GRAMOPHONE NOTES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 30 December 1924, Page 3

GRAMOPHONE NOTES

The following letter was recently addressed by Sir Walford Davies to the London Press:-—“The comments of Sir Landon Donald on the decision of the Leeds education authority to provide its schools with gramophones merit the applause of every broad-minded educationist. In Wales we moved in this matter three years ago, and now several hundred schools regularly use the gramophone. Many of these schools are situated in very out-of-the-way places, where the only music heard is made by amateurs whose repertoire is very limited. The gramophone is breaking down this musical isolation. It has brought thousands of children and adults into personal touch with the thoughts of the great masters in music. Here in Wales, as a direct result, we have had a butcher boy going on his rounds whistling a Bach gavotte. The gramophone has given this lad his first experience of

fine music. Ts not this a convincing testimony of the tremendous social force of the gramophone, if used with discretion and dignity? In my opinion, the gramophone is contributing beyond measure to the revival of interest in real music.”

“Love of good music is growing; a healthy, sturdy growth making for contentment and happiness, which will be the harvest hereafter in countless homes in city, town, and village. The phonograph and its records alone make it possible to carry the actual voice, the varied orchestra, the skill of the artist, with the reproduction of the most delicate chords, into cottage and castle alike.”

1 In the foregoing remark Sir George Croydon Marks summarises an opinion which is rapidly spreading in most countries, and certainly in Australia. The fact that music is not a luxury, but a necessity, has been generally agreed. Besultantly there is now a universal demand for the phonograph, in its modern perfection as a musical instrument, at the same time being manufactured as a piece of furniture of such design and quality as will satisfy all tastes and purses. Sir George Marks has closely allied himself with the development of the phonograph for the past thirty years, and at a recent trade dinner in England gave a most interesting address in the presence of a large gathering of journalists.

“The phonograph and he said, “were by no-means of sudden growth, neither were they the result of accident or mere chance creation, for in 1779'the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg offered a prize for the production of :y machine that would reproduce speech. Many attempts were made to win this prize, and subsequently an Austrian devised an apparatus, from which, by the use of a reed, he was able to get some reproduction of sound. In 1877, however, a Frenchman conceived and developed an idea for a machine that was to be a talking machine. It was not, however, until in that same year, singularly enough, that Edison took the matter lip seriously to produce a practical machine. He had, when in collaboration with Professor Alexander Bell, while working on the telephone device, devised a toy in which there was a funnel and a diaphragm at its end, having a little pawl which moved a ratchet wheel when the diaphragm vibrated, and this wheel in turn,' by a string, moved a paper toy shaped like a man sawing wood; so that when Edison shouted into the funnel “Mary had a little lamb,” the paper man started “sawing wood.” This was the genesis of the phonograph. He- then thought that if he could only record the movement of that diaphragm lie might be able to reproduce the human voice. He sketched out his idea of a little machine, and gave it to one of his workmen, named Kreuse, to make, marking the price of eighteen dollars on it.

Kreuse asked what the thing was to do when he made it. Said Edison: “I told him I was going to record talking, and then have a machine talk back.” Krause did not reply, but simply looked in pity at Edison, and started oil' to make the machine.

When it was finished Edison put tinfoil on the cylinder, and after adjusting the reproducer -shouted what appears to have been a, favourite doggerel, “Mary had a little lamb.” Tho reproducer was adjusted, and it then reproduced the words perfectly. They were astonished. Kreuse, the workman, was awe-struck with amazement, and exclaimed,/“Mein Gott in ITimmel.”

This machine, costing eighteen dollars—the very first, practical phono

graph —can now be seen in the South Kensington Museum. The phonograph became a world-sensation, but it was used chiefly for exhibition purposes. An interesting note, on Schumann’s pianoforte pieces, written by Benno Moiseivitseh, appeared recently in the Strand Magazine:—“One of the curious things about Schumann’s compositions is that among his notable works, to which one must- give prominent mention, is a little collection of the easiest of all his compositions to play —the “Kinderscenen’—hut they require a person of a great deal of psychology, as well as musical gifts, to do them justice. One needs imagination and sympathy to realise their poetic atmosphere. For instance, one of them is called “Almost Too Serious” (Fast zu Ernst”). Anybody taking it up and trying it over will play the notes well! enough because the music is not difficult: hut until you have given the iin- 1 pression of a peculiar phase of mind j that the piece is meant to convey, it simply does not exist—you have nothing like the right reading. To me, it | always suggests the idea of a little hoy, rather plump and rosy-cheeked, doing something—amusing himself—and doing it very heavily, pretending this is the most important tiling in the world; and you must give that impression. or you have not played the piece. There are scores of piece's like this in Schumann, where you not only have to play the music, interpreting musically, hut you must interpret intellectually and descriptively as well; you must j get, into the psychology, as here, of I the child whom Schumann had in ! mind when he composed these things.”j The foregoing is interesting, and should! suggest to gramophone listeners a new j attitude of attention. Take a simple example like his “Fruhlingsnaeht” as played by Moiseivitseh—this record, by the wav, is bracketed with another Schumann number, “Traumeswirren” —and see if you can catch the suggestion conveyed l»v the player in his article.