THE GRAMOPHONE

Southland Times, Issue 19545, 8 May 1925, Page 11

THE GRAMOPHONE

RECORDS OF THE RECORDINGS. (By Vox Populi.) Beginning, on May 15 Begg’s are to run a series of gramophone recitals in the Victoria Hall. An opportunity to listen to the records made by Miss Edna Thomas is not a thing to disregard, and so when five of them came into my hands in one group, I was full of joy and eagerness to begin. Edna Thomas has recorded a number of the Negro Spirituals and some Creole Melodies for Columbia, and the results are entrancing. She has a mezzo soprano of pure quality, small, but inexpressibly sweet and smooth. It is rare to find any white woman who can give one the real tone and accent of the Negro without any suggest tion of over-colouring, but in these Spirituals she puts the negro of the American plantations right before one, not the comic nigger of the minstrel show, but the men and women who toiled in the fields and made their songs from their natural sense of rhythm and melody combined with their strong religious fervour. Nothing could be more impressive than “Were You There?” which is given with just the right weight of reverance and awe, nothing could be more appealing than “Gwina Lay Down My Burden,” or satisfying than her dignified reading of “Go Down, Moses.” All these are entirely different in character, but all are one in being true of the soil, true folk music. “My Old Kentucky Home” and “Carry Me Back to Old Virginie” give one a chance to compare her with other singers in these well-known songs, and in each case Miss Thomas gives one a fine, delicate flavouring which makes her work unique. “Keep a-inchin’ Along,” and “I Wanna Be Ready,” are excellent, too. The two Creole melodies are charming, delicately fine with a thread of sadness running through them both. “Ai Suzzette,” is probably the more enjoyable of the two, but both are extremely beautiful and make one long to hear the singer in the flesh. One thing noticeable about Miss Thomas’s singing ii> the wonderful “living” quality of her tone. At times it goes ringing on like a tone from a banjo, more beautiful than any that instrument can produce, but of the same quality. The five records I heard were Columbia’s:

3361—‘Tse Been ’Buked,” and “Gwina Lay Down My Burden,” and “Go Down, Moses.” 3370—“ Carry Me Back to Old Virginie,” “I Wanna Be Ready,” and “Tone de Bell.” 3398—“ Little Wheel a’ Turnin’ In My Heart,” and “Keep a-inchin’ Along,” and “Were You There?” 3526—“Ai Suzzette” and “All My Sins Are Taken Away.” 3549—“Gwina Lay Down My Burden,” and "Chere mo lemme toi,” and "My Old Kentucky Home.”

Most people play their gramophones far too loudly (observes a correspondent). Be satisfied with a reproduction which gives as nearly as possible the illusion of listening to the voice or orchestra from well back in an ordinary concert-room. This can be obtained with a soft needle, preferably a fibre without the loss of quality and harshness of tone which inevitably attends any attempt to extract from the record by main force, all that was put into it, including the wax. You can shut your eyes and imagine yourself at the Queen’s Hall, but a Queen’s Hall without rustling, programmes or anyone discussing their servants or illnesses' in a seat behind you, and you can listen/ to Brahms’s No. 2 without having your present enjoyment spoilt by the subconsciousness of something you loathe to follow. If anyone is inclined to think that this is a too optimistic estimate 'of the present powers or recording let them try the latest H.M.V. version of Schubert’s “Unfinished,” and if they will be content to listen to it from a back seat, as it were, I think they will admit that it brings us at least a step nearer to the ideal. A committee of the League of Nations has been set the task of selecting the best 500 books of worldwide repute which, as a whole, should be read as a standard of international literature. It were probably of more importance (thinks a correspondent) if the League, of Nations appoint a committee of musicians and musical critics to choose 500 records best calculated to promote the unity of nations. And what more pleasant soul-satisfying method can there be of hastening the realisation of Burns— Let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a’ that, That man to man the world wide o’er Shall brothers be for a’ that. —than that of spreading the gospel of international brotherhood by means of music via the gramophone? Mr A. T. Story writes to the London Observer” : “I wonder if you could find space for the following suggestion, which might possibly meet the eye of some cunning man who could bring it to birth? I am a great reader, have been all my days, but as my years are now piling up by the tens and twenties, I find my eyes are getting weary of the task of reading before my brain is tired. So it has occured to me that if I could have a gentle gramophone at my elbow which I could turn on to one or other of our great writers of prose, or singers of poesy, it would be a vast boon, not only to me, but to many others.

“I suggested the idea to a fried who lives in the country, who replied: “It would be nice at candle-light time.”

“I would not wish to have current literature thus filmed and lent out to hire. But how many good and great things there are which thousands would like to have on tap when needed, or longed for; and, may I add, what a splendid aid it would be to the young—and the old, too —for getting the best pronounciation of our language! I may be premature, but I foresee the day when this method will help in the teaching of English in our schools, and foreign tongues also. “Of course, anything in the way of literature put the gramophone would need to be very select, in the voice of a good reader, with perfect intonation. Then of course—there are books and books, just as there is fruit and fruit. And one does not want to have crab apples, sloes, ete., put before one when there is the best of fruit to be had.”

His Master’s Voice Gramophone Company, who were consulted on the subject, said they are always glad to receive suggestions. Naturally the company would have to be guided by the prospect of what kind of general demand there may be for the records that are proposed. It was sugested that if Dickens, who read his books to enthusiastic audiences all over Great Britain and America, could have recorded these readings on the gramophone, there would have been and would still be a great demand for them. And what was practically certain about Dickens to-day might well be expected to be equally certain fifty years hence, and probably before, about Barrie, Shaw, Galsworthy, and other writers of the present day if they would consent to record by their own voice selections from their own works.