THE MAGAZINE FOR MUSIC LISTENERS a discography by ALFRED FRANKENSTEIN Original painting In Dr. Leon Kolb collection www.americanradiohistory.com HIGH SCHOOLS JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS COLLEGES UNIVERSITIES Plan NOW to participate in Audio Devices educational awards 72 awards totaling over $16,000 worth of Sound Recording Equipment and tape or discs will be donated by Audio Devices, Inc. HERE'S A once -in -a- lifetime opportunity of qualified judges, plan to make the most for any high school or college that effective and beneficial use of the record- wishes to expand its recording facilities or ing facilities offered. You can select your to start a new sound recording program. own recording equipment, as well as the First award, in each of two classifications, types of Audiotape or Audiodiscs that will be $2,000 worth of tape or disc re- best meet your requirements. There's cording equipment, plus $500 worth of nothing to buy - no strings attached. tape and /or discs, plus a bonus of $250 worth of tape or discs for Distributor en- For complete details and official entry dorsement of entry blank. These and 70 blank, see your Audiotape Distributor.. other valuable equipment and tape or disc or write to Audio Devices, Inc., Educa- awards will be donated by Audio Devices, tional Dept. H, 4-M- Madison Avenue, Inc., to the schools which, in the opinion New York 22, N. Y. HERE'S THE BOOK YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR how to make good tape recordings THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF TAPE RECORDING by C. J. LeBel, Vice President, Audio Devices, Inc. This completely new handbook of tape recording read and easily understood from cover to cover by contains up -to- the -minute information of interest even the most inexperienced of home recordists. Yet and real practical value to every tape recordist. it contains such a wealth of practical information Profusely illustrated with photographs, charts and that it will be a valuable aid to professional tape diagrams prepared especially for this book, it con- recordists as well. information on all phases Available in deluxe cloth -bound edition at $2.50, tains 150 pages of valuable a of modern tape recording. The author, Mr. C..1. or economy paper -bound edition at $1.50. Get LeBel, is one of the country's foremost authorities copy from your Audiotape distributor or send check on sound recording. or money order direct to Audio Devices, Inc., Dept. "How to Make Good Tape Recordings" can be H -1, 444 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y. AUDIO DEVICES, Inc. 444 MADISON AVENUE, NEW YORK 22, N. Y. IN CHICAGO: 6571 N, Olmsted Ave. IN HOLLYWOOD: 1006 N. Fairfax Ave. Export Dept.: 13 East 40th St., New York 16, N.Y., Cables "ARLAB" www.americanradiohistory.com High áiidcliiq T HE M A G A Z I N E FOR MUSIC LISTENERS Volume 6 Number io October 1956 The Cover. For more information about Robert Bereny's portrait of Béla Bartók at AUTHORitatively Speaking 4 twenty-two, and about how it was made accessible to us, see this month's "Music Noted With Interest 6 Makers." On The Counter 29 This Issue. The semanticist Alfred Korzyb- ski used the phrase "time- binding" to de- Letters 38 scribe a faculty unique to the human species, a sort of consciousness of continu- Books in Review 52 ity. And that is what we seem to be doing this issue - time -binding. The medium is As The Editors See It 63 modern, or contemporary, music. Carl Orff is a contemporary who has certainly Composing With Electrons In Cologne, by Allen Forte 64 arrived. Béla Bartók is a contemporary (if the word be assessed in a time -binding Some of the future's music, apparently, will be performed sense) who has arrived and gone. The without performers. electronic composers of Cologne are con- The Orff Hypothesis, by Henry Pleasants 68 temporaries who have not arrived and are proud of it (to them, it is we who have An interview with the most talked -about of modern composers. not yet arrived). These latter are building, The Art of Baffling, Antony they hope, a bridge into the future. Orff, by Doschek 7o as he makes clear to Henry Pleasants, is in Some thoughts on loudspeaker systems as musical devices. a fashion building a bridge into the past Living With - Europe's past, at least. Béla Bartók, far Music, by Ashley Montagu 73 more important (to our present reckon- A noted anthropologist's contribution to this essay series. ing), built his bridges through various dimensions. He tried to overpass the for- The Major, by Lawrence Lessing 74 malism of music as he found it, to link the Adventurers in Sound: the late Edwin H Armstrong. spontaneity of the earthborn folk melody with a new freely inventive style, to end Ultrasound, by John J. Stern 77 the divorce, much deplored by viewers of There are some high frequencies you wouldn't want around the modern scene, between artists and their the house. civilization. Music Makers, by Roland Gelatt 81 CHARLES FOWLER, Publisher Record Section 85 -13o JOHN M. CONLY, Editor Records in Review; Dialing Your Disks; Bartók on Micro- ROLAND GELATI, New York Editor groove, by Alfred V. Frankenstein. J. GORDON HOLT, Technical Editor ROY LINDSTROM, Art Director The Tape Deck, by R. D. Darrell 133 Assistant Editors Tested in the Home MIRIAM D. MANNING; JOAN GRIFFITHS 143 Manager, Book Division Viking Tape System; GSS Stylus Microscopes; Scott 330 Tuner; Marantz Power Amplifier; Dictograph Music System; Workman FRANCES A. NEWBURY No- Solder Phono Plugs. Contributing Editors C. G. BURKE High Fidelity Lexiconfusion, by Donald Shirer 15o R. D. DARRELL JAMES HINTON, JR. Audio Forum 172 ROBERT CHARLES MARSH Professional WARREN B. SYER, Business Manager Directory 18o ARTHUR J. GRIFFIN, Circulation Trader's Marketplace Manager r8o Advertising Index 185 Advertising Main Office - Claire Eddings, The Publish- High Fidelity Magazine is published monthly by Audiocom, Inc., at Great Barrington, Mass. ing House, Great Barrington, Mass. Tele- Telephone: Great Barrington 1300. Editorial, publication, and circulation offices at: The Publish- phone: Great Barrington 1300. ing House, Great Barrington, Mass. Subscriptions: $6:00 per year in the United States and New York - Fred C. Michalove, Room 600, Canada. Single copies: 60 cents each. Editorial contributions will be welcomed by the editor. 6 East 39th St. Telephone: MUrray Hill 5 -6332. Payment for articles accepted will be arranged prior to publication. Unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by return postage. Entered as second -class matter April 27, 1951 at the Chicago -John R. Rutherford & Associates, post office under 3, 1879. Inc., 230 East Ohio St. Telephone: at Great Barrington, Mass., the act of March Additional entry at the Whitehall post office, Pittsfield, Mass. Member Audit Bureau of Circulation. Printed in the U. S. A. by 4 -6715. the Ben Franklin Press, Pittsfield, Mass. Copyright 1956 by Audiocom, Inc. The cover design Los Angeles - Brand & Brand, Inc., 6314 and contents of High Fidelity magazine are fully protected by copyrights and must not be repro- San Vicente Blvd. Telephone: Webster 8 -3971. duced in any manner. OCTOBER 1956 3 www.americanradiohistory.com Why buy hi -fi AUTHORitatively Speaking Allen Forte, who reports in this issue on from an audio specialist? the electronic composers of Cologne, says his initial involvement with music began when he was seven and hasn't ended yet. Good question. So their recomendations are based on Currently he is an instructor in music at One that Boston people are answer- qualitative judgment of musical per- Teachers College, Columbia University, ing for themselves by investigating formance, backed by engineering anal- which institution conferred on him his The Listening Post as a source of ysis of the components. Their selec- doctorate and, through its Bureau of Pub- home music systems. Here are some tions are not influenced by pressure to lications, also published his book Contem- of the reasons why they're doing it. "push" certain lines. porary Tone Structures last year. from an audio spe- When you buy The products shown below are typi- cialist, you get individual attention Antony Doschek, master of the art of radio parts cal of the quality components Listen- baffling (see page 7o), is precisely the that can't be matched by kind of man one likes to find in high jobbers or all- around retailers. ing Post engineers recommend with- out hesitation. If you'd like more in- fidelity manufacturing, where he certainly For example, the Listening Post is, being vice president of Pro -Plane Sound people who serve you know good formation about any of them, just clip Systems, Inc., of Pittsburgh. He is both equipment and they know good music. the coupon - we'll do the rest. musician and engineer. He studied violin, flute, and theory, played with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (four years under You, too, can take advantage of these extra Listening Post services. Reiner), made his recital debut at Town Send us an outline of your requirements in a music system, the type Hall, New York, with his wife, a concert of music you prefer, a sketch of your listening room, give us a rough pianist, and still plays publicly on occasion to work. idea of your overall hi -fi budget, and we'll put our engineers in Pittsburgh. As engineer he served with the Crucible Steel Company of America, the development laboratory of the Fisher Scientific Company, the Unertl Optical The Listening Post Enthusiastically Company, S. P. Kinney Engineers, Inc., Recommends These Components and his own company, Metals Research Apparatus, which developed several im- portant quality- control devices. H. H.