For Discophiles and Others
The Record Guide. By Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe- Trus is much more than a guide-book to the gramophone repertory at present available in this country, though it is a remarkably full and efficient piece of work from that point of view. Both the authors are well-known writers on musical subjects in general, as well as specialists in matters of. performance, recording and all the increasingly complex affairs of the gramophone world. Their tastes are catholic but personal, and their standards of performance exact-
ing, so that any recording which they deem worthy of a star will almost certainly satisfy even the most esoterically minded or per- nickety. ,discophile (a word for which they make a reasoned plea). But not only discophiles will be interested andientertained by this book, which contains a vast amount of information and comment on musical history and aesthetics, particularly in the short essays or sketches accorded to all composers of the first and second ranks. These thumbnail sketches often contain illuminating suggestions and shrewd criticism, and they are all marked by unusually welt- balanced judgement and a sane sense of historical perspective. It would be difficult, for instance, to find the case for and against the' music of Brahms stated more fairly and more concisely ; and Sulli- van, Sibelius, Elgar and Mahler—all composers who have been, and are often still, exaggeratedly praised and denigrated—are here summed up in a few lines which often penetrate to the heart of the controversies Which they have aroused and are singularly :free from any suggestion of dogmatism. The personal taste of the authors may 'sometimes be_gathered by the comparative length and scope of these essays. Thus Wolf and Chopin are given larger introductory notices than either Bach or Beethoven, and the essay on Beethoven, taken in conjunction with that on Tchaikovsky, is-less a study of the composer's Music than an enquiry into the nature of the modern public's taste. The essay ott Dvorak, though scrupulouslY fair, conspicuously lacks the note of enthusiasm, and Schurnann's middle-aged failures almost over- shadow the appreciation of his youthful triumphs, though Mende's- sohn's decline into banality and Saint-Saens's more Latin frigidity are treated with a kindness which will not awake sympathetic echoes in all readers' hearts,. these instances merely suggest the authors' personal "predilections, their admiration for an achieved style in any form ; they do not detract from the admirable impartiality of their general judgements. Nor does their learning lie unduly heavily upon them.. MuSicians may well treasure The Record Guide as a kind of week-end or bedside book, full of quaint as well as useful information and often starred by witty asides. Who but the most owlish Wagnerite could resist the description of the wizard of Bayreuth as " German to the point of madness, emitting clouds of opaque theoretical gas on
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