MUSICAL RECORDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19460, 16 October 1926, Page 8 (Supplement)

MUSICAL RECORDS.

Maurice Ravel, the famous French composer, appeared recently in England as a pianist, playir.g a number of his own works, including a novel arrangement for two pianos, based on his delightful " Mother Goose," suite. There is a splendid record of this work played hy the Halle Orchestra, conducted hy Sir Hamilton Ilarty.

The latest organ record has been made by Reginald Goss-Custard at the Kingsway Hall, London. The small (early Weimar) Prelude and Fugue in G minor of Bach is well played and, with a few exceptions, the reproduction is remarkably clear. The tone quality comes out. as always, very truthfully. Indeed, these, organ records, from the point of view of tone reproduction, are among the striking successes of recent gramophone work.

The poignant duet from the death scene in " La Boheme," sung by Lucrezia Bori and Tita Schipa, is lovely singing. Mma. Bori brings a wonderful sense of tragedy, yet beauty, to her tender delivery of Mimi's music. Her middle register notes are purest of the pure, and infinitely sweet and appealing. Schipa is less satisfying vocally, but in the tragic outbursts toward the close his splendid impassioned pleadings show him to be a dramatic artist of merit. A splendid disc.

A good 12in. disc gives us the Trinity Choir in Handel's " Hallelujah Chorus " and Mozart's "Gloria" (from "Twelfth Mass ") —two really fine performances, faultlessly recorded. The Cabaret Novelty Orchestra makes its debut with four dances. One of them, "Villa Rosa (Funiculi, Funicula!)," is the pick of recent danco hits, and of the others " The Prisoner's Song " receives one of the clearest renderings we have heard given to this growingly-popular waltz.

It is a far cry :'rom Haydn to Luigini's

"Ballet Egyptien," reproduced now under the conductorship of Percy Fletcher by the New Light Symphony Orchestra. The music by now has become very familiar. It glitters and shimmers in the very best " Liberty " Egyptian manner as we all know, and it has this much added to its credit, that on its original production, now a good many years ago, it gave rise to a controversy which resulted in the production of several other suites, all of which it defeated in the public esteem, and all of which it obviously has survived, since it itself is constantly in evidence while one can but barely remember the titles of the others.

Since last I wrote of gramophone re cords and especially of orchestral records, several more have found their way to me and have been well and truly tried and tested, and I confess that I find almost daily improvement in" the recording of the several instruments or groups of instruments and in the closer resemblance to actuality (writes Robin H. Legg in the London Daily Telegraph). In one such record I heard, almost for the first time, the tap of a drum that sounded more like a real drum and less like the bottom of a tin bath, than I had heard before. This in itself is an improvement, of course. But so it is with other instruments and perhaps ■ especially with the strings. Now, one frequently hears violin or other string tones, and that is a great advance. In-this month's batch are two records of extracts from " Der Ring," namely, " Siegfried's Journey to the Rhine " from " Gottcrdammerung " and " The Magic Fire " music from " Die Walkure," both conducted by Albert Coates, and played by the Symphony Orchestra of 94 players. These records were actually created in Queen's Hall, and that in consequence these are two of the very finest of all the Wagner records that I have ever heard I have not the slightest doubt.

Beethoven proved his unconquerable pride and spirit when he wrote some of his greatest works during a period of disruptive domestic unrest, and while conscious of the heart-breaking fact that his deafness was increasing. He was a genius who had passed along the whole gamut of sorrow and joy. Ten years before ho wrote the " A Minor Quartet" he had achieved undying fame, but when his privafe troubles then came, his fiiends more than half expected him to fade from the musical firmament, or from being a shining star therein. Instead, difficulties goaded him on to work and greater work in order to forget and to surmount. His A Minor" is one of these expressions of the man and his mission. It is as full of life and light and freshness as his own mind was dark and harassed. It is an easier work to follow than much of the earlier Beethoven, and for this reason alone unpractised arrivals in the chamber music sphere will find it a sheer delight throughout. It has rhythm and beautiful melody, few complexes, brilliant pauses and changes of attack, and dramatic passages for the basses where the mood and form call for them. An idea is seized on and kept to and developed, until it blossoms out into something rarer and finer than Beethoven ever wrote, or that is the impression one gets and which, doubtlessly, he meant to convey. The adagio is delightfully in keeping with the composer's desire to write a " sacred song of thanks to God for restoration to health"—this following a serious illness. The genlle andante, again suggests his joy at convalesence and recovery, and in the combination of the two ideas he wreathes thoughts that one can sense as being expressive of -a mood one. can well imagine. There is a march-like section in the last movement that is succeeded by an allegro appassionato of pellucid clarity. The very capable Lener String Quartet are the artistes linked with this set and they have, seldom played with more sympathy and restraint. Perhaps a trifle more contrast between their loudest and softest tones would have been an advantage, and the viola and 'cello could have done with a fraction more strength, in some of the contr'apunal work, but their interpretation and treatment, as a whole are good enough to make this set of Beethoven's tine to be enviably acquired and'carefully used.