Abstract

Music

The person who wants to hear music is dependent upon those for whom the providing of music to be heard is a business. If, therefore, his taste happens to be a developed one he is out of luck, for this business, like most others, is steered in the direction of the greatest profits, which is not the direction of his developed taste. Thus it is only two or three years since the phonograph companies began to list recordings of entire symphonies and quartets. Before that a few isolated middle movements, badly cut, with a few of the most popular lieder and piano and violin pieces, were the extent of their departure from the arias and ballads which they believed most people wanted. With radio the story has begun all over again. The person with developed taste who wept formerly over the lists of European phonograph records may now weep to read of "Parsical" and "Rosenkavailer" being broadcast, with concert programs of the same caliber, by the British Broadcasting Co.