son. Here's one of his gems. "Surely a chap like me, with large overdrafts at three banks-er-and knows Steve Donahue personally, isn't going to shirk the problem, etc." As funny as ever, it's wonderful how Milton Hayes, the creator of "Monty,'' keeps it up. (01212, 10-inch.)'

When Massenet composed his "Elegie" he must surely have written one of the most poignant laments in' the whole realm of music. Essentially a song, it loses nothing of its sombre beauty as played by Albert Sammons, violinist. Very suitably Sammons has chosen iihei same composer's "Meditation" from his opera "Thais" with which to complete a very satisfactory record (02687,12-inch.)

The simplicity of Charles HackettV interpretation of "I Hear a Thrush at Eva," and "The World is Waiting for the Sunrise" is just what these simple songs require." It is not the sort of music by which Hackett has made his great reputation as a dramatic tenor, but he brings to these comparative trifles that sympathetic understanding that makes them things of beauty that will bring pleasure to many. (03596,10 in).

further Paul Whiteman issues include five. 10-inch, of which I like best '"Tain't So. Honey, 'Tain't So," (07003), "Blue Nights" (07006) and "Just Like a Melody Out of the Sky" (07007), though popular fancy will probably prefer "Felix the Cat" and "That's 'My Weakness" (07008) and "Driftwood" (07010), while the lover of, say, Gershwin's "Ehapsody in Blue" will be interested in the 12-inch number, "Tschaikowskiana" because of tha interesting way Whiteman treats it. ■(17504).. " ' __^ After speaking glowingly a fortnight a°:o about the only one of a series of rerecordings by Stracciari that I had had time to play, I promised to refer to the others after hearing them. WeU, I hsive played them over in company with a sounder critic than your humble servant, and the result bears out, through the series, what I had to say of "Largo al Factotum" from the "Barber of Seville," and "The Toreador Song," .from "Carmen." Perhaps none is more notable tlian another, though many will be interested to hear his reading of the "Pagliacci," "Prologue," while it is likely that most of his operatic work may he accepted as the standard for compari son. Space will not permit the listing of t'ae full issue, which comprises five 12in and two l_oin records. Percy Grainger offers a wealth of good things on a 12-inch and a 10-inch record. On the former he has (a) "Sheep and Goat Walkin' to the Pastures" (Guion), (b) "Gigue," by Bach, and Liszt's "Lietestraum," while the latter comprises his own arrangement of a Brahms "Cradlesong" and his own composition, "Molly on the Shore." The first item is as quaint as its unusual title leads one to expect. Who the composer Guion was2,nd what his period, my few books of reference fail to tell me, but I will hazard a guess that the sheep and goats piece was first played on a harpsichord —it gwes ows that impression. The Liszt number, so much better known, is capably rendered as are the cradle song and the pianist's own fascinating Irish reel. "Molly" I should imagine to be a delightfully roguish colleen—with a' way of her own. (04097, 12-inch and 03575, 10-inch.) ' ', •

When recordings of "theatre" organs, Wurlitzer, Kimball, Compton and whatnot, were first offered to the gramophone public, I heard a good deal of noniiensical snobbery talked by people who considered themselves very much above isuch poor stuff. Lately some of these critics have changed their views and now agree with me that the cinema organ has possibilities. It depends for its musical appeal (as distinct from the uncritical acceptance that welcomes popular music) upon two things, first the organist and then the music he may choose to record. Among the leading cinema-organists is G. T. Pattman (now bo big a man in his sphere, by the way, that he is billed as plain "Pattman") and when he chooses such items as Ketelbey's "In a Monastery Garden" and plays them so competently it is perhaps no great matter for wonder that the scoffers admit a change of view. This record (02683,12-inch) is completed with Ketelbey's 'Sanctuary of the Heart," while the second of Pattman's offerings for the month has Amy Woodforde Finden's "Four Indian Love Lyrics," "Temple Bells," "Less Than the Dust," "Kashmiri Song" and "Till I Wake."-

One of 'tie test things offered us this month is Tsckaikowsky's Trio No. 2 {Op. 50), dedicated, "To the Memory of the Great Artist," and usually known by the use of the dedicatory words as its title. The "great artist" was Nicholas Rubinstein, most widely known probably by his "Melody in F" who died in 1881, this work being specially composed by Tschaikowsky as a fitting tribute from a friend and fellow-artist. It has only two movements instead of the usual four. The opening movement "is passionate rather than gloomy in feeling; and though the principal subject has the solemn grandeur of a funeral march, the second subject marches on with triumphant energy, and the various episodes provide ample contrast. The second (and longer) movement Consists of an air and variations. The theme is said to be the melody of a folk song heard by the composer and his friend when they were in the country together." A fitting tribute, to enshrine in a work such as this, a melody that both had shared. The trio is played by Arthur Catterall (violin), W. H. Squire ('cello), and William Murdoch (piano). Each a noted soloist in his own field, the concerted work of these virtuosi is on the same high plane. The work is complete in six 12in records, and is issued in an album with descriptive notes.