Diskmanship

Innocent people think that to enjoy music all they need is a phonograph, a few records, and a little time. The record connoisseur knows better. He finds it is his duty to discuss the merits and demerits of any record ever made, from Aaronovich's fluffed trill in Op. O to Zzinzer's fallow tempos in Op. Posth. He predates the much-publicized hi-fi bug (who specializes in woofers, super-tweeters and push-pull amplifier circuits), but not until now has anyone tried to organize the record connoisseur's guerrilla war and set down some basic strategy.

The task is undertaken in the current issue of High Fidelity magazine by Frederic Grunfeld, who runs the Mutual Broadcasting System's Musical Almanac. Drawing heavily on the work of the eminent British social scientist and author, Stephen Potter (Gamesmanship, Lifemanship, etc.), Grunfeld develops in a series of case histories some basic principles of Diskmanship. Writes he: "A single record, properly selected and bestowed, can serve to establish beyond question the authority of the giver for a year or longer," and persuade the other fellow that he is hopelessly tin-eared. Some successful Diskmen:

P: Roger B. Lustrand, a bachelor, "having discovered that most of the children on his Christmas list possess large collections of such records as Quacky Clarinet and Otto the Ophicleide*. . . makes a habit of bringing them LPs of the most recondite sort of music: Schoenberg, neoclassic Stravinsky, or Varese ... A few of the modern parents in Roger's circle actually rear their children on such music. For them, Lustrand thoughtfully provides a present of the Terry the Timpani variety, the most banal he can find, which inevitably becomes the favorite item in the nursery library."

P: Bonnard Harvey of Maryland and Astoria, L.I. crossed tone arms with a connoisseur whose specialty was chamber music. To upset the expert, he arrived one night bearing a gaily wrapped Scheherazade--one of the lushest of full-orchestra scores--"which he had bought at the corner drugstore for well under a dollar. 'Oh, it may have a few reproduction flaws,' he said, 'but this cheap little music-for-the-masses disk contains a flamboyant Scheherazade worthy of your steel.' " The connoisseur was so unsettled that he discussed the lowbrow disk at length, thus shattering his reputation. "A chamber-music man, my foot!" was the consensus. Bonnard, on the other hand, "now is recognized as one of the leading connoisseurs in all greater Astoria."

P: Wilford G. Crane, a mere "10-watt amplifier bank clerk," once brilliantly undermined a wealthy "hifi bourgeois" with a gift of a single 78-r.p.m. disk. " 'It's Dajos Bela and Salon Orchestra, been looking for it for years. The way he plays these Hungarian Dances is beyond comparison. Finally found it on my last trip to Chicago. Some allowances you may have to make, but for 1933, don't you think the sound is spacious and resonant, eh?' Of course, Crane had actually found the disk in the attic . . . and had then rubbed dust and grit into the grooves in the manner of a furniture dealer 'antiquing' or liming oak." The noveau hi-fi was suitably impressed, now has "a large collection of bad-sounding rarities."

Diskman Grunfeld writes with nostalgia of the simple days when an obscure composer named Franz Drdla* "was one of the few pieces of out-of-the-way information one had to remember" and "there were never more than two [versions] of anything and in many cases not even one, so the only hazard was being caught off-base discussing nonexistent issues." Today, says Grunfeld, there is so much music on the market that some connoisseurs are forced to specialize in such restricted areas as complete Beethoven Quartet issues. When quizzed about some rare or new release that he knows absolutely nothing about, the good Diskman replies "in a thinly disguised tone of contempt: 'Sorry, I haven't gotten around to that yet. I've been busy comparing the new Barstow Quartet series with the earlier complete Beethovens. Takes a while, y' know.' "

*A keyed bugle, ancestor of the tuba.

*Moravian violinist and prolific composer (1868-1944), chiefly remembered for his drawing-room favorite, Serenade in A.

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