ABSTRACT
Timothy Day is curator of Western Art Music at the Sound Archive of the British Library in London. He has given us, at the very least, a study of the history and implications of recorded music from the late nineteenth century to our day, beginning with an inaccurate description of that Brahms cylinder right on the first page of his study. Day is right to emphasize the role of the record producer, and he expectedly outlines the achievements of three men—Fred Gaisberg, Walter Legge, and John Culshaw. Day is quite justified in giving these three their due, but, as an evocative writer and a critic with insight into people, he has stiff competition from Norman Lebrecht. Day concludes that "Recordings have clearly documented the taming, as some might see it, the moderating, the cooling, the classicizing of performing styles."
