Evening star., 1945-08-10
This and That
By Charles E. Trace1DeH.


"Cavalleria Rusticana" was the first
opera Templeton Jones ever heard.
1t has remained his favorite.
Carmen" comes second.
In such judgment he squares pretty
well with musically inclined people as
a group.
Both Of these works are standard, and
each is filled with melody.
Jones for years has owned an old set
of acoustic records, the first complete
opera to be recorded, OF Mascagni's great
work.
The other day when he read of the
composers death, he got out these old
records, and played them through.
There are four 10 inchers, and seven
12-inch disks. AS they do not run in
sequence, 1t is necessary to put one small
record on, then remove it and 60 to q
IL inch, then back to another 10 inch,
take that of and 60 to still another
II inch, and so on.
This arrangement will strike moderns
as clumsy. The explanation is that
they were issued separately. at different
times, beginning with small record of
the famous "Intermezzo."
Then other recordings were issued,
until the complete score was on rec
ords, but no one had heard of a COM
plete opera in albums, in those days.
That was to come later.
The old records sound very good on
modern electric machine with tubes
and loud speaker. They have silky
something which was the prerogative
of acoustic recording. The voices
from La Scala Opera House-come over
nicely. Modern electric recording loses
something in the voice. Also, Jones
feels, in the violin. Old Fritz Kreisler
recording, he feels, catch something of
the great violinists's tone which mod
ern recording fails to gather in. Scien-
tif1cally, he realizes, this should not be
so, but actually it is.
The old "Cavalleria" records lack, of
course, the bass notes which modern
recording does so well
No machine will bring out the bass
in the older recordings-because it SIM
ply isn't there.
Still if the listener is not obsessed
with the idea of noise, he will enjoy
playing the best of the old recordings
on modern machine, now and then.
Surely he would not want to do it all
the time, because recordings which
lacked the proper lower tones lacked
one of the great elements of music.
Old acoustic recordings failed in this,
and so went down to extinction. But
still they bring back great memories of
great voices in particular. And they
did have that certain silky quality
which was in part of the immortal gift
of certain great singers of the past.
There are few of them left. They had
no rough edges as it were, in their
singing. 1t is easily possible for any
young person interested in music and
recordings to grasp this, after listening
to some of the "oldies" on a good mod
ern machine, provided that they first
rid themselves of the obsession over
loudness. Loudness, volume, has some
thing to do with music, such as SYM
phonies, but has nothing at all to do
with the heart Of music, which is the
composers intent. The sensitive ear
and understanding heart can under
stand this intent, whether the record
ing is old or new Jones has an old
recording by the Philadelphia Orches-
ira Of the larghetto movement from
Beethovens Symphony No. 8. This re-
cording, despite its lack of recorded
bass, he will put up against any later
recording for sheer listening pleasure
But you will have to listen close to
hear it.
Phonograph recordings, by bringing
great music into the home, and keeping
it there, have moved the clock back
ward and forward at one and the
same time, no easy feat, Jones believes.
Long ago music was home affair. To-
day 1t is again home affair. But by
first making people listen to music at
| home, the phonograph and the radio
| between them have turned millions of
people out to listen to music elsewhere,
and, what u better. to making It them-
saves.