Rachmaninov on the future of radio (Gramophone, April 1931) - Page 2
Thu 25th October 2012
The new Gramophone Archive will be launched on October 30!
Gramophone, April 1931
'For I am by nature a pessimist' - Rachmaninov writes (photo: Tully Potter Collection)
To compare the ultimate musical value of broadcasting with that of the gramophone is to realise that the gramophone has bestowed upon the executive musician one priceless gift – permanence for his art. You listen to a broadcast recital. The next moment it is finished, gone. But a gramophone record can preserve for ever the playing and singing of the world's most distinguished artists. Think what it would have meant to us to-day could we possess records made by Liszt, the greatest pianist who has ever lived. Yet we can only dimly imagine what his playing must have been. Future generations will be more fortunate in that the finest modern musicians, through their records, will be something more than names to those who come after them.
I can imagine no more striking example of the gramophone's power to re-create the personality of dead genius than an experience of my own when, in 1918, I first went to America. It was in New York that the HMV Company gave me the opportunity to hear some records made by Count Tolstoi shortly before his death in 1910. Having known Count Tolstoi, whose friendship had greatly helped and influenced me at a very difficult period of my early career, I was naturally keenly interested. The records, made on his estate in Russia, were simply speeches, one in Russian, one in English, explaining his philosophy of life. Yet when the machine started and I heard again his voice, perfectly reproduced down to the curious little husky cough characteristic of his speech, it seemed that Tolstoi himself had come to life. It was a marvellous experience. Seldom have I been moved so deeply. Never, never can I forget the impression the sound of that voice, so long silent, made upon me. But the tragedy of it is this. During the past ten years, I have tried continually in America, in Russia, to obtain those records. No one can tell what has become of them. Unique and irreplaceable, they have apparently vanished beyond recall.
To return to my own work for the gramophone, I have felt most satisfied with those records made during the past three years. These include my own Piano Concerto No 2, which I recorded with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Stokowski, Schumann's Carnaval, recently issued in America, the Chopin "Funeral March" Sonata, which I believe is not yet published, and the Grieg C minor and Beethoven G major Sonatas for piano and violin in partnership with Fritz Kreisler.
Do the critics who have praised those Grieg records so highly realise the immense amount of hard work and patience necessary to achieve such results? The six sides of the Grieg set we recorded no fewer than five times each. From these thirty discs we finally selected the best, destroying the remainder. Perhaps so much labour did not altogether please Fritz Kreisler. He is a great artist, but does not care to work too hard. Being an optimist, he will declare with enthusiasm that the first set of proofs we make are wonderful, marvellous. But my own pessimism invariably causes me to feel, and argue, that they could be better. So when we work together, Fritz and I, we are always fighting.
To make records with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra is as thrilling an experience as any artist could desire. Unquestionably, they are the finest orchestral combination in the world: even the famous New York Philharmonic, which you heard in London under Toscanini last summer, must, I think, take second place. Only by working with the Philadelphians both as soloist and conductor, as has been my privilege, can one fully realise and appreciate their perfection of ensemble.
Recording my own Concerto with this orchestra was an unique event. Apart from the fact that I am the only pianist who has played with them for the gramophone, it is very rarely that an artist, whether as soloist or composer, is gratified by hearing his work accompanied and interpreted with so much sympathetic co-operation, such perfection of detail and balance between piano and orchestra. These discs, like all those made by the Philadelphians, were recorded in a concert hall, where we played exactly as though we were giving a public performance. Naturally, this method ensures the most realistic results, but in any case, no studio exists, even in America, that could accommodate an orchestra of a hundred and ten players.
Their efficiency is almost incredible. In England I hear constant complaints that your orchestras suffer always from under-rehearsal. The Philadelphia Orchestra, on the other hand, have attained such a standard of excellence that they produce the finest results with the minimum of preliminary work. Recently, I conducted their superb recording of my symphonic poem, The Isle of the Dead, now published in a Victor album of three records which play for about 22 minutes. After no more than two rehearsals the orchestra were ready for the microphone, and the entire work was completed in less than four hours.
Of all our own music-making silence must some day be the end. Formerly, the artist was haunted by the knowledge that with him his music also must vanish into the unknown. Yet to-day, he can leave behind him a faithful reproduction of his art, an eloquent and imperishable testimony to his life's achievement. On this account alone, I think that the great majority of musicians and music-lovers alike cannot hesitate to acclaim the gramophone as the most significant of modern musical inventions.
To subscribe to the Gramophone digital magazine, please visit themagazineshop.com.
