THE GRAMOPHONE

Southland Times, Issue 19291, 9 July 1924, Page 10

THE GRAMOPHONE

Records of the Recordings

(By

Vox Populi.)

Mr H. Wild, the “Sound Wave,’4 has an enthusiastic appreciation of two records containing a practically complete reproduction of Western Nicholl’s fine tone poem for brass band, “The Viking” played by Black Dyke Mills Band. This is the first recording to give, in anything approaching completeness, an important work especially written for the brass. “The Viking” was composed for the Halifax Brass Band Festival last year; it illustrates scenes from one of the old Norse Sagas, but, as good programme music should, it holds up quite satisfactorily on its musical merits alone. The playing, by the*Black Dyke, deserves special commendation. Not only is it perfect on the technical side, but the interpretation is a most poetic one. The light and shade are delightful, and there is a very pleasant feeling of individuality throughout that gives an unusual vitality to the rendering. It is not so much the precision of a well-drilled body, as the certainty of a collection of artists, each one more than capable of his job. The recording is good—surprisingly good in its truthfulness to tone in the softer parts—though there is at times a slight tendency to rattle in some of the more strenuous portions. On the whole, though, the defects are slight compared with the virtues, and I can cordially recommend these records to everyone who appreciates good music well rendered. I also hope they may have the effect of disabusing the minds of a good many people who know no better, of the idea that a brass band is, of necessity, loud and noisy. A writer in the north remarks that one of the best recordings of male part singing he has ever heard —the best in fact —is to be heard on a 10-inch double side by the De Reszke Singers. This record is now in New Zealand. “There are three items— Simple Simon,’ ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ and ‘Doctor Foster’ (all from Hughes),” he writes. "The singing is splendid, the recording perfect, and the disc one that every collector certainly ought to have. You are quite safe in buying it without first hearing it.” I have heard Hayes’s record of “Go Down, Moses,” and I notice that John Payne has recorded this spiritual also. I should like to bear it. On the reverse side is “Water Boy.” Zdenko Fibich, whose “Souvenir Poetique” Elman recently recorded, was a Bohemian, and therefore the compatriot of Dvorak and Smetant. He was the son of a forester. He was trained in Bohemia, and in Germany, and developed into a prolific composer—some seven hundred works have been credited to him in thirty-five years of his musical life. He was born in 1850, and died in 1900. He left operas, symphonies and larger orchestral works, and a great number of piano pieces and shorter compositions. This record should be here soon. Harp music, when it is good is very, very 7 good, and therefore one welcomes the announcement that we have now available “To a Water Lily” from Macdowell’s “Woodland Sketches” and the first of the “Spring Fairies” (Hamilton Harty) played on the harp by Sidonie Goosens, a noted performer in the Old World. For gramophone nights, Carmen Hill (mezzo), Walter Glynne (tenor), and Peter Dawson (baritone), have recorded amongst them six very pleasing items. “A Memory” (Goring Thomas', and “The First Kiss” (Sibelius), are on the Carmen Hill bracket; Walter Glynne sings “I Love a Little Cottage” (O’Hara), and “The Golden Key of Love” (Juleff), while Mr Dawson presents a welcome mixture of old-time and up-to-the-minute vocal music in Balfe’s fine old ballad, “The Arrow and the Song,” and Gustav Hoist’s “Lovely Kind and Kindly Loving.” All of these fall easily and pleasingly on the ear, requiring no intellectual effort—just the sort of thing one desires to listen to in a quiet hour by the fireside. A record that will get you going is ‘"Haggis” (Albany Dance Orchestra), which, as may be supposed, is Scottish all the way through. Introducing the favourite old air, “The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond.” it makes an irresistible fox-trot, and is very enjoyable as “straight music.” Bracketed to this is another good fox-trot, “Twelve O’clock at Night.” “Nobody But You” (Johns’s Orchestra', and “Ev’ry Night I Cry Myself to Sleep Over You” (Manhattan Merrymakers), are good fox-trot numbers, while lovers of the jazz waltz cannot pass “Sleep Waltz” (Waring’s Pennsylvania), and “I’m Drifting Back to Dreamland” (Benson's Orchestra). Also worth hearing arc "When It's Night Time in Italy” and “Arabinna” (Albany Orchestra). “Down on the Farm” Manhattan Orchestra) may appeal to some —not to me —while “Mean Blues” (Silverman’s Orchestra) lives up to the name. Two recorded items which should appeal to lovers of the harp come from Sidonie Gossens “To a Water Lily” (from Macdowell’s “Woodland Sketches”), and “Spring Fancies No. 1” (Hamilton Harty).