Letters [High Fidelity, May 1977]

The Incredible Talking Machine

Please accept my most enthusiastic congratulations on your superb issue [January] devoted to the "Salute to the Incredible Talking Machine." You've made an important contribution to the literature concerned with the first century of recording activity. I, for one, am thrilled beyond words to find such a marvelous treatment in one excellent volume.

Many thanks to you and everyone who contributed to the success and completeness of "Volume 27, Number 1." Bravo!

Merritt F. Malvern

Merritt Sound Recording Buffalo, N.Y.

I think you caught a little stardust in your eyes while compiling the impressive chronology, "100 Years of Sound Reproduction." That first lunar travelogue during Apollo 11's flight in July 1969 was not tele cast in color. Your wording is inexact-no actual lunar landing ever has been telecast, at least not by earthlings-and color trans missions were first sent by Apollo 12, four months later. We viewed Neil Armstrong's first steps, along with the lunar exploration, in enthralling black-and-white.

Otherwise, a terrific issue!

Harold Vail; Hialeah Gardens, Fla.

As a devoted reader of your highly respected publication, I looked forward to your "Salute to the Incredible Talking Ma chine" with great interest. But I was surprised to see that you had left out one of America's most significant milestones-the marketing of the first tape recorder, the Brush Soundmirror. The Soundmirror was manufactured by Brush Development Company and marketed in 1947.

Robert A. Dearth

Meadow Brook Performing Arts Company

Rochester, Mich.

We did include the fact that Brush Development was marketing a tape recorder under the Soundmirror brand name, but we erred in putting this fact under 1938 rather than 1937-ten years before Mr. Dearth's date.

In the January 1958 issue of HIGH FIDELITY, Martin Bookspan published an account of the first recordings of the Boston Sym phony, Karl Muck conducting, in the Cam den studios of the Victor Company on October 2, 1917. He stated that this was the beginning of the recording history of American symphony orchestras. Bookspan was immediately challenged by George A. Kuyper, then manager of the Chicago Symphony, who pointed out in a letter in the April 1958 issue that the Chicago Sym phony, directed by Frederick Stock, had re corded in New York for the Columbia Company during a tour in 1916. These sessions, May 1-2 at Aeolian Hall, in fact represent the beginning.

That should have settled the matter, but apparently it did not. Your chronology of great dates in recording history omits both the Chicago sessions of 1916 and the Boston sessions of early October 1917 and gives the palm to Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra on October 22, 1917. I find this very strange in an issue that, elsewhere, goes to such pains to get details right.

Robert C. Marsh; Chicago, Ill.

The writer is a record reviewer for HF.

I can't put into words the pleasure of reading the issue of HIGH FIDELITY devoted to the history of the phonograph. The writing was superb, and the photos make this an is sue to be treasured by all collectors around the world. The article of Edison's recording artists was the most interesting. I've had the extreme pleasure of meeting a number of them, and they are as charming today as they must have been in "the days of Edison."

Steven I. Ramm; Trenton, N.J.

I was pleased to see the numerous articles about the phonograph and Thomas Edison in your magazine. I hope you plan to publish more concerning the history of the phonograph.

In particular, I think it would be interesting to your readers if certain questions raised by the writers of January's articles could be answered. For instance: Why did lateral recording methods win out over vertical ones? What were the results of Edi son's experimentation with placement of artists before that 125-foot horn? Why did Edison's long-playing system fail? Finally, why did the disc become standard instead of the cylinder?

Ronald Dethlefson; Bakersfield, Calif.

We plan to publish more information concerning the history of the phonograph throughout 1977. Each of the questions Mr. Dethlefson raises requires an essay of considerable length, for which we hadn't the space in a single issue.

I enjoyed the issue in celebration of the centennial of sound recordings very much but would like to correct a mistaken impression readers might receive from the last paragraph in your "Notes to Future Scholars" concerning the very first musical recordings.

The letters the young Josef Hofmann sent to Edison subsequent to his visit to the Edison Laboratories in 1887 might cause one to suspect the prodigy had neither met Edison nor recorded any cylinders on that occasion. But this confusion stems from the fact that Hofmann, only eleven years old at the time, was just not proficient in the English language. He did, in fact, meet Edison and recorded several cylinders, which Edison himself always claimed were the first ever made of music by a professional artist.

Some of the story of this event appeared years later in the biography of the great inventor written by his secretary, and I have been able to verify this information in discussions with Edison's daughter and others familiar with the circumstances. I will of course include complete information when my biography of Hofmann is published.

The most important question concerning these recordings is whether or not any of them survive. International Piano Archives owns the actual recording machine and the autographed photo that Edison later sent to Berlin, where young Hofmann was studying in 1890. The cylinder machine bears a silver plate with the inscription: "This phonograph is presented to Josef Hofmann by its inventor, Edison, January 1st, 1890." No trace of cylinders Hofmann made either on that historic occasion or later in Berlin has ever turned up. However, we do know the titles of four of the selections played, and that some of them were duets with his father Casimir, and that each was announced by the boy himself. It is hard to conceive that at least some of these cylinders do not exist somewhere, and any reader with information about their whereabouts who gets in touch with me will be amply rewarded for his trouble.

Gregor Benko, International Piano Archives

215 West 91st St.

New York, N.Y. 10024

Mr. Benko's 1887 date is in conflict with the 1888 date given by other authorities, which itself is questioned in "Notes to Future Scholars." However, if anyone does come up with the cylinders recorded by Hofmann in Edison's studio in either year, our doubts will be set at rest.

Seeing the pictures of Edna White, the brilliant American trumpet player [January], reminds me that she was once married to the operatic baritone Torcom Bezazian, who recorded for Columbia, Victor, and Edison records. Mr. Bezazian became somewhat of a hero when he dashed through the flames and saved the operatic scores when fire destroyed the famous old French Opera House in New Orleans in 1919.

We all look forward to reading Edna White Chandler's new book Seven Hilarious Years in Vaudeville, scheduled for publication last February.

Keith Moyer; Everett, Wash.

Backbeat: Bouquets/Brickbats

I have been getting HIGH FIDELITY since November, and I think the February 1977 issue has been the best yet. The article about Natalie Cole was one of the finest, and I think that BACKBEAT is really great.

It is too bad, however, that the record reviews by Stephen Holden had to be in. It also seems that Elise Bretton needs some help with her reviews.

Jeffrey Shuler Ashtabula. Ohio

Congratulations on BACKBEAT. My primary musical interest has always been in popular music, and I have continued my subscription to your magazine for five years mainly because of your excellent technical features. Indeed, I always found the minimal attention paid to popular music in HIGH FIDELITY grossly misinformed, over simplified, and not infrequently condescending.

BACKBEAT, even on the basis of the first issue, seems to have changed all that. Not only were the initial articles excellent, but you have a fine group of knowledgeable writers listed. If things keep on at this level, my subscription will be renewed in the fu ture without a second thought.

James L. Spates; Penn Yan, N.Y.

If you are aiming for the 15- to 25-year-old age group with your BACKBEAT section, that may be where the money lies. But I have read your magazine for twenty years and am interested primarily in music and in good equipment. Certainly one does not buy new equipment every month or even every year. but records and tapes are an easier purchase. If HIGH FIDELITY is going to be rock/soul-oriented. I could get that in any number of publications that have no interest to me. The personality cult, the disdain for accomplishments of the past, the fickleness of popular taste have no appeal for me. I remember when Benny Goodman.

Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, etc, were the idols of the dancers. And those days seem much better to me. to say nothing of the music.

Ernest Birchenough, Portland. Ore.

I was very disappointed to receive a notice about your new BACKBEAT section: I couldn't he less interested! A few years ago. FM was mostly classical--now one can hardly find a classical sta tion. Now I suppose the high fidelity magazines will follow the same trend that you are starting and serious music will be squeezed out as in other areas.

Perhaps you feel it will sell more magazines. I hope you find you are wrong.

John W. Duna; Hamden. Conn

Mr. Marcus replies:

Messrs. Birchenough and Dana are only two of many who apparently neither read my editorial introducing BACKBEAT in February nor examined that and subsequent issues of HIGH FIDELITY very carefully. Nothing has been taken away-neither classical music nor audio coverage-by our adding BACKBEAT.

In that February issue. we had three times as much space devoted to classical record reviews us to popular record reviews, and in addition we ran nearly a dozen pages on composer Edgard Varese, his music, and the recordings thereof. "Squeezed out," in deed. Mr. Dana. "Rock/soul-oriented," in deed. Mr. Birchenough.

Many of our readers do not read our audio coverage: many others do not read our classical music coverage; now, we expect that many readers will not read BACKBEAT.

But we will continue to strive to satisfy those whose interest lies in any of the areas we cover.

"Follow the same trend," Mr. Dana? What other American publication carries us many pages of classical record reviews OS HIGH FIDELITY does? It does not bother me that today there is so much more of what I don't care for on the FM airwaves than there was twenty years ago; there are so many more FM stations now. What bothers me is that there is so much less of what I do enjoy. I do not intend that HIGH FIDELITY go that route.

Maria Miiller's Birthdate

In reviewing the 1943 Bayreuth recording of Wagner's Die Meistersinger September 1976, I questioned the 1889 birth-date cited therein for soprano Maria Muller. and asked if any reader could supply further in formation. Several were kind enough to do so, citing various German reference works, nearly all in favor of the 1898 date given by Baker's, Grove's V (supplement), and the Kutsch-Riemens dictionary of singers.

The later date surely fits better with the facts of Muller's career: debut, Linz, 1919: Met debut. 1925: regular member of the Berlin State Opera, 1926-45: last known recording, Act I of Die Walkure. about 1950.

A debut at age 30 and retirement at 61 seem less probable than a debut at 21 and retirement at 52.

Curiously, the most convincing evidence, called to my attention by John Freeman at Opera News, is a clear falsehood: In Olin Downes's New York Times review of her Met debut. Muller's age was given as 23-a plausible vanity in a singer just short of 27, but risky for one approaching 36!

David Hamilton; New York, N.Y.

CORRECTIONS

R. D. Darrell. one of our contributing editors. informs us that the pianist in the picture accompanying our article " Edison as Record Producer" [January] is not the Vic tor Young "remembered today for his film scores." He is the Victor Young who was the musical director of Edison's experimental labs from 1919-27 under the personal supervision of Edison himself. Ironically, he did compose a considerable number of early film scores, none of which are widely remembered today. He also composed serious and light-symphonic piano and vocal music.

In our test report of Yeaple Corp.'s Stereopillow [March] we gave an incorrect address. The company is located at 1255 University Ave.. Rochester. N.Y. 14607.

(High Fidelity, May. 1977)

Also see:

Jensen speakers (ad, May 1981)

Behind the Scenes (May 1977)

Record Distribution: The Big 6 Take Over

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