MUSICAL RECORDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19418, 28 August 1926, Page 8 (Supplement)

MUSICAL RECORDS.

The School Gramophone Hour. 1. Get the right speed (78) at all costs,, and get the right needle for the room, the softer the better. 2. Put £he gramophone and blackboard side by side in front of the class (doors of gramophone open toward the children and as far as possible on a level with their ears) and stand between the two, gramophone to your right, blackboard to your left, as you face the children. 3. Practice the sections (bits) of the record which you are likely to want to repeat for the children, and it is well to let one of the older children learn to be vour assistant in this matter. It is possible to become very skilful in raising and gently lowering the needle and sound box while the record is going continuously. 4. Prepare the children for the subject. Let each have paper and pencil before them, and" set record going when dead silence has been secured. 5. Let children have the option of holding up their hands at any moment to have a piece of the record repeated which they want to hear again 6. Hear each record through at least twice before asking questions upon it. 7. Use pointer for board during the playing of that which is written on the board. ' , 8. Give the children chances to gently sing or hum the examples, but they must do it very softly and with the right lilt every time. 9. At the end of a lesson let them hear one record right through without interruption, teacher and all sitting down together to listen. This record may well be tho one appointed for study at the next lesson. This will quicken anticipation and interest. Paderewski is a wonderful technichian. His " Warum," from Schumann's " Aufschwung," is a delightful little piece. His best record is the Chopin " Etude in G. flat major," which really displays hw wonderful technique better than any other record does. How perfectly he plays the chromatic thirds and other passages of contrary motion ! v The creator of the waltz as we know it to-day—Johann Strauss —wrote many entrancing melodies that have been accepted the world over as paramount in their class. His beautiful compositions get all the artistic and sympathetic treatment they call for when played by such a fine combination as the Geiger Viennese Dance Orchestra. Alma Gluck, the popular soprano, is monetary as well as musical. Of her rendering of " Carry Me Back to 01' Virginny" a million records were sold. She paid £25,400 for a 21-room house on Fifth Avenue, New York, to which her husband, the one Zimbalist who only plays the violin, objected, saying that nobody can be in twenty-one rooms at once. For a typical Battistini eSort one could hardly choose a finer record of its class than the Verdi air, " Per me giunto e il di " —superb tone, sustained throughout with the utmost .artistry. De Luca also has a warm, rich baritone (with an occasional suspicion of tenor quality), and displays it to advantage when it is quite steady in the same piece. He manages his low notes —as does Bat' tistini—with greater adroitness than Titto Ruffo; but otherwise the latter pours out a lovely tone, with any amount of pathos and sobs galore. Compton Mackenzie, on the subject of " Tho Gramophone for Beginners," reminds us of a circumstance the importance of which cannot yet be determined: it is that " we have only had about three years of good music on the gramophone." Note first that the primary exclusive appeal to vulgar taste nearly ruined the industry, and secondly that the revision of policy, by which the appeal of the gramophone was extended to people' of pure taste and lofty ideal, not only saved the industry, but made it a flourishing thing: furthermore, it made gramophonists of musicians. The third, act of Meyerbeer's operatic masterpiece, "L'Africana," takes place on the deck of Vasco's Portuguese galleon —a marvellous picture illustrated by marvellous music, with Nelusko as the leading figure in each. He it is who causes the vessel's course to be changed, whereby she is wrecked and at the mercy of his barbaric brthren. Titto Ruffo has a splendid though brief record of the stirring call (" All'erta, marinar ") wherewith Nelusko arouses the sleeping sailors, but even more striking is his famous ballad, " Adamsistor, roi des vagues profondes," one of the most original things of the kind ever written. The, amazing energy and fine tone of Titto Ruffo, the clear coherent declamation of Pasquale Amato, make these well worth hearing. Haydyn's work posesses an intrinsic beauty and a vitality that have been delightfully brought out by the Lener String Quartet on many occasions. Again they interpret this genial composer with artistry and charm, their " Quartet in D minor " giving a production that will shortly be in the New Zealand gramophone stores. Its appealing, rippling melodies, some lovely song-like movements and a finale as virile and infectious as many a fox-trot will find ready reception here. Tonality is almost unusually good and the most subtle and delicate inflexions are done justice to by recording of a high order. This work will be completed in five parts, the third disc being given to Cesar Franck's " Quartet in D major " —poco lento.