anthology cost, I estimate, between seventeen and eighteen pounds.

What of that? If you possess a Gramophone, you must provide Gramophone fodder. And if you do not possess a Gramophone, the cost of a good one, plus the cost of the Records I have recommended, will amount to less than the cost of a decent piano, an article with which every young married couple, whether it can play or not, provides itself as a matter of course, and a piece of furniture demanded by the merest respectability.

Needless to say, not every one of the Records mentioned in these two volumes need be considered an essential part of a first outfit, though the whole set of them, together with an instrument, would constitute one of the best wedding presents I can imagine. A first choice can be made, and periodical additions made to it, the order of acquirement of the Records being dictated, naturally, by personal preferences.

The Limitations of Preference.

But I want to suggest that these preferences should not be taken too seriously. The normal man or woman may take it for granted that the area of his or her present appreciation of music does not even approach in extent the potential area of that appreciation.

There is hardly a piece included in my list which does not possess thousands of devoted admirers, and this is some evidence that there is hardly a piece included which the present reader might not come to enjoy did he but know it well enough. The recent Morning Post anecdote of the old lady in a London concert hall listening to Schönberg with an ear trumpet, removing it with a start as the music began, examining it, shaking it, putting it to her ear again, and at last in despair at the apparent continued defects of her instrument getting up and walking out, is suggestive. In nine cases out of ten, where a piece of ancient or of modern music is approved by a

considerable body of musicians but not by a particular listener, it is not the music but the aural apparatus of that listener that is at fault. I dare not affirm that Pierrot Lunaire is a masterpiece; it does not yet exist in gramophonic form and the score is in places puzzling, so I am merely generalising. On the Sunday afternoon before I wrote this Introduction, sitting outside a tent on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, I lent the occupants of the nearest farmhouse my Gramophone and two boxes of Records. I dropped in and found them in the middle of a performance of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. They admitted that to them it sounded 'as though someone had put on two Records at once', but they went through it to the end, every one of them carefully listening, and agreed that 'at any rate it helped to pass the time'. I am not sure that the spirit of the Poem of Ecstasy is one which would ever appeal to my friends of the farm, but they were more prepared to give the piece a chance than a good many London concert-goers were when it was first introduced, and complex though its web may be, were I to lend them the Record repeatedly they would, I think, come to 'understand' it, whether they loved it or not.

In passing I may say that I have omitted the Records of this very piece from my list with great regret, and in the hope that the company which has been enterprising enough to give us them will see its way to assembling again the huge orchestra, under the same fine conductor, and providing us with a more balanced performance. It cannot 'be an easy task to produce a perfect Record of a work of so much complexity.

The Principles of Selection.

A few words upon some of the principles that have guided me in making my selection may be desirable.

To begin with, let me say that absolutely no trade consideration whatever has come into the question. At the moment of writing these, the last pages of the book to

be written, I do not even know, except in a very vague way, what are the proportions in which the different firms are represented. Musical criteria alone have directed my choice. I have in the past found the various firms engaged in this industry entirely sportsmanlike, both in their readiness to help me in every possible way and in their equal readiness to accept the results, and I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to them.

Some of what I may, without disrespect, call the smaller recording companies (smaller, at least, as regards their output of Records of serious music) are not represented in this book at all. If I have in any respect been unjust it may be in this detail, and I am willing freely to admit to these companies that I am not so minutely acquainted with their output as with that of their elder competitors. If they feel I am in danger of overlooking musically valuable Records of their production, it is for them to bring these regularly to my notice, when I will gladly give them the same examination as I am accustomed to give to the products of the firms who already take the trouble to keep me fully informed as to their output.

As in the First Book of the Gramophone Record, I have not been solely guided in my choice by considerations either of musical value, as illustrating the course of musical evolution, or of excellence of performance or recording. All these considerations have, as already stated, been merged.

It may, perhaps, be noted that there are not a great many Piano Records or Solo Vocal Records included, though neither of these departments is by any means seriously neglected here. The Piano, as an instrument, records less well than other instruments, and its music usually calls for less commentary than Orchestral or String Quartet music. After the first portion of the period represented in the Volume (that of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann) the Piano ceases to be so important a means of expression to composers, and, moreover, the later Piano composers

(such, for instance, as Scriabin, whose long range of Piano music is marvellously interesting and often beautiful) are very poorly represented as yet in the catalogues of the recording companies. As for Songs--if only the companies paid more attention to the great Lieder writers they would compel me to give more space to their vocal records. It is one of the regrettable features of gramophony to-day that the songs of Schubert, Schumann and other of the great German song-wrights are not to be obtained-at all events in this country. French and English songs are also neglected, and Russian songs are usually recorded by either Chaliapine or Rosing, both of whom have provided wonderful records of fine music which is yet only half acceptable to the wider public from the fact that the Russian language has, almost necessarily, been employed.

Wagner is represented in this book by only one Record, yet no composer has of late years been more generously treated by the recording companies. My feeling as to Wagner has been that if I once fairly began the discussion of Records of his work, I should not know where to stop, and that the best way of treating his Music Dramas would be by means of a special Book of the Wagner Records which would describe some of his Music Dramas as wholes-an ambitious plan, obviously outside the scope of the present volume.

In choosing the Records of British music, I have been in much doubt. John Ireland's Piano and Violin Sonata I should certainly have felt obliged to include were its performance not very badly 'cut'. McEwen's Solway Symphony, for instance, has been omitted solely on grounds of space, and in the hope that some opportunity may occur of making amends. And so with other works which might be mentioned.

Sins of Omission and Commission.

As with the First Book of the Gramophone Record, so with the Second--my many readers may wish that I had

included some particular Record, but few, I think, will object to any that I have included.

My desire to include works as wholes, as much as possible, has of course limited me somewhat in the number of composers and pieces I could represent amongst my fifty Records. But where a piece of chamber music or of orchestral music in several movements has been recorded, I have, if I included it at all, felt it right to include it as a whole.

In cases where more than one company has recorded a piece, I have, with great care, chosen the Record or set of Records which I considered the best. In cases where I have found the Records of one company to be better in one respect, and the Records of a competing company to be better in another, I have frankly stated the fact.

It must be remembered, however, that I have not tried every Record upon every make of Gramophone, and with every make of sound-box and needle, which might be a field of research too extensive even for an author with more leisure than I. I can only claim that, on the lines I have adopted, I have carried out the difficult work of selection with great care and a due sense of responsibility.

The Listener's History of Music.

As in the case of the First Book of the Gramophone Record, so in the case of this second one, I have omitted discussion of the historical position of composers and particulars of their lives. The companion to the First Book already exists in Volume I. of the Listener's History of Music, and the companion to the Second Book is to be similarly provided in Volume II. of that History.

Inasmuch as music itself is more important than its history, and as I could not write two books at one time, I have thought it best to provide the guide to the music before the handbook of its history. But I hope that the second volume of the Listener's History will not be long delayed.