Damian’s 78s (and a few early LPs)

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Use the menu (at left) to navigate to sections of the two volumes:

The First Book of the Gramophone Record (pub 1924)
and
The Second Book of the Gramophone Record (pub 1925)
by Percy A Scholes

Percy Scholes is best remembered for his “Oxford Companion to Music”, published in 1938. However, he wrote a good deal of music criticism, in his own inimitable style for the Observer and the Radio Times, among others. In the mid 1920s he wrote the 2 books named above, partly as companions to “The Listener’s History of Music, Vol. I – to Beethoven” and its succeeding volume. Each of these Books of Gramophone Records select some 50 records covering the musical period to be discussed. They are presented as listening guides, with copious musical exams, and opinions on the available recordings of the works in question.

The First Book (of which I have the 1927 “Second Edition (with many changes)”) is dedicated to Compton Mackenzie, founder of The Gramophone magazine, and the Second Book (of which I have the 1925 first edition) is dedicated to Sir Henry Wood

I will make various extracts from these works available here as they pertain to recordings that have featured on my site, or related recordings.