They Shall Have Music

by JOHN M. CONLY

TWENTY years is a long time. A lot of people had become accustomed to dialing CBS every Sunday at three (New York time) and hearing the Carnegie Hall audience curb its coughs and settle in its seats while the Philharmonic tuned up.

For these people, the third Sunday in October this year was a depressing day. It was the day they were disinherited. From the hour it had held so long, the New York PhilharmonicSymphony was gone. In its place, the Columbia Broadcasting System had stuck a historical soap-opera called “ Escape. ”

To be sure, CBS offered a sop to the music lovers: two hours earlier, each Sunday, they could hear a tape recording of a concert played in New York by the Philharmonic the week before. However, the old atmosphere was gone, even if all CBS affiliates had carried the new program — which they didn’t. Apart from this, it reached the West Coast at breakfast time.

If music lovers took this as a snub, they were probably right, but they shouldn’t have been surprised. Intellectuals (and to an anti-intellectual, this includes all classical-music listeners) are in disrepute today. It is no longer necessary to curry favor with them by giving them free symphonies. And their almost un-American unresponsiveness to mass advertising makes it impractical to give them sponsored symphonies, at least on nation-wide hookups. Or so the theory goes.

Furthermore, the big networks are hard pressed by the problem of making an old, waning medium — radio — pay the horribly high initiation fees of a new one — television. The Philharmonic won’t be the only casualty. The antimusic trend is far advanced, and it won’t be reversed in the near future, if ever.

Fortunately, no law of nature limits trends to one at a time. A couple of others, well under way, are doing much to offset the decline of network music.

In Washington, D.C., on October 15, listeners who wanted to hear the New York Philharmonic at three o’clock could do so. Not at all by coincidence, a local station called WQQW (AM and FM) had dislodged “Major Tunes,” one of its few popular music programs, and substituted “Hall of Music: N.Y. Philharmonic-Symphony.” To be sure, the music was recorded. But, to balance the lack of “ it’s happening now ” atmosphere, the broadcast was enormously clearer, richer, and more brilliant tonally than any live big-network broadcast could be. (In New York, WNEW, nationally esteemed as commercially canniest of all independent stations, followed the same cue.)

To carry their programs around the continent, the big networks lease telephone wires. Despite numerous promises to the Federal Communications Commission, the wires leased still are those limited (by their relay amplifiers) to a tone range of 5000 cycles per second.

A local high-fidelity AM station can do at least half again as well as this. A good recording can double or triple it. A local live FM broadcast can do better yet, easily delivering, noise-free, the whole sound range the ear can hear — around 17,000 cycles per second.

Herein lies adequate technical basis for a bona fide trend — especially in a country where, whether radio advertisers like it or not, musical performances get a higher total annual attendance than do sports events. It is not surprising that in recent years, months, and even weeks, more than a dozen U.S. cities and certain favored rural regions have equipped themselves with “good music” stations.

Some of these provide wonderful stories of the pioneering spirit, of perseverance against odds. And it is a heartening fact that a couple of them are earning substantial profits — notably WQXR, New York, prototype of all good-music stations, and KMPC, Los Angeles.

Others are products of their founders’ success stories. WABF, New York, is run by Ira Hirschmann, the man who, at twenty-three, in 1925, first put a symphony orchestra on the American air as a regular feature. It was (disheartened listeners take note) the New York Philharmonic. Hirschmann, soon to be known as the wonder boy of New York retail merchandising, got L. Bamberger & Co., his department-store employer, to put it on WOR, then a local they owned. He himself was the commentator. CBS got into the act much later.

When WABF came on the air, after World War II, it did so with the solid backing of the Hirschmann department-store fortune. It was ultracultural (and straight FM) from the start, and advertisers could take it or leave it. Mostly they’ve been inking it, and making surprisingly little fuss about the severe Hirschmann strictures on advertising. WABF tolerates no jingles, no patter, no prolonged plugs. Anything which would sound incongruous after a Haydn concert by the New Friends of Music (a Hirschmann creation), or a production of Oedipus Rex, doesn’t get said.

The FFWABF (Fanatical Followers of, etc.) make much of the theory that WABF now fills the role that used to be held by the No. 1 pioneer, WQXR. In a way, it does: but there is doubt that WQXR’s early adlessness was ever a matter of choice. Its policy is that ads should be useful and inoffensive, but not necessarily selfeffacing. Its progress, in sixteen years of growth, has been experimental. Once, for instance, it tentatively let a sponsor put a jingle on the air — and immediately discovered the inettle of its listeners. A group of them promptly pooled funds, hired a public relations firm, and went to war on the sponsor. That quenched the jingle.

However, WQXR does not object to descriptive advertising, nor do stations which have taken it as a model, like WQQW in Washington, which exchanges programs with WQXR. But it was a phenomenon they discovered which set the WABF-type stations on another track. The phenomenon was listener loyalty on a very mature level. The theory it generated is this: On cerebrally highpowered listeners, most ultra-hypersuper-turbo-fluo-powered advertising phraseology is wasted anyway; but they are aware that stations need money and, in return for their music, they will conscientiously seek out and patronize its sponsors.

Certainly such listeners do exist, at least in some areas. M. Robert Rogers proved it in Washington when he took over WQQW in 1947. First he treated listeners lavishly to good music. Then he began to “torture” them, telling them advertisers didn’t believe they existed and that the station would have to “go popular.” The next week brought in 5000 letters and petitions of protest. Then, for more proof, he asked the audience to contribute a half dollar apiece, the proceeds to pay costs for a Sunday “ Listeners’ Symphony.” Next time he went on the air, it was to ask them to stop. The Listeners’ Symphony was paid up for six months — $1300 worth — and advertisers had no more squawks.

Of course, that was in Washington, a city crammed with culture-conscious government employees. And the ice had been broken earlier: wartime Washington’s most coveted radio, Rogers found, was the big, Secondhand Scott or McMurdo-Silver which could bring in WQXR from New York. Music lovers owe a lot to WQXR.

WQXR had its genesis in an experimental television license, issued in 1929 to an engineer named John V. L. Hogan. On his sound channel, at 1550 kilocycles (then commercially unused), Hogan played classical records because he liked them. Soon he found that people with short-wave sets were becoming fans of his. His friend and neighbor Elliott Sanger, an advertising man, saw the possibilities. In 1936 they went on the air as the Interstate Broadcasting Company.

There was no one to show Hogan and Sanger the way. They themselves had to corral and categorize their listeners. Then they had to apply what they found out about them— primarily, their fanatical loyalty and their aversion to advertising glop. Eventually the former factor outweighed the latter and brought success, but not without a long, tough fight. Advertising men, especially agency men, dislike special approaches and censorship. And sponsors were skeptical about music lovers and their money.

Quality products and services largely saved the day — premium coffee, vermouths, Fifth Avenue stores and jewelers. Despite this, WQXR’s listeners, according to surveys, are not “carriage trade“ in terms of income. They do, though, rate high in education and fastidiousness. Perhaps they might best be described as potential New York Times readers, which is why the newspaper bought the station in 1944.

It is also probably why WQXR started another step in spreading the good-music-station function this year. I pstate New York is a good Times market. Hence it made good sense for WQXR to tie into the 11-station, upstate, straight-FM Rural Radio Network. It already had four other affiliates to which it fed programs: WQAN, Scranton, Pa.; WFLN, Philadelphia; WBIB, New Haven, and WFMZ, Allentown, Pa. All are fed by FM radio relay far more cheaply than a wire network could do it.

What such network developments do, of course, is solve — cheaply — the program problems of small, new stations. WBIB, for instance, could not itself afford a 25,000-item record collection like WQXR’s, nor could it easily corral noted conductors, opera stars, and critics to compete on musicquiz programs.

Other networks are in existence or abuilding, Hirschmann’s WABF is lining up affiliates. The Continental Network leases a high-fidelity line from Washington through New York to Boston. An array of labor and coöperative FM stations, brought together by Morris Novik, a New York labor and radio consultant, exchange tapes. Notable among these is a nonmusical item, a nightly series of news analyses by Marquis Childs and Joseph C. Harsch, which originate with WCFM, a cöoperative-owned Washington station.

WCFM, as a matter of fact, is a goodmusic station which rates attention from any cultureconscious community, because of the ingenuity of its survival procedure. A council of local coöps was formed to finance it. A rather righteous crew, they strictly limited its advertising content. George Bernstein, the manager, was irked to find he couldn’t use his connections as an ex-executive of a patent medicine firm. (“As a stockholder,”he says, “I agreed, but not as manager.”) But there were other expedients. He drew a top-notch array of commentator talent from Washington’s rich fund of newspapermen. Being blessed with an extraordinarily good sound engineer, Warren McDowell by name, Bernstein began doing job-transcription work for the UN, the Democratic National Committee, Americans for Democratic Action, and sundry other organizations. He tried for, and got, transcriptions of the British Broadcasting Company’s fabulous “Third Program,”offering whole plays, operas, and other elevated fare. Since these are not commercially licensed, he asked listeners to subscribe money to pay for them — thus far, successfully.

He also arranged live broadcasts of the National Gallery of Art’s excellent weekly concerts. Now he has put the station into the LP record business. The first releases are the Third “Hymn” Symphony of the neglected American, Charles Ives, and Handel’s Royal Water Music (complete, not the Hamilton Harty suite), both played by the National Gallery Orchestra under Richard Bales and extremely well recorded.

Withal, Bernstein has kept a very real “community” flavor about the station. Its nearest counterpart is WNYC, the New York municipal station for which New Yorkers are indebted to the late Fiorello La Guardia.

Despite all such encouraging notes, the dominant theme in the goodmusic-station saga is not (yet) success, but struggle. And there have been setbacks. WBMS, a Boston daylight AM station, was poor but earnest. It could not force standards on advertisers. It had listeners for its good music, but they resented the advertising; it seriously disrupted the programs. Consequently the station “went popular" last May.

However, its former assistant manager, John Thornton, now is at WXHR, a Cambridge day-and-night FM station, trying the WABF formula. To the gratification of its owner, Frank Lyman, who was braced for a venture into classical programing by a very impressive citizens’ advisory group, it seems to be working. But there are hazards.

One of the main hazards is part and parcel of the whole FM broadcasting problem, for FM is the obvious medium for good music broadcasting. It is much more tone-true than AM, simply because of its much finergrained reproduction. It is cheaper and noise-free, since it doesn’t have to drown out static, as AM does, by pouring on more power. It is not subject to cross-talk from other channels, as AM is when nighttime comes around. It is a contribution well worthy of the inventor who probably has done more for radio than any other, Dr. Edwin H. Armstrong.

It is also, thus far, a commercial flop. No big broadcaster and hardly any big set manufacturers have even bothered to try promoting it. Broadcasters, with heavy investments in low-fidelity network systems, blame the set makers’ failure to produce. Set manufacturers, competitively committed to cheap audio parts, unable to show up the difference between AM and FM, retort that they aren’t going to make receivers for nonexistent programs. In between is the public, simplifying matters by being much more interested in television anyway — except for the segment which likes music.

It is possible, with television taking the center of the stage, that aural radio finally may retreat into specialized coverages. There already is a local-sports-station trend to match the good-music-station development. But the music lovers are likeliest to spearhead the drive which may bring FM into its own. For they have an auxiliary trend of their own.

It is the highfidelity trend. No one who has equipped his home with a custom amplifier and speaker is going to do much AM listening thereafter. When one has become used to the ou-the-scene reality of FM, (he grunt and grind of AM becomes the intrusively annoying to endure long.

To be sure, the Radio Manufacturers Association does not even tally high-fidelity component sales in its periodic surveys. Just the same, the custom components business, taking no time out for tears, seems to have tripled in volume again in 1950. It probably stands now somewhere between $150,000,000 and $200,000,000.

A lot of this is in FM tuners, and a large chunk of their sales can be attributed to good-music stations. In Washington, WQQW-AM goes off the air (by law) at sundown. But first it tells its music-hungry audience some of the evening fare they could enjoy via WQQW-FM, which goes on until midnight. Since this fare sometimes includes live National Symphony concerts and some of the world’s best chamber music (that played at the Library of Congress), the propaganda has its effects. Washington’s major high-fidelity dealer credits such radio tactics with three fourths of his annual business.

Reasonably good tuners (for plugin use with high-fidelily rigs or old AM consoles) start at about $35. High-performance models start at $65, and very satisfactory ones are priced around $80. From there on up in performance and price, the sky is the limit.

Among standard set manufacturers, production performance has been spotty and promotion performance even worse. Zenith, Philco, and G.E. are noteworthy exceptions. Annually the members of the FM division of the National Association of Broadcasters lambaste the manufacturers for this, and this year there may be some slight result, especially in table models. TV manufacturers seem a hopeless proposition.

But the main problem of radiomusic lovers is for radio-music lovers themselves to solve. If they want radio music, they must have — and support — good-music stations. If they want good-music stations, they must have FM.

Often excellent recordings are issued only to be lost in the publicity shuffle; others" acclaim dies down too soon. Mentioned here are a few which might fall in one of these two categories: —

Bach: Concerto in E (Gioconda de Vito, violin, with Geraint Jones, harpsichord, and London Chamber Orchestra, Anthony Bernard conducting; three 12" 78’s; HMV DB-688486). The mesmerically paced, splendidly recorded slow movement alone makes this a collector’s item.

Baroque Cantatas of 17th Century North Germany (soloists, Copenhagen Boys’ Choir, instrumentalists, and chamber orchestra, Mogens Woldike conducting; six 12" 78’s; Gramophone Shop [N.Y.] Celebrities Album V). A treasurable item, and expensive, but it would be hard to resist Heinrich Schütz’s Pharisee and Publican or Franz Tender’s Sleepers, Wake. Faultless.

English Church Music from the 15th Century to the Present (choirs of Canterbury Cathedral; Westminster Abbey; New College, Oxford; York Minster; etc.; five 10" and seven 12" 78’s; English Columbia LB 91-95 and LX 1288-89). From Tallis, Morley, and Purcell to Vaughan Williams. Moving and impressive; recording: excellent to fair. These may be duplicated on LP when English Columbia gets around to it.

Handel: Concerti Grossi Nos. 1 to 4 (Boyd Neel Orchestra, with Thurston Dart, harpsichord; two 10" LP’s; London LPS 206, 207). These really should have been at the top of this list, or any list, since they are probably the best recordings ever made — with performances to match.

Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 38 and 39 (Jonathan Sternberg conducting Vienna Symphony Orchestra; 12" LP; Haydn Society HSLP 1010). Star of this parlay is the deeply tragic No. 39, with harpsichord continuo. Excellent recording.

Haydn: Symphony No. 91 in E-flat Major (Mogens Wöldike conducting the Danish State Broadcasting Symphony; three 12" 78’s; HMV Z-7016-18). If anyone can make 78’s sound as good as LP’s, it is these Danes, and this is masterful Haydn, magnificently played.

Hummel, Johann Nepomuk: Septet in D Minor (Franz Holletseheck, piano, with flute, oboe, horn, viola, cello, and bass; 12" LP; Westminster WL 50-18). If Saint-Saëns had been a Viennese rival of Beethoven, this is how he might have written. Very engaging. Recording: fair.

Paganini: Concerto No. 1, and Saint-Saëns: Concerto No. 3 (Zino Francescatti, violin, with Eugene Ormandy conducting Philadelphia Orchestra and Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting New York Philharmonic; 12" LP or two 78 albums; Columbia ML4315). War horses, but probably rarely so well and earnestly played and never so well recorded.

Purcell: The Fairy Queen (musical play excerpts; soloists and Cambridge Festival Chorus, Daniel Pinkham conducting; two 10" LP’s; Allegro AL 60). This is a new, exciting Purcell, with drum-bangs and sonorities as well as incomparable songs. Recording: fair.

Ravel: “Daphnis and Chloe,” Suites Nos. 1 and 2; Schönberg: Verklärte Nacht (Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and Temple University Chorus; 12" LP or two 78 albums; Columbia ML 4316). Perhaps this is what the Philadelphians do best. The preatonal Sehönberg especially is texturally magical. Recording: excellent.

Schubert: Songs (Herta Glaz, contralto, Joseph Rosenstock, piano; 12" LP; Renaissance X-15). Glaz ranks with Anderson and Ferrier, without resembling either, and the songs are out-of-the-way and well done. Unfortunately, some pressings are off center on side 2. Recording: good.