Gramophone Notes
HIS :MASTER'S VOICE.
The recording of the Beethoven Quartet in F (Opus 135) by the Flonzaley players will doubtless give rise to contro- versy, especially as it invites comparison with the Columbia recording and that made by the Spencer Dyke Quartet for the National Gramophone Society. There are those who will contend that the beautiful finish of the Flonzaley ensemble tends to make the rough places too plain. Others will decide that the peaceful penetration of their playing in this work is worth all the protesting and self-assertion which so commonly and easily pass for interpretation.
Among the orchestral records is a performance of Bizet's
Arlesienne Suite by the Covent Garden Orchestra with Eugene Goossens as guest conductor. The music is not very well known in this country, except, . of course, to those enthusiasts who gather at the Crystal Palace each year for the National Brass Band. Contests. Bizet wrote a score consisting of twenty-seven numbers as incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's L'Arlesierene. The Suite here recorded contains three movements, Prelude, Adagietto, Farandole. The second movement is an admirable example of Bizet's skilful use of slender means. His ambition is simple here—merely to heighten the emotional significance of the meeting of two lovers after years of absence—but he achieves it with delightful ease. The absence of grandiloquence in this work makes it a good antidote to the recent Wagnerian stress. The Farandole is the Danso dei Chivau-Frus in another form. These records are notable for their clear reproduction of instrumental colour ; there is a very good example at the end of the first part of the Prelude.
Miss Anne Thursfield sings L'Heure Exquise and Faure's Clair de Lune. The idiom of her voice and her finished style are conveyed mostinithfully in both songs. This is a record from which student-singers may learn much in the way of steady phrasing.
COLUMBIA.
The very name of Lener will be sufficient assurance for many that the discs containing the Mozart Quartet in D Minor (K 421) also hold the magic of 'perfect ensemble. Certainly the performance gives the air of Spontaneity and freshness, however carefully that illusion has been prepared: The reproduction is remarkably free from impediment.
This Company has adopted the policy of anticipation in issuing records of singers and works to be heard during the Covent Garden .Opera Season. "In questa reggia,"- from Turandot, is sung by Bianca Scacciati and Francesco Merli: Scacciati was the creator of the role of Liii, and will sing here in the same part. IIer voice is not easily accommodated by
the gramophone medium, but it clearly- holds an .abundance of dramatic power.
The logo and Falstaff of Mariano Stabile, were two of the finest performances of the Italian season last year. There are records of the " Brindisi " from Otello -and Quando cmo paggio," from Falstaff, in which the beauty of his tone is
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