Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-03-16
NEWS OF MUSIC
Symphony Expands
Season Next Year

mention Of the Shaw Chorale
presumably this is to be a
straight orchestral concert.
Then comes John Barbi-
rolf. the man who had the
great misfortune to be the
FIRST to follow Toscanini as
conductor Of the New York
Philharmonic. Sir Thomas
Beecham will lead the Phila-
delphians in an out-of-season
concert. He will also make
two little informal talks from
the podium.
That's it-a good. solid, de-
pendable list. musicians who
can make blossom anything
that Howard Mitchell puts on
the program. The programs
themselves have not been an
nounced. You can picture DR.,
Mitchell right now. rolling
between one city and the
next on the orchestra's pres
ent Midwest tour. pencil in
hand making UP programs.
One of the few duties of UNI
alleged JOY a symphony con-
ductor has.
4
MORE NOTES FROM SWAMI
The Swami Record Catalog
people have a passion for sta
tistics, some of which this
column quoted several weeks
ago. The 10th anniversary of
the LIP record, and also OF
the Swami Catalog. affords
an opportunity for some more
statistics. Thanks to Mr..
Swami for thinking of us.
There have been 80 1929 rec
ords listed by Swami in the
last 10 years. If we can as
sumo that an average Of 1000
Of each were pressed, America
must own almost as many
platters as dinner plates. OF
these. 1899 are now out of
print Tor is "out of press" the
idiom?), leaving 1880 still
on dealers shelves.
Who leads the long-hair
hit parade? The answer is
a bit flattering to our ma
tional taste. Mozart is first
with 86S listings, and the
other leaders run as follows:
Beethoven 1861, Bach
$500, Tchaikovsky CAD,
and Brahms (319). These re-
suits must be weighted with
the observation that Mozart
and Bach each wrote a great
deal more music than the
other three.
But here is the "substan-
tif1c marrow" of the sta
tistics, as Rabelais would say.
Music of 7l8 different long
hair composers has found its
way to the recording studio
and is in the groove. OF
these. almost half $500 have
been contemporary COM
posers. and exactly half of
these contemporary COM
posers have been American
Q65). .
There are now 303 indie
pendent record companies.
Before the war. you remem-
Der. virtually all records car
ried either the Columbia or
Victor labels-the off-brand
photograph record was as
rare as the of brand ciga-
rette. ! cannot vouch for the
truth Of the often-told story
Of how these two mammoth
companies created compete
ton for themselves in a field
which they almost monopo-
liked. but the facts are true
as far as I have observed
them.
In the beginning, Columbia
had the first LIP pressing ma
chimes, and with its tremen-
dous backlog of tapes, seemed
to be in a good competitive
position. Victor, on the other
hand, sold many more phono-
graphs than Columbia, and
by making both its machines
and records. As rpm, put
Columbia, with its 33Ka speed.
at q disadvantage. You don't
buy records that won't play
on your photograph.
Columbia's trump was beau
tiful gam e S m a n S ip. It
guessed that many companies
would be born if they could
get their records pressed
and big pressing dies are
much too expensive to be
bought by a company on a
small budget. So Columbia
offered to press records at
33l3 rpm. for all corners for
a price only a trifle above
cost. Scores of little record
companies sprang up over
night: 33ls rpm. became
the standard speed for long
hair LIPS, several companies