Transcriber Note:
- Obvious typos and punctuation errors corrected.
- In the lists of recordings at the back, thin lines have been used instead of the original curly brackets to delineate recordings grouped under a single list price.
- If the device allows, a link to a midi file will appear below an illustration of a short bar of music. Clicking this link will allow the midi file to be played.
How to get the most
out of your
Victrola
“Victrola” is the registered trade mark of
the Victor Talking Machine Company
designating the products of this company only
Victor Talking Machine Company
Camden, N.J., U.S.A.
COPYRIGHT 1919 BY THE VICTOR TALKING MACHINE COMPANY, CAMDEN, N. J.
Hepplewhite
Period Victrolas are now obtainable in twelve of the principal types, namely: Empire, Chippendale, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Jacobean, Gothic, William and Mary, Adam, Sheraton, Chinese Chippendale, Queen Anne, Japanese Lacquer, and the Hepplewhite shown above. There are also two other variations of each type which are available, but in every case Period Victrolas are made to order only.
How to get the most
out of your
Victrola
Today, when for the first time you have brought a Victrola into your home, we wish it were possible to show you how much this, the most versatile and so the most satisfying musical instrument in all the world, can be made to entertain, to console and to inspire.
To say that the Victrola offers you, your family and your friends “all the music of all the world”—is to dismiss the subject with an entirely inadequate phrase and so this booklet has been prepared to offer certain suggestions for your greater enjoyment of this, your newest and we verily believe your happiest possession.
Victor records represent a moment of inspired achievement in the life of some great artist. The skill, the art and the “atmosphere” of the Metropolitan Opera House and the concert halls of the world are brought into your home. They are no longer things to be enjoyed only at great intervals on rare occasions—they may become an integral part of your life and they are available at a moment’s notice.
Intimately associated as we are with the development of the Victrola, yet we are fully conscious of the wonder of it and we, no less than our customers, have learned that amid “the daily round of irritating concerns and duties” we have only to turn to the Victrola in order to be once more in love with life and its beautiful, blessed burdens. We believe, utterly, that no matter with what delight you may have anticipated the possession of a Victrola, you will still have fallen far short of complete realization of its possibilities—of the extent to which through the whole scale of human emotions its music may become woven into the fabric of your spiritual life and your physical well-being.
CARUSO
The keenest of all impressions are those we receive first, and so we would urge with all earnestness that your first selection of records should contain at least some of the world’s “big” music.
Art is art, no matter what form it may take, and those who are sincere in their musical opinions will no more despise the lighter and more popular music than they will despise good music which is the product of other kinds of feeling and other rhythms. In certain moods and at certain times there is as much “inspiration” to be derived from ragtime as there is from a Beethoven symphony or the thunderous emotions of a great opera. Each produces its effect in its own way and each supplies a very real human need; but because they are so different in the form of their appeal, they need to be treated somewhat differently.
The fact of the matter is that popular music is usually built up on one of a few well-recognized formulæ. It does what you expect it to do. Not consciously, but by association, we have learned to accept certain “patterns” in music as we have learned to expect certain patterns in clothes. Since there is nothing essentially different in any of them, they are easy to learn and so—easy to get tired of.
There is, however, a very real pleasure in “picking up the tune.” For a few days we are quite happy in whistling or singing the new song—but once the new popular song is learned—then what? Your own experience will tell you—and that is why we urge that in your first collection of records you secure a number of the classics or semi-classics with which you are familiar.
FARRAR
Familiar! That is precisely the point. Theodore Thomas once said that “popular music was familiar music,” and that is the unassailable truth. A Beethoven symphony may be as popular as “The Rosary” when enough people have become as familiar with it, and yet it may be a classic of the classics.
Parenthetically it might be said at this point that for those who do not sing or play, the Victrola is by far the quickest and simplest medium through which to “pick up” the new music.
To illustrate by a concrete example, “So Long, Letty” or “Tipperary” will keep a family full to the brim with bright, pleasant, joyful emotions for quite some little time. It may be days or weeks. It might even be months, but Clement’s record of the Berceuse from Jocelyn, Elman’s record of the Schubert Ave Maria, or any one of a thousand we might mention, will smooth the wrinkles from your brow, the troubled furrows from your mind, ten years from today as surely as they will now.
When the music of all the world is at your disposal it is almost impossible to refrain from bathing heart and soul and body in it, but remember that to become saturated with anything is to lose the fine edge of enjoyment. With too frequent use the most valuable remedy may lose its healing virtues. Definite, measurable, physical effects may be produced by music, and the gist of the matter is that one should become familiar enough with music to understand and enjoy it, but never familiar enough to induce the loss of its effect. Hear it when you need to hear it, and it will continue to be a thing of joy not for days or weeks, but all through the years.
GALLI-CURCI
Personal taste varies more perhaps in music than in any other art, but in a general way it follows much the same broad channels, and in any case the Victor Record Catalogue, since it actually does contain almost all the music of the world by the world’s greatest exponents of musical art, is a treasure house of untold satisfaction and gives the widest possible scope for personal selection.
The Victrola is not one instrument, but all of them. It is a voice, a violin, a trombone or a symphony orchestra, according to your will, and in making a selection of records full advantage should be taken of this most extraordinary privilege.
Making up a Victrola program for the entertainment of friends calls for just the same variety and emotional balance as the professional musician strives to introduce into his own programs, but in this, you as your own concert manager, enjoy a degree of latitude wholly beyond the reach of any single artist and any manager, for every branch of music, every type of music and every medium of musical expression may be brought into play by the simple expedient of having a sufficiently large and sufficiently varied collection of records.
In giving operatic programs or in playing operatic records for your own satisfaction the Victrola Book of the Opera will be an added source of pleasure and satisfaction, for it affords a clear, concise understanding of all the well-known operas, both as to music, plot and dramatic action.
Then, too, the pleasure you derive from operatic records may be similarly heightened by listening to the music with a libretto, which gives the foreign words used by the singer and an English translation of them.
GLUCK
Those who are unskilled in languages usually experience some difficulty in pronouncing the names of composers, artists, operas and opera characters, and there is an undeniable satisfaction in being able to pronounce such words correctly. This is really much simpler than it seems and the list of such names furnished at the back of the Victor Record Catalogue together with the additional pronunciations given in the Victrola Book of the Opera and given also from time to time in the monthly supplements to the Victor Catalogue will be sufficient for most purposes.
We should like you, our newest customer, to realize that these suggestions we offer for your consideration are not mere hypothetical estimates, but conclusions proven by the sifted experience of years. We present them to you in order that in your home the Victrola shall be all that it may so easily become.
The Love Duet from Faust
The sheer ecstasy of the passion which may bless or may utterly destroy has never been put into music more clearly than it is in this exquisite duet in “Faust,” and the Victrola enables you to hear this music sung by two of the great artists of our generation.
