Reformation

Last week a great flood of carefully prepared talk about such composers as Beethoven, Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, Strauss, Wagner, Brahms, was heard all over the country in felt-carpeted apartments and soundproof cubicles which have for years echoed with arguments and ecstasies over Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, Van & Schenk, Harry Lauder. The Victor Co. last week set out to make "his master's voice" the voice of the masters. Of all the factors that have made the U. S. suspicious, as a nation, of any music less candid than jazz and coon songs, no factor is more important than the brevity of pieces played on the phonograph. There came a time when the whole difference between "I-know-what-I-like" and "highbrow" music was measured in inches. A ten-inch record was the familiar thing. A twelve-inch record signified something long and probably boring--"Chocolate Soldier Medley," perhaps, or "Selections from La Traviata." The music of the people was not bedight with red, gold and purple seals and it was not twelve inches wide. Such stuff was suspect, for the elect. Not until radio proved that the people will listen to music, even concerts and operas, until the orchestra drops dead or the vacuum tubes blow out, did phonograph-makers realize what a musical bonanza they had failed to exploit. And if long-time records would sell, then music that it takes a long time to play could be recorded and probably sold. Hence the "in-a-nut-shell" sales elocutions on "good" music with which Victor furnished its salesmen last week when it brought out records that will play for an hour. The hour-long records are not several feet wide, of course. Ingenuity has replaced generosity and the Victor innovation consists in a magazine or loading carriage of twelve records, attached to the automatic Orthophonic machine, run by electric motor. A mechanical "hand" puts on one record after another, up to a dozen. After the twelfth record, the machine automatically stops. The dancers, or listeners-to-sermons, or opera lovers, or synthetic concertgoers, can then, by a simple motion, turn the record magazine about and play the twelve "other sides." The whole score of a musical comedy will thus be made available to the corridors of a girl's boarding school without anyone's shouting, "Fix that phonograph, will you? I'm curling my hair!" Whole operas and concerts can be recorded in proper sequence, and are being recorded. Already Victor offers Beethoven's Fifth.. Next month it will be ready with the most popular Victrola classic of all, Tchaikowsky's "Pathetique." After that, the record reformation.