Herman Klein and The Gramophone, edited and with a biographical sketch by William R. Moran (oversize HC, 618 pages, 1990, $5)
The Gramophone of the title is not the machine, but the magazine started in 1923 to report on the "preservation and reproduction of sound". From the first Herman Klein wrote essays for the magazine. He was considered quite a catch. He was, after all, "the authority on 'bel canto'. Of course, he [was] many other things as well, a brilliant writer on musical matters as well as a brilliant teacher." He had the opportunity "not only to hear the great artists of the period, but to judge their technical work from an informed viewpoint, and eventually to get to know many of them on a close, personal basis. His years in the field of musical criticism and as a vocal teacher of stature in both London and New York spanned the closing years of the public appearances of many great singers who did not record for the phonograph, as well as the complete artistic careers of most of the great artists active during the early years of that machine."
We think of today as a time of massive change. So were the times when Klein was alive. He knew music before it could be recorded, when it was recorded acoustically, and when it was done electrically.
Why publish these articles from so long ago? Have you ever wondered how those long dead opera singers actually sounded? For those singers who left both a legacy of recordings, and comments by Klein, we can judge their voices for ourselves. From this knowledge, we can extrapolate backwards, and get the closest we ever will to knowing how these great artists actually sounded.
Wow, time travel is sometimes really possible. Look for this book on the new non-fiction table, avail. 3/23. (l-mu)
