The Gramophone and the Christmas Holidays
CHRISTMAS holidays will soon be upon us, and I therefore propose to discuss the part which can be played by the gramophone in making them at once pleasant for the juniors and bearable for their parents. I venture to suggest that an intelligent patent, by purchasing the records which will be described in this article will be able to send his children back next term with their lives permanently enriched.
It is one of the few advantages which we seem to derive from our " educational system ' that nothing pleases children more about their holidays than the opportunity which they give to learn something, so long of course as that something does not seem to have anything to do with lessons or school. H.M.V. have given all parents the chance of an ideal Christmas this year from this point of view, by publishing on six records twelve talks on melody-making by Sir Walford Davies, which caress the listener to an understanding and an enthusiasm for mere notes, lead the rash to compose (if only with one finger) on the piano, and open the ears of all. The talks describe what a melody is, how it is begun, continued, and finished, and every point is illustrated by snatches of piano and violin playing. Personally I do not enjoy lectures by gramophone : all lectures as vehicles of learning are anachronisms from before the days of cheap printing, and only suitable for mediaeval backwaters like the Universities ; and you can buy a larger and better book on any subject cheaper than a gramo- phone lecture on the same subject. But these talks are in a different category. I have tried them on children and they are successful.
With them can be bought three supplementary records wherein piano, violin and 'cello play further illustrations of Sir Walford Davies' words : these are also good, but more important still are the two records published by H.M.V. illustrating the instruments of the orchestra, C1311 and C1312 ; I recommend these and an attendance at an orchestral concert as a further part of the Christmas holidays. Another thing which very happily supplements the talks is a Columbia record L 1934 on which sketches from Beethoven's note books are played, to show how some of his best-known themes grew from early beginnings.
It is curious to watch the effect of a continuous stream of miscellaneous music upon children : in this household two boys aged ten and nine are subjected to nearly all the-gramo- phone records which are issued ; not formally or forcefully, of course, but they overhear them when attending to their own affairs ; and the music played " by special request " may be of assistance to parents who wish to add a few good compositions to the above educational records. This month rather naturally Roger Quilter's .Children's Overture, a Parlo- phone issue, has met with much approval, as also Parlophone's excellent record of two Dvorak Slavonic Dances. Columbia's Kirkby Malzeard Sword Dance, H.M.V.'s superb Stuart Robertson record of four popular favourites, including Polly Wolly Doodle and the Mermaid, Columbia carols sung by the St. George's singers (especially The Holly and the Ivy), all these will add to any Christmas festivity.
It is curious to note the effect on children of music to which they are not required to listen, and to which, indeed, nobody knows that they are listening ; certain motifs seem to stick, and one can never guess which they will be. In this house I constantly hear the great theme from the last movement of the Brahms First Symphony being shouted by a Red Indian as a war cry, while in the bath for several nights running the first movement of Beethoven's Appassionata has beenheard, curiously hummed as if the bather had swallowed a saxophone. All this knowledge of good things is, of course, denied in con- versation, when I am informed that " only jazz is good music." Nevertheless, I have been thrice requested to put on the Appassionata at bedtime, and told that it was " the best thing I have heard yet from that fellow Beathoven." The gramo- phone certainly provides a new musical background for children.
Cheapness is an essential in all walks of life for the pater- familias ; it is relevant to my main theme, therefore, to mention certain welcome signs of lower prices. Most spec- tacular is the " Broadcast Twelve " issue of the whole of Schubert's Unfinished on three records at two shillings a record, and 'of two movements of the Schumann piano quintet for four shillings the two. Of course, you cannot get a Nonesuch Press edition of Shakespeare for almost nothing, but you can get an. Everyman edition, and therefore though these records could be better their producers ought to be congratulated and encouraged. The whole of the Beethoven Fifth excel- lently done for eighteen shillings by Parlophone is as cheering : here the cheap price has not in the least affected the compara- tive quality. H.M.V.'s part in the good work is Mozart's Prague Symphony on three records for 13s. 6d. : this is heartily to be recommended. Decca, too, have helped the poor music lover by producing three Handel Grosse-Concertos at a reason- able price this is most enterprising, and I recommend end the one called on the labels, the Sixth in G minor. Ansermet is the conductor. From now on lovers of classical music will have to watch Decca lists as closely as those of the older companies.
The three big works of the month have been H.M.V.'s Rachmaninov Concerto, with the composer playing the solo and Stokowski conducting, Columbia's Tschaikovsky Violin Concerto with Huberman, and Columbia's Mendelssohn Scotch Symphony, Weingartner conducting. Whatever may be thought of the music, the recording is in each case good, and readers can judge for themselves if they desire to buy them. For myself a more attractive record has been the Bach Suite No. 2 for Flute and Strings, issued by H.M.V. Almost any one would like the second record for a Christmas present.
LANGDON-DAVIES.
J.
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