High Jide1ii!J JANUARY The Magazine for Music Listeners . - 6o CENTS , Ampex Ampro Bell Bell 8 Howell Berlant-Concertone Columbia Crescent 4- 4- ;----- ---r "Crestwood" "Crown" De Jur DuKane "Educorder Dual" "Ekotape" " Electro- Dual" r r r EMC Fairchild FME Livingston Magnecord "Magnemite" "Masco" 4- "Memocorder" "Midgetope" Mitchell Pentron Rangertone "Reporter" r- 410 r Revere Stancil- Hoffman 'Synchrotone" I "Tapiík" "Tapesonic" I TDC "Stereotone" "Telectrotape" r - R TOP PERFORMANCE "Tri -Fy" Viking V-M Warren "Webtor" IN ANY MACHINE ,..ti Me. gives you these important advantages BALANCED FREQUENCY RESPONSE for most cles for higher sensitivity, lower dis- life -like reproduction throughout the tortion and improved output. complete range of audible sound. LOWER BACKGROUND NOISE through im- MOISTURE- REPELLENT BINDER assures proved dispersion of finer oxide par- smooth, silent tape travel even un- ticles. der hot, humid conditions. These Audiotape features, devel- STANDARD PLASTIC -BASE AUDIOTAPE ANTI -TACK AGENT prevents sticking on oped and perfected through years of the standard of quality the world over hot erase and record heads. Espe- research and production experience, cially important on older type ma- assure the finest recording "LR" AUDIOTAPE ON 1 -MIL MYLAR* and re- chines. production on any type of machine. 50 %a more recording time per reel It is this performance which has made SPECIAL DRIER -TYPE FORMULA greatly re- AUDIOTAPE 1 Audiotape ON 1/2-MIL "MYLAR" duces danger of oxide rub -off, even the first choice of so super -strength professional tape on dirty heads. many critical professional recordists throughout the world. Join the trend "SUPER- THIN" AUDIOTAPE ON 1/2-MIL "MYLAR" MAGNETIC ORIENTATION of oxide parti- to Audiotape. IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF! 2400 It on a 7-inch reel For condensed data on all tape recorders, send for your Trademark, DuPont polyester film free copy of our 1955 -1956 TAPE RECORDER DIRECTORY 444 MADISON AVE., NEW YORK 22, N. Y. IN HOLLYWOOD: 1006 N. Fairfax Ave. IN CHICAGO: 6571 N. Olmsted Ava. AUDIO DEVICES, Inc. Export Dept.: 13 East 40th St., New York 16, N. Y., Cables "ARLAB" Hiqh áiidclilq T H E M A G A Z I ' O R M U S I C L I S T E N E R S This Issue. Obstetrics and pediatrics were Volume 6 Number 1 January 1956 medical arts not well understood in the eighteenth century. In consequence, of six children born to Johann Georg Leopold Roland Gelatt served as special editor of this Mozart memorial issue. Mozart and his wife Anna Maria, only two lived. One sixth of this pathetic vital statistic is what music lovers the world AUTHORitatively Speaking over are celebrating in 1956. Wolfgang 4 Amadeus Mozart was born January 27, The Listener's Bookshelf, by R. D. Darrell IO 1756, and managed to survive through thirty-five years of exciting but certainly not Noted With Interest 24 very happy existence, in the course of which Letters 33 he contributed to scores of millions of people yet unborn the moments of greatest Swap -a- Record 46 pure beauty in their lives. When Mozart was five years old, the Emperor Francis 1 At the Thought of Mozart, by Aaron Copland 53 called him "der kleine Hexenmeister" - A Guest Editorial the little magician - which may have been the most penetrating remark the Emperor The Miracle of Mozart, by Sacheverell Sitwell 54 ever made. The Little Magician grew to An appreciation across two centuries. he a Great Magician, as is evidenced in the potency of his magic. The spells he cast Would Mozart Have Been a Hi -Fi Fan ?, by R. D. Darrell 56 have not waned in two centuries: this year A question not so silly as - the author admits - it sounds. they will cause many thousands of people to cross oceans, many millions of money Mozart's Beecham in Action, by Robert Charles Marsh 58 to change hands, many a troubled human What makes an interpreter great? mind to shed its pettiness for a space of minutes or hours. This latter success, at On First Hearing Mozart, by Gerald Abraham 61 least, Mozart would have wanted; the want Only now are some smaller- scaled masterpieces being made is written in his music. available to our ears. It would be pretentious for this or any The Tapes are Twirling, by Simon Bourgin 63 twentieth -century magazine other to set All across the Old World, microphones are soaking up Mozart. out to honor Mozart. The intent of the staff of HIGH FIDELITY, in assembling this Twenty Analysts in Search of a Soul, by Nathan Broder ..... 65 Mozart memorial issue, has been simply to The temptation to evaluate and explain a genius is irresistible. express a devotion. Portraits of a Genius, by Otto Erich Deutsch 67 The problem: what did the man really look like? CHARLES FOWLER, Publisher W. A. Mozart - A Pictorial Essay 69 -84 JOHN M. CONLY, Editor Edited by Roland Gelatt, with the assistance of Simon Bourgin, ROY H. HOOPES, JR., Managing Editor O. E. Deutsch and Roy Lindstrom. J. GORDON HOLT, Assistant Editor Europe's Mozart Festival Year, by Simon Bourgin 85 ROY F. ALLISON, Associate Editor Music Makers, by Roland Gelatt 89 ROY LINDSTROM, Art Director Editorial Assistants Record Section 93 -137 MIRIAM D. MANNING; JOAN GRIFFITHS Records in Review; Dialing Your Disks; Building Your Record Library; Mozart on A ROLAND Records, Selective Discography, by GELATT, New York Editor C. G. Burke. Contributing Editors C. G. BURKE Trader's Marketplace I 58 JAMES HINTON, JR. Professional CORA R. HooPEs Directory 160 ROBERT CHARLES MARSH FM Directory 161 WARREN B. SYER, Business Manager SEAVER B. BUCK, JR., Circulation Advertising Index ....REFERENCE DEPT. 163 Director High Fidelity Magazine is published monthly by Audiocom, Inc., at Great Barrington, Mass. Telephone: Great Barrington 1300. Editorial publication. and circulation Branch Offices offices at: The Publishing House, Great (Advertising only): New York: Barrington, Mass. Subscriptions: $6.00 per year in the United States and Canada. Single copies: 60 cents Room 600, 6 East 39th Street. Telephone: each. Editorial contributions will be welcomed by the editor. Payment for articles accepted will Murray Hill 5 -6332. be arranged Fred C. Michalove, Eastern prior to publication. Unsolicited manuscripts should be accompanied by return postage. Entered as Manager. -Chicago: John R. Rutherford and Assoc- second -class matter April 27, 1951 at the post office at Great Barrington, Mass., under the act of March 3; iates, 230 East Ohio St., Chicago, Ill. Telephone: 1879. Additional entry at the post office, Pittsfield, Mass. Member Audio Bureau of Circulation. Printed Whitehall 4 -6715. Los Angeles: 1052 West 6th in the U. S. A. by the Ben Franklin Press, Pittsfield, Mass. Copyright 1956 by Audiocom, Inc. The cover Street. Telephone: Madison 6 -1371. Edward Brand design and contents of High Fidelity magazine are fully protected by copyrights and must not he repro- West Coast Manager. duced in any manner. JANUARY 1456 AUTHORitatively Speaking There is patently no need to identify Aaron Copland, our guest editorialist, for any reader of this magazine as one of the greatest of contemporary composers. But if anyone, thinking of him only as composer, is astonished by the excellence of his prose, he should not be. Among other writings, Mr. Copland is author of What to Listen for in Music (McGraw Hill; Mentor Jß LSD!) .i Books) , which is - to judge by its sale of fi r suc- L oui over 90,000 copies - one of the most cessful and popular books on music to INTERELECTRONICS - Most Advanced in PERFORMANCE .. appear in America in the past two decades. in CONSTRUCTION ... in DESIGN Sacheverell Sitwell is the youngest mem- ber of the world's most celebrated literary trio. Like sister Dame Edith and brother INTERELECTRONICS Sir Osbert, he is both poet and essayist and High Buy! has an ear strongly susceptible to the power ... Your BEST Fidelity whether it music CORONATION': of music - be the of the English language or the music of the great 400 composers. One of Sacheverell Sitwell's WATT early books was an appreciation of Mozart, 40 in 1932 when he was -five published thirty years old. Since then his musical writings AMPLIFIER have included books on Liszt, Offenbach, and Scarlatti. has also written pro- Exclusive non -ringing negative He painting feedback circuitry! Over 50 DB lifically on and architecture (with feedback. DISTORTION- FREE... special emphasis on the Baroque period) less than 0.05% at 30 watts. and has to his credit several volumes de- scribing travels in North Africa, Spain, POWER RESPONSE . 4-0.1 DB 16 to 35,000 cycles at 30 watts. Rumania, and the Netherlands. In the 5 to 200,000 cycle response. midst of all this literary activity, Mr. Sit- BUILT -IN POWER for preampli- well has somehow found time to be High fiers and newest electrostatic Sheriff of Northamptonshire, the county of $1050 tweeters. England in which he lives. No wonder that he lists his recreations in Who's Who as "none." Incomparable companion to :CORONATION.: CONSOLETTE the "Coronation 400 ". Over 50 Robert Charles Marsh is an American PREAMPLIFIER DB feedback ... virtually ELIM- scholar -teacher of philosophy temporarily - EQUALIZER INATES DISTORTION. 5 to domiciled in Cambridge, England. As 200,000 cycle response. LOUD- readers of HIGH FIDELITY know, he is in NESS CONTROL, continuously addition an avid musical enthusiast with a variable. FIVE INPUT SELEC- keen reportorial sense. Mr. Marsh has a TIONS, 16 PRECISION PLAY- book coming from J. B. Lippincott on BACK CURVES. Full 20 DB dis- March 26, Toscanini and the Art of Orches- tortion -free Bass and Treble tral Performance, portions of which ap- compensation. HUM INAUDIBLE peared in this magazine a year ago.