THE GRAMOPHONE CORNER

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18577, 27 September 1928, Page 4

THE GRAMOPHONE CORNER

GRACE NOTES.

(By "VIVACE”). Mme. Elisabeth Rethbe-rg is to make ker debuT shortly on " His Master’s, Voice ” records with two magnificent ®erformances of excerpts from early TVagnerian drama. "To hear this •upreme dramatic soprano recorded adequately at last is most pleasing and •ratifying to the millions of music lovers who are her admirers,” says a London musical writer. " Rethberg is a singer apart, she has a marvellous

voice, full throated, warm toned and of general velvety texture that must enrapture the least perceptive; she towers above the majority of her contemporaries in her intellectual use of this wonderful voice." 3S X M Vienna reports that an American Coup of art patrons has offered the irs of Antonin Dvorak some 200,000 dollars for the composer’s manuscripts and works (according to report those works he was engaged upon while in America). Members of the family, however, have offered the manuscripts first to Czecbo-Slovakian officials before entertaining the American offer. 9$ Bundles of next month’s issue of H.M.V. and Columbia records have reached me for review. Gramophiles will find much to entertain them amongst the discs offered. *; a si The “Ja zz Opera,” "Jonny Spielt Auf.” by Krenek, has proved such a fiop in Paris that only 50 or 60 people attended at each performance after the opening/ night. All reports of those who have seen Krenek’s “Jonny Spielt Auf” in Paris agree that the presentation was a pretty dull affair. H-H.B. in the Paris "Times” describes the audience: "It hissed a little, applauded a little, and snickered a great deal. It did not riot. The audience did not think ‘Jonny Spielt Auf’ was worth a riot.”

Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the famous Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, will conduct a new orchestra in Paris for part of next year. The new orchestra plans an intensive summer season in Paris and will set forth the talents of a number of eminent guest conductors. The town has emulated New York in recent weeks by turning it£ attention to orchestras and their conductors. Wilhelm Furtwaengler has had a veritable triumph in Paris of late with his own orchestra from Berlin. Mengelberg’s concerts were sold out. :: Joseph Szigeti is now in Russia, making his eighth tour since 1924. In addition to a series of concerts in Leningrad and Moscow, he is playing in Baku and Tifiis from where be wrote . *'We had unforgettable experiences—a drive of nine hours through scenery surpassing anything in Switzerland, visits to Persian mosques, carpet weavers, Armenians and Tartar;:, strange market places, etc., and extraordinary audiences.” Mr Szigeti returns to England next month, when, no doubt, we can expect further Columbia records. Mr Szigeti will visit New York in January next, afterwards returning to Europe. Percy Grainger opened the summer series of artist recitals given under the auspices of the Chicago. Musical College in Central Theatre on June 26 with a '.ecture-recital o n Many-Voiced Music For Pianists. As was to be expected, he genial pianist's ipproach to his subect was as-original as it was interestng. Emphasising .he necessity for a ieat understanding of the separate component voices of polyphonic music. Mr Grainger advocated a rearrangement of the Bach fugues for several instruments, illustrating his ideas by having four-voice fugues played on four pianos, with each pianist playing one voice in octaves. Similar arrangements were illustrated for four harmoniums, an instrument, by the way, which Mr Grainger highly extols. Like the marimba, xylophone, and other instruments of American origin, he believes its possibilities are unduly neglected by native musicians and the public. The Columbia Paul Whiteman records are reported to be selling like hot cakes. Especially is this so in the case of the recording of the old favourites. No one should miss the “La Paloma”- and “La Golondrina.” t> K 3 Reviews. Columbia have the honour of being the first company to place on the market records commemorating the twentyninth Eucharistic Congress, which has just concluded at Sydney, This they do with four recordings by the choir of St Etheldreda Roman Catholic Church, Ely Place, London. The reI cords are beautiful examples of record-

ing, rich in tone, full of depth and realistic. They are issued with special labels. The recordings are as follows: "O Salutaris” (Webbe) and “Tan* turn Ergo” (Traditional), from the Benediction; “Ave Maria" and “Ave Verum ” (Mozart) from the Mass: “ Inclina ad me" (H-irhmel) and “Veni Creator" (Palestrina): “Faith of Our Fathers” and “ Hail Queen of Heaven.” The " Vcni Creator,” sung without organ, is especially impressive. Xo one should miss these wonderful choral recordings. Note, too, the lovely soprano voice in each.

k Sir Hamilton Harty conducts the Halle Symphony Orchestra in two numbers from Berlioz's “ Damnation of Faust”—“Dance of the Sylphs” and “Rakoczy March.” Columbia recorded these in the home of the Halle Orchestra, the Free Trade Hall, Manchester. They are rich in detail and full of colour, the well-known “ Rakoczy March ” especially, so. We 'hear all too few of Berjioz’s works, and anyone who likes good orchestra music should hear this record. U K ST Mapia Kurenko again appears in the Columbia list, this time with," Mi Chiamano Mimi ” from Puccini's “ La Boheme" and “II Bacio” (Arditi) Kurenko’s voice is a brilliant one, flexible in the extreme, but she has few of the other qualities that make GalliCurci, for instance, so pleasant to listen to. The “ II Bacio ” will explain. It leaves one with the feeling that one ha® been listening to the music, of a machine, beadtiful in execution but lacking in feeling and warmth. The “ La Boheme ” excerpt, however, is better sung. The famous Italian mandolin band, Circolo Mandolinistico Guiseppe Verdi of Leghorn, an organisation of sixtyfive performers, has made an exceedingly pleasing recording of Rossini’s “ Seipiramide ” overture. The band is a unique organisation, and its recordings are marked by individuality and colour. This recording is marked by both these qualities, is played with vigour and recorded with life-like brilliance. « Two light orchestral discs in the October H.M.V. programme are “The Waltz Dream” (O. Strauss) played by De Groot and the Piccadilly Orchestra), and “Serenades,” by Schubert and Toselli, played by the Salon Orchestra, “The Waltz Dream” takes up both sides of a 10-inch plum label disc. The recording is good in both discs and the orchestral work pleasing. 55 X 55 i Another outstanding vocal number i in tho JI.M.V. list is that of Giovanni Martinelli, the famous Metropolitan Opera tenor. Martinelli records two evergreen favourtes, “Celeste Aida” and the “La Boheme” aria “Che Gelida Manina.” I wonder is there a tenor anywhere who haS not sung these numbers ? Martinelli makes a wonderful recording. His voice, ip a powerful one, but he uses it with discerning restraint. x jc “Jungle Drums” and “By the Blue Hawaiian Waters,” both by Ketelby, are played with great expression by the Regimental Band of H.M. Grenadier Guards. The former is a patrol, with the usual attributes of such band numbers, the latter is a tone picture. Both are clearly executed and well recorded. SC » X Feodor Chaliapin is again the outstanding singer of the October H.M.V. list. I know of no other recording artist whose voice is more vibrant with pulsing live. He is real. Those who remember his “Death of Boris” will like his new records, “How Goes It, Prince?” Khan Kontchak’s aria from Borodin’s “Prince Igor,” and “Song of the Viking Guest,” from “Sadko” (Rimsky-Korsakov). They are dramatic numbers, and require a. basso voice such as Chaliapin's. The recording is excellent. :c sc Berlin's interest in the opera can be best estimated by the fact that all three municipal opera houses (Uh ter den Linden, Platz der Republik, and Nollendorfplatz) are playing seven nights a week to completely sold out houses,

writes R. H. Woolstein in “Musical America.” The repertoire is catholic enough—Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, Strauss, lighter works (like Der Schwarze Domino), and novelties (such as Jonny Spielt Auf)—and' the casts are uniformly excellent. If the stellar system does not obtain, neither, thricb happily for Berlin, is there any shoddi-' ness. Under the very capable direction of Leo Bled), the musical value of each; performance touches a high point of thoroughness and worth. Particularly noteworthy is the attention to costume and scenic effect that Germany as a whole is lavishing her productions. Berlin takes its opera strictly as opera, and not in the least as fashion or pastime, I have heard not one but several ordinary Berlin business men say that before going to a Wagner performancej they prepare themselves “inwardly,” as though they were about to attend some high church rite. Considering this, no cuts are permitted: The Meistersinger began at six-thirty, and let out at twenty-eight minutes past eleven. m k a Other H.M.V. discs will be reviewed next week.