Our friend 8H Haggis has been lurking in the comments section again, leaving many delectable goodies for those quick enough to pounce on them during the next few weeks.
All of these are on Zippyshare. For those new to that site, it has a annoying habit of generating one or more nuisance tabs or pages when you first click on the download button, offering cures for baldness (I oughta try that one) or spurious software. Just close that tab or page and try the download button again.
Once again, the links below will take you to one of my posts. You then will need to scan the comments page until you find 8H's contribution(s). Well worth the trouble!
Stokowski's broadcast of the Koto Concerto by Henry Cowell, from a tape by 8H's teacher, Lou Harrison - LINK
Stokowski's superb 1947 recording of Dvorak's New World Symphony - LINK
CPE Bach Concertos played and conducted by the very underrated Thomas Schippers - LINK
Four Saint-Saëns tone poems from the NY Philharmonic and Dimitri Mitropoulos - LINK
Mitropoulos's second, stereo recording of the Vaughan Williams Tallis Fantasia, coupled with Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht - LINK
Sir Adrian Boult conducts Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Divertimento for Strings, and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast - LINK
Boult's Somerset recording of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony - LINK
Walter Goehr's Concert Hall recordings of three of Tchaikovsky's Suites for Orchestra - LINK
Three early Tchaikovsky symphonies in stereo recordings from the legendary Hans Swarowsky - LINK
Gordon Binkerd's First Symphony in the 1959 Edouard van Remoortel recording from St. Louis - LINK
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3 months ago
88 comments:
Absolutely fascinating material.
You do really learn something every time you visit your blogspot.
So much more informative than RCMR forum - and no aggressive, irrelevant conversations!!!!
You should be applauded by all who LOVE classical music.
Just downloaded a lot of Reader's Digest and Concert Hall material from Curt Timmons' "Klassic Haus" - currently listening to it on my music server - talk about wallowing in 'nostalgia'?!
Many, many thanks.
Many thanks to 8H Haggis (and to you of course Buster). I owned some Swarowsky LPs on a UK budget label, called, I think, Saga. They were 17/6 in old (ie real) money (that is seventeen shillings and sixpence for youngsters, ie £0.875) which is what the teenage me could afford. I still have the "Winter Daydreams" and very good it is. HS would often make some sudden tempo changes but they usually make sense. His Saint-Saens symphony 3 is a case in point - the orchestra are nt quite ready for him in the coda. Unfortunately the organ is out of tune - a common problem of insufficient wind power. (Also my problem these days!).
(Memory Lane is such a tempting journey, isnt it?)
Hi Andrew and Douglas - Thanks for your comments! Speaking of Memory Lane, I remember that Swarowsky was a mainstay of the budget labels; I was a bit of a snob back then and preferred the majors' budget lines because I could get better orchestras and famous conductors (e.g., Bruno Walter).
Thanks for the kind comment. Here is the Saint-Saens Third Symphony, by Hans Swarowsky, from the old Urania recording. The embedded cover image is the original LP cover with Urania's "stereo sticker"; I got this from the Discogs website, I believe (a very bad scan that had to be manipulated a great amount.) Unfortunately, the transfer is, however, from a MONAURAL record, not a stereo disk. 30 MB zipped mp3; available only for 30 days after upload date of 10/18/18.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/d/7DsgQy3t/13750/Saint_Saens_Sym3_FranzEibner_ViennaPhilharmusica_Swarowsky_mono.mp3
--or--
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/7DsgQy3t/file.html
8H Haggis
Curt's page of FREE downloads is here:
http://klassichaus.us/Free-MP3-Downloads.php
I haven't looked at RMCR in a couple of years, no longer being willing to subject myself to the trolling, vulgarity, and insulting, by the throwbacks with narcissistic personality disorder. Pity.
8H Haggis
Here is another (alleged) Swarowsky performance: Smetana's complete cycle Ma Vlast, with the so-called "South German Philharmonic" under Swarowsky--or so the Ampex stereo open reel tape label asserts. This performance (transferred by a friend of mine) has also been issued on various budget CDs, attributed to Alfred Scholz (a German record producer who was actually a student and protege of Swarowsky); somebody named Zsolt Deaky; and goodness knows who else! The German budget label Pilz once issued this on a 2-CD set: but then defaced it by SUBSTITUTING the Moldau performance by Libor Pesek (!) The open reel *might* well be authentic as it probably predates Scholz's activities as a music licenser to many movie films. (Scholz was responsible for the infamous CD issue of Bruckner's Ninth that had the first movement in two places: mov't 1 and mov't 3, with NO actual genuine third movement--see John Berky's Bruckner site for more explanations of Scholz's oddities.) At any rate, whoever actually conducted it, this is a very good performance of Ma Vlast!
384 MB folder of lossless FLACs; will be deleted by ZS after around 11/18/18; plus Ampex tape cover and back images.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/d/DeAlCqxP/27857/Smetana%20Ma%20Vlast%20-%20SWD%2c%20Swarowsky.zip
--or--
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/DeAlCqxP/file.html
8H Haggis
Here is a large folder titled "Swarowsky Miscellany" containing *authentic* and sometimes very old performances by H. S., both live and on disk--none of the controversial ones that *may* be Alfred Scholz counterfeits:
Saint-Saens PCs 2, 5 - Orazio Frugoni, pf;
Beethoven Sym 3, live Scottish NO, 1958;
Beethoven Grosse Fuge, Cologne RSO, 1962;
Cimarosa Il Matrimonio Segreto Ov, Bamberg S.O.;
Dello Joio Serenade - American Rec. Soc. Orch (VSO);
Haydn Sym 45, VSOO c.1950;
Haydn Sym 97, VSO c.1950;
Mendelssohn Capriccio Brilliant & Concerto for 2 Pfs; Frugoni & Mrazek, VSOO.
These are in either FLAC or mp3 format, and are all rather substandard in sound quality (none are transfers actually done by me) so don't expect perfection! Musically, however, they are often first-rate.
376 MB; ZS will delete this folder on or about 11/18/18.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/d/1xTO8frb/26245/Swarowsky%20Miscellany.zip
--or--
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/1xTO8frb/file.html
8H Haggis
Say, Buster: I don't believe there are any BEETHOVEN records on the Big 10 blog!
So, here is one of the rarer items from the 78 era: Felix von Weingartner conducting the old Orchestra of the Royal Philharmonic Society (not Beecham's later RPO) in a 1930 Columbia Viva-Tonal recording of Weingartner's own transcription of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29, "Hammerklavier". The transfer was done by a midwestern friend of mine (I suppose he's probably posted it elsewhere but since I did not ask his permission specifically, I won't give more info on this) and I did a small bit of editing and NR, and added the original label image. There was a Columbia Masterworks LP reissue in the mid-fifties (I suspect it was an A. C. Griffiths transfer from the UK) and also a c.1990 Biddulph CD production by my friend Mark Obert-Thorn; but this transfer IS indeed from the original 78s and is not from those commercial reissues. (I do not believe that we have, yet, a modern digital performance of this work, though cpo has indeed issued Weingartner's own original compositions: several symphonies, and violin concerto.)
https://www78.zippyshare.com/d/SHlu69CN/47408/Beethoven_Hammerklavier-arr-Weingartner_RPO_Weingartner.mp3
--or--
https://www78.zippyshare.com/v/SHlu69CN/file.html
(93MB file, mp3 format, with embedded 1930 record label image.)
Now, I realize that there may be a few purists in the audience who might *recoil* at such an enterprise as a transcription of this remarkable work.
So, to assuage anyone's feelings, here is an alternative: Egon Petri's marvelous performance of the sonata from 1956 for Westminster LP, as written. I obtained this from a now-defunct blog; the download had numerous data interruptions, which I edited out (none of the music was lost), plus poor frequency response (which I improved by EQ corrections.)
https://www78.zippyshare.com/d/nNW0oN9J/22239/Beethoven%20Piano%20Sonata%20No.%2029%20-%20Egon%20Petri.zip
--or--
https://www78.zippyshare.com/v/nNW0oN9J/file.html
(44 MB, mp3, with small thumbnail of Westminster cover image)
All of these ZS files will be deleted about thirty days after this upload, done on 10/19/18.
8H Haggis
...and unfortunately, the page has no actual working link for one of the items that interested me the most: Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt doing Dvorak and Bruckner. Otherwise, the rest are fine.
8HH
Apologies, Buster: while Beethoven does not seem to appear on your side-panel menu, I see now that you *have* offered the Bruno Walter records of Beethoven's Syms. 1, 5, and 8 (1947, 1950, and 1942, respectively.)
I may just peer into my Bruno Walter folders and see what unusual items might stimulate another of my uploads!
8HH
Thank you to all those interesting comments and reminiscences - takes me back to my very early days of vinyl purchasing in the mid to late 1960s.
I had virtually no pocket money (not one of the invariably rich kids who came to classical music, just a working class guy who (thankfully was introduced to opera by my dear Dad) consequently when I had some pocket money I then was able to troll through 2nd hand shops and the budget labels. Labels such as Pan, Saga, Contour, Philips Classical Favourites, Fontana, Heliodor and such like.
Purchased quite a few blank sleeved vinyls from Headquarters and General Supplies (whoever they were?) by post - labels such as Summit and Fidelio. Soon got rid of them, to another unsuspecting collecting newbie, when I realised that the performers were pseudonymous - snobbery entering the field!
Now 5,000 vinyls - a millstone around my neck in my small house. Anyone want them???
Happy memories.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
Thank you "8H Haggis" for the 'Swarowsky Miscellany' and other zip files.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
Yes: I've now added two large folders of some relatively rare Bruno Walter items, some from 78 era to the 1950s, some live, and some in my own transfers. See the remarks after Buster's transfer of Walter's Beethoven 1 & 5 --
https://big10inchrecord.blogspot.com/2016/04/beethoven-5-with-walter-conducting.html
8HH
Yeah, I didn't tag them "Beethoven" - you got me. The third, sixth and seventh from Walter's cycle are also out there. Follow the "Bruno Walter" link. I think I have that Weingartner transcription on LP.
Hi Douglas - the UK budgets did not circulate here in the US, for the mosgt part. I would only see them in Gramophone. I do have the occasional Saga in my collection, as well as Heliodor, which DG did publish here as well.
I think I have a Schmidt-Isserstedt Dvorak LP, although it may be the 8th rather than the 9th. I'll look.
Appreciated your remarks, Douglas. This is not RMCR, so nice comments yield pleasant surprises!
Gershwin recordings released on LP in the mid-fifties:
Reissue of 78s by Jesus Maria Sanroma, Boston Pops, Fiedler:
Rhapsody in Blue (1935); Concerto in F (1940) - RCA Camden CAL304. A bit too much echo has been added by Victor engineers for the c.1956 LP reissue; these were originally done on Victor 78s, sets M-358 and M-690, respectively. There is also a bit of rumble and hum that I have not altered. Sound is decent for the pre-war 78 period, a bit blowsy perhaps compared to the originals, but tolerable. Performances are, to me, just a bit disappointing compared to the best ones of the pre-stereo period, though they are very professional. Piano tone is very thin in the Concerto from 1940, typical of Victors from c.1938 through the end of the forties; the instrument sounds fuller and more realistic in the earlier 1935 recording.
https://www98.zippyshare.com/d/j9qWnnfN/4756/Gershwin%20Rhapsody%20in%20Blue%2c%20Cto%20in%20F%20-%20Sanroma%2c%20Fiedler%20Camden%20CAL304.zip
--or--
https://www98.zippyshare.com/v/j9qWnnfN/file.html
(35 MB mp3s with cover image and discographical info)
-----------------------------------
Gershwin: Porgy and Bess Symphonic Picture (arr. Robert Russell Bennett) Recorded in 1953 by the Minneapolis Symphony under Antal Dorati; transfer is from the 'mono enhanced' version with added stereo ambience of the early sixties, but I've used the cover image from the c.1957 second release, MG 50071, which is much prettier than the earlier first LP issue of c.1954 on MG 50016. I am extremely fond of this performance, with the orchestra sounding like a whipped-up, hyped-up pit band, generating an enormous WALLOP and impact, with all the electricity of a live performance! This is Mercury "Living Presence" cranked to the extremes.
Dorati's performance of An American in Paris (shown on the cover) was a later, true-stereo, recording that Mercury issued in single channel on MG 50071, and much later in two-channel on SR 90290; I have not included that, as a superb transfer accomplished by Wilma Cozart Fine is on Mercury CD.
https://www98.zippyshare.com/d/zae9BLkE/24811/Gershwin-Bennett_Porgy_%26_Bess_Suite_MSO_Dorati_MG%2050071_mono-enhanced.zip
--or--
https://www98.zippyshare.com/v/zae9BLkE/file.html
(94 MB, FLAC-encoded, plus cover image)
--------------------------------
These two folders will be deleted by Zippyshare on or about 11/19/18.
8H Haggis
Ah, UK's SAGA! That rings my chime!! So let me pipe up and share a pertinent favorite of mine:
Saga stereo LP STXID 5023 of Mozart Overtures; Harry Newstone & Hamburg "Pro Musica" Orchestra.
This is one of my all-time favorite Saga issues, Harry Newstone being very familiar to me as a former No. Californian from the SF Bay area: Newstone was for years the highly regarded director of the Sacramento
Symphony; his Guardian obituary may be found online here:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/may/11/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries
Saga Records' Mefistophelean manipulator was the old fraudster/trickster William Barrington-Coupe (husband of Joyce Hatto who -- when she was succumbing to Alzheimer's disease -- created multitudes of fake-Hatto 'performances' that he stole from commercial stereo records by much better known artists, just to please and entertain her. Unfortunately, he then marketed and SOLD them, a scam that bit more than one credulous music critic, especially RMCR's waspish TD: who couldn't even tell when B-C had pitch-shifted and speeded up famous CDs by such artists as Ashkenazy.)
In earlier times Barrington-Couple could, actually, make (or, um, import and copy) some nice phonograph records, attested by this splendid collection of Mozart overtures, in decent characteristically professional stereo sound for the time period of the early sixties; perhaps a bit hard by today's standards but nevertheless robust. The performances are surely worthy of the better-known Mozarteans of the period.
More on Barrington-Coupe's scandalous last hurrah here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2125348/Pianist-Joyce-Hatto-Husband-reveals-fooled-world-fake-recordings.html
Harry Newstone also recorded for the 'more legitimate' and respected label L'Oiseau-Lyre, in the Decca orbit, some very good Haydn symphony performances.
I was personally so impressed by these Mozart overture performances in my pristine import copy of the Saga stereo Lp that when, in the mid-70s, I was engaged to program and record more than 5,000 hours of classical music radio automation tapes (eventually used on about 25% of all US classical music FM stations) that I chose all of these Newstone performances when I needed a Mozart opera overture.
I think it's only fair now that Willie's record should be GIVEN AWAY, to offset the pence and pounds he glommed from bootlegging and altering so many fine major-label CD issues.
https://www66.zippyshare.com/d/rOPZGKf2/5376/Mozart%20Overtures%20-%20Hamburg%20Pro%20Musica%2c%20Harry%20Newstone.zip
--or--
https://www66.zippyshare.com/v/rOPZGKf2/file.html
(56 MB, zipped files, with cover image. Folder will be deleted by ZS about one month after the upload date of 10/19/18.)
[Part One of Two posts about the rest of Walter's NYP Beethoven 9 cycle]:
Bruno Walter's 1952 NY Philharmonic records of Beethoven's Second and Fourth are well-transferred from the Masterworks first ML series issues on YouTube:
No. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkWji1XbPnQ
No. 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9scPQh2S3vU
The old NY Philharmonic/Walter Beethoven Ninth is something of an oddity. The orchestral movements were recorded in 1949, along with the vocal finale, which Walter did not like, not being able to use the soprano of his first choice. He then re-recorded that in 1953; there were in fact TWO different Columbia LP releases of this performance, the original entire-1949 (posted by me below) and a composite, substituting the 1953 finale. Writing in "Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere" by Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pachevsky explain:
"With a superb band of soloists—Eleanor Steber, Nan Merriman, Raoul Jobin, and Mack Harrell—Walter conducted the Ninth during the Beethoven cycle in mid-April. When it came time to preserve the performance on tape, however, Steber’s manager set what Walter later called “prohibitive conditions.” When Walter first caught wind of the potential problem, he sent a telegram to Steber, appealing to her sense of artistic 'idealism'...Steber cabled Walter back the following day, telling him that, despite her own desire to participate in the recording, her manager and Columbia Records could not reach an agreement, and that she had to 'leave all financial matters' in her manager’s hands. As a result, Walter was compelled to choose another soprano, Irma Gonzalez, at the last moment, while Nan Merriman was replaced by Walter’s contralto from the Vienna Staatsoper, Elena Nikolaidi. The two male parts were sung, as in the concert, by Raoul Jobin and Mack Harrell. Although some aspects of the finale are distinctly attractive—like Mack Harrell’s beautifully comforting entrance at 'O Freunde' and a number of exhilarating string passages— the overall effect is anticlimactic. The recorded sound is muddy, and while Irma Gonzalez turns in a perfectly respectable performance, it has little of the ecstatic quality that Steber brought to the soprano line in concert. Walter himself felt that the final result was 'disastrous,' owing partly to 'obstacles' presented by the hall. 'The chorus was placed in such a manner as to give the male voices superiority over the female ones,' he wrote to Goddard Lieberson at Columbia Records. 'The placement of the microphones must have been most unfavorable to all the voices, those of the soloists as well as of the chorus, and, to shoulder my own responsibility, I was not able—perhaps I was too tired—to find out all these shortcomings by the playback at the end of our session.'
”In 1953 Walter convinced Columbia to record it again (with Frances Yeend, Martha Lipton, David Lloyd, and Mack Harrell as his quartet), offering the new version free to anyone who had bought the older set—provided that the offending disk was returned to Columbia and taken out of circulation. Yet for all Walter’s concerns and anxieties, the recording as a whole, especially when heard with the later final movement, stands as an impressive monument to Walter’s art." - Ryding, Pachevsky
8H Haggis
[Part Two, with link]:
Let me be perverse and admit *that I like the raw vitality of the earlier version BETTER* than the 1953 finale, even though Yeend IS smoother and more sensitive than Gonzalez; but furthermore, the entire performance with *either* finale -- not to mention the plodding and stilted let-down of Walter's 1959 stereo recording -- seems to me to be inferior and far less spontaneous and exciting than Walter's live 1947 BBC broadcast with the LPO and chorus, plus even more stellar and inspired soloists, which is available from a Music & Arts CD with quite tolerable sound. A higher-fidelity mono alternative is Walter's 1955 live Vienna Festival performance, featuring the great Hilde Gueden.
Nevertheless, to complete the old Columbia mono Walter cycle, here is the complete original 1949 version, transferred from the early LP double record set, SL-156. The final side has Brahms' Song of Destiny, recorded in 1941 onto 78s; I have used the transfer of those by one F. Reeder, which has been provided to the Internet Archive as a PD offering; it seems to be in a mild form of fake stereo that I've left alone; indeed, the original disks sound VERY dim, dull, and dry, so perhaps many people might actually prefer Reeder's alterations.
https://www28.zippyshare.com/d/NQpYdOxB/6821/Beethoven%20Sym%209%20-%201949%20recording%2c%20Bruno%20Walter%2c%20NYP%3b%20Brahms%20Schicksalslied.zip
--or--
https://www28.zippyshare.com/v/NQpYdOxB/file.html
(103 MB, mp3s, plus cover image; folder will be deleted by ZS on or about 11/19/18.)
8H Haggis
Buster, I tried to post the following as a comment appended to your link for your fine transfer of Walter's 1949 Eroica; but try as I might, I could *not* manage to get the text into the blogspot editor box. So I'm doing it here instead.
Thanks, Buster, for the very smooth and elegant 1949 Eroica by Bruno Walter; I especially like the old Columbia LP cover.
However, my own preference is for the 1941 Columbia 78s by Walter, which were NOT released by Columbia-US on LP and the company preferred to promote their 'high fidelity' long-play performance of 1949.
I obtained the shellac set (M-449) and transferred it to tape and edited the sides in 1969 or so; but soon afterwards I acquired the Sony Japanese LP issue, an import record that contained also Bruno Walter's 1945 Barber First.
Unfortunately, the Japanese producers and engineers made a serious gaffe, adding a very irritating "buzzy hum" to the recording. Could that have been on the masters?
Why, no: for the hum was NOT on the 78s; and we know now that those were mastered to 33.3 rpm acetate lacquers and then THOSE masters were transferred to 78 wax disks, and subsequently mastered for the official 78 issue. Since the hum was not at all present on the 78 set, WHY was it on the Sony LP?
I once wrote a facetious post to RMCR in the nineties, titled "The Curious Case Of Bruno Walter's Hum", in which I speculated on what might have happened, sure in my mind that the MASTERS could not have the buzz.
Try as I might, back in the analogue era, I could NOT eliminate it. I could barely stand to listen to this great performance, preferring the noisier, weaker sound of my own transfer of the shellac set in a slightly worn copy of the laminated 78s.
Then, many years later I acquired the CD transfer on Lys: no hum--but the sound was VERY peculiar. It was in fact almost *hideous* and weird, sounding like a grossly over-CEDARed copy of the shellacs to the point of removing all sense of realism, bass response, and acoustic. Other items in the 2-CD set were fine; I was mystified at the odd result.
I was then sent a copy of this magnificent performance by an east-coast friend, who identified it as a *properly* noise-reduced version of the old Sony Lp, with modern digital software that could "dig out" the complex buzzing signal, followed by some EQ fine-tuning. AT LAST! A terrific improvement, yet preserving the sense of body heard on the 78s.
Enjoy!
Personally, I'm torn in preference between this 1941 version -- typical of Bruno Walter's earlier conducting style, with faster tempi and more tension than his postwar records -- or his 1957 live Symphony of the Air concert memorializing Toscanini, just after Walter's respected friend, the "Maestro", had died. The latter has Walter's LATER and more inflected interpretation, while perserving the unique sonority of Toscanini's well-trained orchestra; but nevertheless it is a more affected and less naturally-organic performance than the unique 1941 shellac set.
https://www28.zippyshare.com/d/8vBFX73T/48090/Beethoven%20Sym%203%20%281941%29%20PSNY%2c%20Walter%20-%20Col%2078s.zip
--or--
https://www28.zippyshare.com/v/8vBFX73T/file.html
(82 MB mp3's, with original 78 album cover image--folder will be deleted on or about 11/19/18.)
8H Haggis
I was interested in Curt's transfer as it has the Bruckner Overture in G-Minor, unaccountably left out of the voluminous 30 CD HS-I set on the CD label "Venias".
8HH
Incidentally, re this Weingartner transcription performance: Buster says below that he may have the LP I mentioned, which I used to have on a mid-fifties Columbia-US Lp in the ML series; I cannot remember or find the number. However, here is info on the UK issue:
https://www.discogs.com/Beethoven-Royal-Philharmonic-Orchestra-London-Philharmonic-Orchestra-Conducted-By-Felix-Weingartner-/release/5204746
As I recall, there are some crackles in the latter part of the work that must surely be on the master or matrices, as they are audible on the old Columbia LP as well as on Mark O-T's *first* issue, for Biddulph. For the curious, here is Mark's later transfer for Naxos, in which he uses his own rare stand-alone CEDAR decrackling box which cost him, he told me, some $10,000! He purchased it just as the CEDAR organization discontinued the hardware product, moving entirely to software. As I recall, I believe Mark felt that he could get more nuanced results from the hardware device.
I do NOT know if Mark or Naxos approve of this transfer, on YouTube, which states that it has some extra artificial stereotization. The sound LEAPS from your computer speakers and indeed seems very powerful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxpqC4nyjNM
I just discovered the link this morning and haven't played it all yet. Admittedly, the sound is infinitely more imposing than the raw 78 transfer by my friend, which I posted recently here.
That being said, you get more or less "the real 78 record experience" from the actual shellacs with only very minimalist alterations...to each his own!
8HH
I have commented on this blog about the Saga record label, run by one William Barrington-Coupe, a slightly disreputable character and garrulous old windbag (who once pretended for some months, on RMCR, that he was a British tympanist; his gossipy posts were MOST amusing!) He was also the husband of the pianist Joyce Hatto, who (no fault of her own) will go down in unearned infamy due to Willie's piracy of many renowned pianists' records, which he passed off as his wife's own performances.
Here is, however, a GENUINE Joyce Hatto record, released in the mid-1960s by Saga and a number of affiliated UK and US budget LP labels: performances of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (not bad at all!) and An American in Paris, with the Hamburg "Pro Musica" orchestra under the direction of the perfectly professional and competent George Hurst. There is a certain swagger here that, from time to time, really entertains and amuses one.
I have NO idea where I got this transfer; let's just imagine that the pixie Barrington-Couple materialized it out of the aether and left it on a tuffet in my garden...
https://www41.zippyshare.com/d/o0hUmO5A/22368/Gershwin%20Rhapsody%20in%20Blue%20%28Hatto%29%3b%20American%20in%20Paris%3b%20Hamburg%2c%20Hurst.zip
--or--
https://www41.zippyshare.com/v/o0hUmO5A/file.html
(45 MB zips, with cover scan; the will- o'the wisps and fairies will NOT allow this to remain corporeal for more than thirty days after 10/20/18.)
8H Haggis
I do have this Hatto LP in its American incarnation.
The Columbia LP is ML 4675.
I think that would be worth uploading, Buster. Despite the modern restorations for Biddulph and Naxos, I had this album for many years and found that the authentic matrices used for its production had a little *sweeter* sound than the 78 shellacs could yield. And, anyway, my composite-effort digitization of the 78s will expire in a few weeks.
8HH
Rene Leibowitz (a direct contemporary and counterpart to the German master Hans Rosbaud) was an incredibly progressive, talented, and yet eclectic conductor: Pierre Boulez was his direct artistic heir. The Polish/French conductor Leibowitz was a serialist with sympathies to Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern...and yet left recordings of not only such austere, intellectual works, but also 19th-century French fripperies; even Gershwin! I once uploaded a worked-over re-editing of his famous 1950s Gurrelieder here on Buster's blog but the file has been deleted by now and I hve no intention of doing it again!
Here's the lighter classical side of Leibowitz: a Counterpoint/Esoteric album recorded in mono in the early fifties of the dance pieces of Beethoven and Mozart, plus Anton Webern's charming (!) transcription of Schubert. For many years I kept encountering later copies of this album, produced by Everest who had inherited the copyright, in the most vile and odious form of fake stereo ever contrived: by simply DELAYING the right channel by so many milliseconds (using a second staggered playback head, as this was long before bucket-brigade analogue, or digital, delay lines.)
But finally on a Russian blog I found the MONO issue, which has nice, vivid, realistic sound (though frankly the orchestra seems a bit, um, cranky and provincial.) However, the blogger who ripped this LP made a complete HASH of the job, which took me nearly an entire working day to clean up. I'm glad I put in the effort; I hope you too will enjoy it, while imagining how BAD such a botched job might be, especially if it had been the grotesque fake stereo edition.
Leibowitz's records are not frequently encountered today but are worth seeking out. Reader's Digest issued many wonderful performances of not only the light French repertoire, but also a toweringly dramatic Schumann "Rhenish" and one of the most savagely intense Sacres ever recorded. I would advise sticking to the "authentic" licensed tape reissues by such audiophile labels as Chesky, for the cheaptone Scribendium outfit has put out a big collection that, however, has pretty weak, miserable sound compared either to mint LPs or the best digital restorations by *real* companies.
beethoven-12--german-dances-woo-8-leibowitz; mozart-6-german-dances-k-509 ORTF leibowitz; schubert 6-deutsche-tanze-d-820-arr-Webern ORTF leibowitz; 20 MB FLACs in zipped folder, with original release cover scan (a famous Breugel painting.) Info from Discogs but it cites the FAKE STEREO edition, not the mono one.
https://www98.zippyshare.com/d/Te2FKpbg/20377/Beethoven%2c%20Mozart%2c%20Schubert%20German%20Dances_Leibowitz_Counterpoint-Everest%20554.zip
--or--
https://www98.zippyshare.com/v/Te2FKpbg/file.html
Unfortunately, ZS will delete these in about 30 days after my upload, dated 10/20/18.
8H Haggis
A blunder in reading my file manager; actually, the file is about 96 MB.
8HH
Here is some more Mozart, featuring the incomparably elegant style of Karl Ristenpart and his Saare Radio Chamber Orchestra, for Nonesuch (record no. H-71194): the Serenade No. 4, K.203, and (3) Marches in C and D, K. 408. This transfer was done by a sensitive musician friend of mine who lives on the east coast, and it was preserved as lossless FLACs for best fidelity, using a mint sealed NOS Lp stereo pressing. I have included a scan of the cover.
The first thing I noticed on playing it was that in the last movement, 12 seconds in, the record had an actual EDITING defect: a repeated phrase of about 1 sec. duration, which I've repaired.
There IS another free upload of this available: David Gideon of ReDiscovery Records has kindly provided one of his issues (a 4-CD set of Ristenpart's Mozart records) but splits this between disks 2 and 4. In comparing the one I'm offering to his, I note that there is one remaining shortcoming in mine: the ReDiscovery has been normalized in level and is about 5 dB "hotter" overall. But, adjusting my volume control for each one, I *believe* that mine sounds "sweeter" in the top high frequency partials; it seems to me to have more of the rich, liquid "analogue sound" compared to the excellent ReDiscovery issue (which might have been from tapes, as I know that Gideon often prefers to use those to avoid surface noise defects normally found on LPs.) Well, my east coast buddy got lucky, so his vinyl copy was very, very clean!
Minutiae aside, this is a GLORIOUS record, assuring you of about 50 minutes of exquisite enjoyment.
(204 MB FLACs, with cover scan; zip file will be deleted by ZS in thirty days after upload date of 10/20/18.)
https://www98.zippyshare.com/d/uUcdZLkP/13070/Mozart%20Serenade%204%20-%20Ristenpart.zip
--or--
https://www98.zippyshare.com/v/uUcdZLkP/file.html
8H Haggis
Here is a record that, to me, was an extreme rarity that I continued to search for since c.1965 until last year: when I encountered an upload on an obscure Russian blog. It is the Messa di Sanata Cecilia by Alessandro Scarlatti (16660-1725): he was, of course, the father of the brilliant composer of harpsichord sonatas, Domenico. Alessandro (according to Wikipedia) composed in a "style...more than a transitional element in Western music; like most of his Naples colleagues he shows an almost modern understanding of the psychology of modulation and also frequently makes use of the ever-changing phrase lengths so typical of the Napoli school." He wrote many operas, his specialty being vocal music.
If you'll indulge an old man's rambling and irrelevant reminiscence: I heard this work one time, on a Sunday afternoon around 1965 when listening to the *sole* program on San Francisco's famous FM station KSFR, that allowed *any* trace of vocal or choral music (its manager, Al Levitt, loved the baroque but HATED voices!) The "Bank of America Concert Hall" was a 2-hour show that had virtually the only opportunity per week to hear *anything* that was the slightest bit unusual; it was hosted by the genial Al Covaia, a fine and knowledgeable gentleman I eventually had the pleasure of working with about a quarter of a century later--when I became the chief engineer of SF's KKHI.
At any rate, Al played this Bach Guild LP and I was thrilled by it! But, it never turned up; and one attempt I made at ordering a copy went unfilled. Such were the annoyances of being a record collector in the pre-digital, pre-Amazon era. (Now, it's on YouTube and probably is whistled by locomotive engineers, stevedores, and hot dog vendors, for all I know.) General information on this work may be found on this Allmusic.com website page:
https://www.allmusic.com/composition/messa-di-santa-cecilia-for-soloists-chorus-2-violins-viola-continuo-in-a-major-mc0002393713
The performance seems quite fabulous to me (though it clearly does not follow "historical purism" as practiced by today's period scholars.) It is by the Utah Symphony, soloists and the University of Utah Chorus, and Maurice Abravanel, from a Bach Guild stereo Lp of the 1960s. Luckily, the mp3 transfer sounds perfectly acceptable.
(74 MB zipped file, containing also Discogs info plus LP cover scan; ZS will delete this file about 30 days after my upload date of 10/20/18.)
https://www8.zippyshare.com/d/uweCtr1t/6065/Scarlatti%2c%20Alessandro%20Messa%20di%20Santa%20Cecilia%20Utah%20Abravanel.zip
--or--
https://www8.zippyshare.com/v/uweCtr1t/file.html
8H Haggis
Of course, it' "Santa Cecilia" and NOT, as I mistyped, "Sanata Cecilia"...nor even, say, Sinatra Cecilia. Ring a ding ding ding.
8HH
Thanks - love Ristenpart, in particular. I wore out the Brandenburgs in my youth.
{Part 1 of 2 Parts}
There are, and have been, a number of music-sharing blogs featuring classical works that (unlike Buster's) were operated by technical INCOMPETENTS: who absolutely, incontrovertibly did NOT know how to operate phonographic equipment or made proper transfers.
One blogger ran at least THREE under different pseudonyms. He bragged about his fantastic high end tube equipment of super high resolution; yet EACH file was defaced by a grotesque RF-induced buzz that had dozens of small "quivering" frequency tones superimposed on the music. At first I devised a multi-narrowband filter that could notch each one out; finally in disgust -- after he uploaded one of my favorites of all time, Zladky's Viennese mandoline ensemble on Turnabout -- I wrote a comment that explained this in technical detail. Believe it or not--he SUSPENDED the blog and COMPLETELY fixed the problem, admitting it, documenting it with a screen shot of a spectral analysis, and thanking me! (Now, sadly, he's given up.) I was hesitant to complain as beggars shouldn't be choosers, but glad of the confirmation AND the correction for the sake of all music lovers.
Another blogger, the infamous (late) "Abbedd", graced the world with hundreds of GROTESQUE, ruined transfers of Toscanini and Ansermet, virtually each one defaced by his "standard correction": killing a narrow band in the mids, around 1k, by 20 to 30 dB. This made the music sound like it tricked thru a garden hose. Even after explaining this to him, privately, he was unrepentant: he insisted that with his antique Bozaks, the sound was now perfect in his incomparable "remasterings". It's practically been my lifelong task to REPAIR his wrecked files; I've done dozens of them. Hundreds remain...
A well-intentioned, gentlemanly, and eclectic music lover did a wonderful collection of fabulous treasures and obscurities...but the transfers were all dreadful, with virtually no highs above about 4 kHz. Sometimes he left in needle-skips, or huge BUMPS of the turntable that caused the sound almost to be overwhelmed by the collision and mute. I wrote to him privately to make some diplomatic suggestions, but he wasn't interested--he was a "musician" and such trivialities were unimportant to me. I DL'ed virtually everything; have uploaded about a dozen of them here, and have many dozens to go...will I ever do them all satisfactorily?
{End of Pt. 1, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2 parts, and links}
Now, for the final and WORST classical record blogger of ALL TIME, bar none. I won't identify him further but he is still online, from Japan, and shows a small thumbnail pic of his machinery; it appears to be one of those USB-output cheap c.$100 turntables you can get at Big Lots or online. His records are usually almost trashed--he once uploaded Beecham's wonderful 1950 Prague Symphony of Mozart: with *12 minutes of a repeated record needle skip*. So, he did not even stay in the room while doing his, um, 'work'. His first uploads were mp3s that were so overcompressed -- around 56 kbs or less if I recall -- that they sounded like somebody gargling mouthwash most of the time. I complained and he upped it to about 128 k, the tiniest bit better. I finally gave up DL'ing and ATTEMPTING repairs: the obstacles become unsurmountable.
But, here are three FIXES (or partial reclamations) of a trio of issues I was *particularly* anxious to hear; they came out...ok.
1. Dinu Lipatti's own musical works, a piano concerto and Rumanian Dances, with Felicia Blumenthal and an Italian orchestra; an old Everest LP. Sadly, his copy was a tad off-center and I don't have a really expensive piece of software, such as Mark Obert-Thorn uses, for correcting that. I can now JUST stand it. I always wanted to hear this and you might be able to find a better copy if my reworking is below your threshold.
2. Tchaikovsky's so-called Symphony No. 7 in the completion/arrangement by Soviet musicologist Semyon Bogatyryev, with Leo Ginzburg and the USSR S. O., a stereo issue that came out, via Melodiya, on HMV. That cleaned up pretty well!
3. A rare Neville Marinner/ASMF album on Argo stereo, of Walton's wonderful Sonata for Strings, plus the arrangement of Prokofiev's Visions Fugitives for piano, done by Rudolf Barshai, for string ensemble. I couldn't get EVERYTHING repaired, but I think it was a decent TRY.
Now this, um, gentleman (who uses a moniker that is similar to one of America's 19th century Presidents) made go his merry way, with his USB turntable, without the skeptical Haggis cold engineer's eye peering over his shoulder.
https://www95.zippyshare.com/d/HKzPMKry/45900/Blog%20Cleanups-Lipatti%2c%20Tchaikovsky%2c%20Walton.zip
--or--
https://www95.zippyshare.com/v/HKzPMKry/file.html
(486 MB, files edited and reworked as FLACs, with original record cover scans included. This folder will be deleted in 30 days after my upload on 10/20/18.)
Here's hoping you will ALL avoid USB turntables, and use at least 320 kbs--or Flacs! Furthermore, DO NOT TRANSFER RECORDS WITH SKIPS! (And, I threaten to upload more further blog cleanups, so beware.)
8H Haggis
I'll have to see if I have any of these. I know I have at least seen the Lipatti, but I may have passed it up because it was on Everest. I do have the Ormandy recording of the Tchaikovsky "Seventh" - not sure about the Russian one. The Marriner doesn't sound familiar, surprisingly. I really liked the man.
{Part 1 of 2 Parts}
Here is the second round of "Blog Cleanups", which I extend also to YouTube channels.
First item is indee from the latter mentioned, on a channel that has uploaded LP-rips of many rare old records. For some reason (copyright?) the blogger/vlogger, call him what you will, has seemed to prefer to upload only ONE SIDE of a given LP, making it impossible to piece together works that are longer than the tyical 33.3 vinyl limit of a half-hour, more or less. But, he did two different disks on Philips, which were originally recorded by Mercury and issued in the United States on the Mercury label. These were performances by Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony, done in the mono period before c.1955 or 6 when they switched to stereo, and were (I think) some of the finest performances that Dorati engraved with the ensemble. Unfortunately, his EQ was strange -- BIZARRE! -- in the extreme, and did not sound like ANY true Mercury record I've ever heard; and believe me: Philips could not have been the culprit. So, I not only cleaned up the surface noise, but also had to re-EQ in the "Mercury Living Presense" manner. Mozart's G Minor, and Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, with original Mercury covers.
Second: from a now defunct blog (that was, um, a bit "Random" if you catch my drift!) came a charming old Columbia Masterworks LP (MS 6832) called "The Baroque Oboe" with Harold Gomberg as the brilliant soloist in some pieces by Telemann, Vivaldi, and Handel. As a matter of fact, the young and up-and-coming Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa (then almost completely unknown) is soloist on the long pointed stick in two items! This was from the infamous blog that obliterated almost all trace of frequencies above 4 kHz; by deep-dive spelunking I was able to recover at least a trace of the buried treasure.
[End of Part 1, by 8HH}
{Part 2, with links}
Third: one of my all-time favorite albums, The Vienna Mandolin And Guitar Ensemble – Music For Mandolin And Guitar, with Vinzenz Hladky, director (in my earlier post above, I mistyped the name, from vague memory, as Zladky. What a maroon--why, who doesn't know HLADKY? I digress..) These are transmogrifications and arrangements from the originals used by Respighi in the "Ancient Dances and Airs for Lute" suites for chamber orchestra. The blogger was the fellow I described in my previous post who had an unfortunate RF-induced noise signal into his digitizer, and my many channel very narrowband filter got ALL of the individual narrow noise pulse frequencies. There was also a HORRENDOUS hum and rumble which had to be eliminated; the recording therefore sounds just a bit thin at the very bottom end, so fortunate owners of pristine Turnabout stereo disk (ah, were there any?) might be able to achieve more accurate results. At any rate, this will do in a pinch.
Fourth: I know Antal Dorati is NOT a particularly admired conductor hereabouts. But on that, um, rather rrraandom collection of records, I found this Tchaikovsky Fifth, with the Minneapolis Symphony, from April 1952, on Mercury mono MG50008. This performance seems to me to be at least as good as AD's stereo remake with the reinvigorated London Symphony (which means DAMN GOOD in my opinion.) I did manage to get at least a semblance of the powerful original mid and upper range Living Presence; the original transfer sounded like it had been suffocated at a West Texas hunting ranch; MY own postmortem was at least partially successful.
https://www68.zippyshare.com/d/bodvLNE7/42062/More%20Blog%20Cleanups%20%282%29.zip
--or--
https://www68.zippyshare.com/v/bodvLNE7/file.html
(394 MB, FLAC and mp3, with original cover scans and some Discogs info. Folder will be active online for ONLY 30 days following the upload date of 10/20/18.)
8H Haggis (maybe--JUST MAYBE--more blog fixes to come!)
{Part 1 of 2}
Third installment of BLOG CLEANUPS, an eclectic melange:
1. Antal Dorati (there he goes again!) recorded Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra in 1953 in Minneapolis, and in this case I prefer the Mercury Living Presence mono performance to the stereo remake from London; I think the previous performance is darker, more ominous, and less "brittle". Pierre Paquin's organization has issued what is no doubt a THOROUGHLY excellent transfer, as Mercury have NEVER put out a proper CD restoration--for shame! But, I have supplied a few items to Pierre and...well, let's just say we've lost touch by now. I found this on YouTube in a WRETCHED condition, and spend a long time on the refurbishing. Take my advice: if you like this rendition, buy Pierre's version!
2. On a European blog I found some interesting items by the Belgian conductor Franz Andre; they were not in nearly as bad a condition as the Bartok, above, but I couldn't resist "helping out" a bit; and made up a fanciful cover pic. I wouldn't have expected such repertoire, being robust and hearty performances of Eric Coates and Elgar.
3. Another Mercury: this takes me back! I believe this was the first Bolero I ever bought: a Mercury LP by Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony, in a coupling with Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnole (that was my second version; I already had one of those infamous "grocery store" LP sets that David Gideon is so fond of (at his ReDiscovery blog) and never figured out who did it; Paul, here, is much better! The Russky who uploaded this seems not to have harmed his own countryman's music, but his efforts to fix a noisy beginning to Bolero resulted in that annoying, characteristically "hollow" noise-reduction artifact. Pity. But, at least I put a bit more OOMPH into it.
{end of Pt. 1, by 8HH}
{Part 2 of 2}
4. Here is a better sounding and more consistent fix-up of a Mercury Mono Living Presence issue by Paul Paray and the Detroit Symphony (have they razed their symphony hall yet? Is it infested with heroin-addict squatters? Sic transit...) The music is of course all French: Ibert Escales, Chabrier Espana (an especially famous Paray item!), and Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole. In general, I tend to prefer Paul's older MONO performances by Mercury than his later stereo ones; this is a real treasure.
5. Despite the sound quality, I *love* many of the old MMS (Concert Hall sourced) cheapies, on 10 inch form quite frequently (which should assuage the Big 10 Blog!) and this is not an exception: very intense performances of selections from "Platee" by Jean-Philippe Rameau, conducted by Victor Desarszens. Unfortuntely, the exceptionally primitive, woolly, and limited range recording (very substandard for c.1952!) rather hurts the harpsichord pieces of Rameau, played by one Theodor Sack. The original posted version had an equalization that would cause paint to peel off your walls; I hope it's now not quite so disturbing.
6. Another MMS gem (I don't seem to have the first side): Faure's Masques et Bergamasques suite (overture and 3 excerpts) played vigorously by the so-called Netherlands Philharmonic, the pickup group employed by Concert Hall (in Hilversum?) for many of the performances they recorded as conducted by the very great and talented Walter Goehr. It came up well, after considerable NR, manual editing of bad scratches, and re-EQing.
https://www99.zippyshare.com/d/w2VwLNGr/44206/Continued%20Blog%20Cleanup%20Post%20%283%29.zip
--or--
https://www99.zippyshare.com/v/w2VwLNGr/file.html
(409 MB, FLACs and mp3s; with several original cover scans. Folder will be deleted by ZS about 30 days after my posting on 10/20/18.)
8H Haggis - whew! That about exhausts me for today.
{Part 1 of 2}
FOURTH folder of Blog Cleanups - Abbedd's Toscanini & Ansermet included
I just remembered that though in the remarks first addressing this series of posts that I mentioned that the late unfortunate "Abbedd" was one of the world's worst and most incompetent classical record bloggers -- he wrecked the sound of virtually every item posted -- I *forgot* to include examples of my re-works. Here are a few.
First-Ernest Ansermet. Abbedd loved this great Swiss conductor (primarily, I believe, because Ansermet was respected by Abbedd's idol and role model, Toscanini. Otherwise, there is scarcely ANY similarity in their artistic approach, EA eschewing rubato and much of espressivo effect that Toscanini employed; he also did not favor hair-trigger tension and fast tempi. Unfortunately, the truly great landmark recording quality of the London/Decca FFRR and FFSS recordings were hurt *more* by Abbedd's ridiculous cutting of mids and highs, more than the ancient and already somewhat limited Toscanini broadcast airchecks, often of AM-radio quality at best.
Here are some items I had to recover from Abbedd's uploads because, at the time, I wasn't able to get my hands on good originals. Falla's 3-Cornered Hat ballet was an Ansermet specialty, and I'd loved both of his versions (the 1952 mono, which I first bought in 1961 on Richmond, and the famous later stereo one dating from around 1960: a high fidelity classic.) I had a scratchy transfer somebody uploaded of the former mono one but Abbedd had bought a clean Japanese LP issue and made his infamous "remastering"--I put BACK the frequency response that he had diminished, and even edited out a sudden "blip" where the sound instantly jumps up in volume by about 6 dB (also evident on the Richmond.)
The other items included are my attempt to restore something of the original sound of Sibelius's Tapiola, plus two trumpet and bassoon concertos, from FFSS Decca/London disks, and a live BSO broadcast concert featuring EA conducting Haydn's Sym 95. Finally, I add a folder of MY own transfer of an outstanding Ansermet London LP, of Haydn, Mozart, and Schumann: which I emailed Abbedd since he had not been able to find a clean copy. To my dismay and disconcert, he did his ABOMINABLE EQ-"remastering" and uploaded it. In case anybody was unfortunate enough to receive it, HERE is what it REALLY sounded like!
{End of Pt 1 - 8HH}
{Part 2 of 2 Parts}
Now, on to the Abbedd destruction of Toscanini performances--and my reclamations.
Here is the NBC broadcast of April 27, 1940, with Grieg's Holberg Suite, Op. 40 (VERY inferior sound, taken from an old Clyde Key/Toscanini Society LP); a great and grave rendering of Sibelius' Symphony No.4; plus Franck's Les Eolides (not actually from the 1940 b'cast but a substitution from one Toscanini gave in 1938 that is very similar); and finally Ravel's La Valse in a hair-raising performance. To show you what I was up against, I also supply a short file entitled "La valse JP-vs-8HH" (JP were the *real* initials of the blogger 'Abbedd'.) In this track I illustrate the very muddy, hollow equalization that Abbedd ALWAYS used, believing he had *improved* the recorded sound--whereas, he did exactly the opposite!
Finally: the Toscanini/NBC b'cast of January 15, 1938 (omitting only the 'missing' Brahms Tragic Overture, which Abbedd couldn't find.) The remainder of the program featured a very powerful rendering of Sibelius' Second Symphony (a bit different from the more famous 1940 b'cast that was actually released by Victor); Busoni's weird (but very intriguing) Rondo Arlecchinesco (with a brief offstage vocal contribution by Toscanini's friend and close colleague, the famous tenor Jan Peerce. and the ridiculous and tasteless piece -- Toscanini LOVED it; ugh! -- "Carnival of Venice Variations" by the Italian composer Vincenzo Tommasini. Well, the *audience* applauded respectfully; in fact, when he did it again later in 1941, the audience nearly went nuts with enthusiasm; go figure!
In addition to Abbedd's patented EQ damage, he also used too much denoising--I couldn't fix that entirely; sorry.
The final item: from the infamous "worst blog" of all times, the Japanese one mentioned previously: a recording I had on LP and have tried to find again for DECADES: the performance of D'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air, with Casadesus, Ormandy, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, a Columbia Masterworks stereo recording that apparently is NOT available on CD (though the diskmate, Frank, has indeed been issued.) The LP used was practically TRASHED and after yeoman's effort, at least some of the wretched gunk and noise had been reduced. A clean, better transfer from someone WOULD be most appreciated by me!
https://www99.zippyshare.com/d/SWTtDhpV/31540/Blog%20Cleanups%20Vol%20IV.zip
--or--
https://www99.zippyshare.com/v/SWTtDhpV/file.html
(456 MB, zipped folder with FLACs and mp3s: available ONLY for thirty days after upload on 10/20/18.)
8H Haggis
I forgot to mention, with respect to the D'Indy, in the last movement the LP (both the stereo and the mono copies) had a serious pitch droop of nearly a semitone at one spot; it was also that way on the Japanese blog's upload, but I repaired it. Surely if Sony were to reissue this at last on CD, they'd do that too!
8HH
Oh, my, Buster: you shouldn't say things like that to me--you never know what rash acts you'll drive me to!
BACH: Brandenburg Concerti 1-6; Karl Ristenpart & Saare Radio Chamber Orchestra, with soli:
Horn – Martin Oheim, Oscar Wunder
Oboe – Pierre Pierlot
Violin – Georg Friedrich Hendel
Oboe – Pierre Pierlot
Recorder – Hans-Martin Linde
Trumpet – Helmut Schneidewind
Recorder – Günther Hoeller, Hans-Martin Linde
Flute – Jean-Pierre Rampal
Harpsichord – Robert Veyron-Lacroix
US release on Nonesuch HB-73006 (2 LP stereo set)
These were sent to me by another dedicated Ristenpart collector who is an east coast professor. I don't know the provenance as I did not receive scans (he merely said it was from an out of print copy); so I have added the information (and cover scan) from the Discogs page of the Nonesuch set; one track per concerto, mp3 encoded; 163 MB mp3s.
Folder available only for 30 days after the upload date of 10/20/18, by the unreasonable cretins who run ZS.
https://www99.zippyshare.com/d/YaDyDSdm/44331/Bach%20The%20Six%20Brandenburg%20Concerti%20-%20Karl%20Ristenpart%2c%20Saar%20CO.zip
--or--
https://www99.zippyshare.com/v/YaDyDSdm/file.html
I am reminded of my first job as a radio station classical music director, in San Jose in the 1960s. We had an extremely uncooperative employee (who would have better fit into a job in the Haight-Ashbury, selling hash on street corners, I think.) He found it *uproariously* amusing to announce this recording, every damn time, as being conducted by "Karl Ristenfart" and did it for these Brandenburgs and, of course, for all of the conductor's then-famous Nonesuch Records. Nothing could dissuade him: not even indignant calls from blue-lippe
...not even indignant calls from blue-lipped elderly ladies in the audience. I was his exact age, but wasn't amused--and still am not.
8H Haggis
Just something that might interest you: Zippy will remove a file if it idles for 30 days - i.e. if nobody downloads it in 30 days. It is not a strict calendar rule...I am sharing a file
Uploaded: 14-03-2018 10:47 , Last download: 13-10-2018 16:11
A collector friend of mine recently sent me some eBay links for Camilla Wicks' 50s record on Capitol of the Sibelius Violin Concerto; he was stunned that it is being offered for *hundreds of dollars* (especially when it is available cheaply on CD--in totally cleaned up, improved sound. "WHY??" he lamented.
That reminded me that at least a dozen years ago I found a now-deleted Chinese CD in a used record store, on the "One-Eleven Ltd" label from Hong Kong. It contained a Milstein/Monteux performance I wanted; when I got it home, I found that it also has Camilla Wicks with Bruno Walter, from a Feb. 17, 1953 live New York Phil concert, of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. I had never even heard of 'Camilla Wicks'--who the heck WAS she?
Well, it turned out to be a *smasher*! She was only in her twenties and seemed as fully formed and expressive as the world's greatest fiddlers; in fact, I preferred that performance to Francescatti/Walter...AND it had much better violin tone and control than even the two Szigeti/Walter versions--she was truly a master! So, here it is. I have made up a new cover from a pic I found via a search engine; it's NOT from the same release but shows Wicks and Walter at the time of the performance; she is very young, so it's rather touching to see her discussing the work with such a renowned elderly genius as Bruno Walter, then at the absolute height of his international reputation. The original aircheck recording (from FM radio?) has some overloading/IM distortion in the loud tutti but is otherwise pretty tolerable. I have also added to the folder the Bruno Walter/NYP performance from 20 December 1953 of Beethoven's Prometheus Overture, in even better sound: a terrific one that he really *should* have endeavored to record for Columbia.
Finally, I've included Walter's live May 6, 1945 New York Philharmonic broadcast of Brahms' Symphony No. 4; I found this on YouTube in HORRENDOUS, wincing-inducing, noisy sound that I've *hugely* improved (if I do say so myself! The exception is, unfortunately, some long scratchy parts of the second movement which are at least not QUITE as disturbing here, compared to the YT upload.)
https://www89.zippyshare.com/d/cTB4iJGy/39449/LvBPromO-VCW-Br4-BW.zip
--or--
https://www89.zippyshare.com/v/cTB4iJGy/file.html
(111 MB, FLAC and mp3s, plus image; folder will be deleted by a grudging ZS about 30 days after the original upload on 10/21/18.)
8H Haggis
I have two copies of the Wicks Sibelius if someone wants to offer me hundreds of dollars for it.
I am simply stating what ZS insists; am not certain how precisely careful they are in enforcing this, um, 'rule'. Furthermore, this whole recent project of mine, here, is merely a sort of social experiment. I do NOT want to discourage others (commercial, non-commercial entrepreneurs, and gray-marketers) from putting out BETTER copies of these great performances; I am generally merely attempting to improve things on the Net that I've scarfed up during the last 15 years. I know so many other folks who actually have a huge library of open reel transfers of these same things--and they sound BETTER. In fact, when I was working as a professional sound engineer and had my own recording studio (with numerous pro decks that could run at 15 and even 30 ips) I too had lots of things (on open reel 7" and 10" copies) that were better sounding than these I've casually added in my recent posts; but in c.1992 I closed my studio and disposed of all the pro gear and tapes (primarily to a Santa Cruz audio professional who collected great old period gear, with the 13,000+ Lps sold to a Menlo Park used recording store. What now remains of my collection is but shards and scraps; these are not WORTH reissuing on CD but may be of use to the pecuniary, casual amateur for private entertainment. So, to come to the point, if ZS deletes these files in 30 days, SO BE IT. I don't want them to hang around *forever*; let other folks do a better job on superior sources.
8H Haggis
Oh: and, yes, *I want to encourage ever more enthusiasts to investigate every item here on Buster's blog* so if we add a few things in the comments from time to time, this will boost his readership.
The reason I desire this is that IMO, Buster is at present *the premiere CM upload blogger on the Net* with respect to quality of selections & technical achievement. He could simply put out the identical tracks on such labels as Pearl, Biddulph, Music & Arts, etc.--and we'd gladly PAY for them. To do the entirety of his job (with such excellent scans in hi res, full size; documentation; photos of the artists; and intelligent comments, not to mention the state of the art technical restoration) means that Buster can only do one or two or three items AT THIS HIGH STANDARD per month. I, on the other hand, am an elderly retired person and it's not a severe burden and drain: especially as my modest offerings ARE NOT OF BUSTER'S HIGHER QUALITY and consistent standard of excellence.
I didn't do this on the Net in past years, when Abbedd, Neil, Satyr, etc., had so many followers: because where I lived (actually in the silicon valley) my lousy ISP had an upload speed of about 0.5 mbs, with large files usually stalling completely. Imagine: I lived 15 miles from Google and Yahoo--and couldn't get decent internet service.
Now, in the hinterlands of Utah, I *can* actually upload files. I'm doing this 'experiment' (temporarily) after nearly everybody else has quit (or has been driven off line by censorship or complaints of one sort or another.) One can only do this kind of thing SO LONG--before the resistance accumulates. First stage: you get DETRACTORS (most being trolls but sometimes by skilled entrepreneurs, actual professional transfer engineers, who do NOT want competition: maybe they had in the back of their mind the desire to restore some old recording but--oops!--an amateur upstart (maybe a total buffoon and incompetent like Abbedd) beats them to the punch...so Naxos, Biddulph, Pearl, M&A, etc., are no longer interested. I can understand that and sympathize!
But then you get ill-spirited folks who file spurious copyright claims (like the mean Grinch who negated the efforts of "Fred" at the Random Classics blog.) Or, perhaps finer skilled hobbyists like Neil (etc.) get a new job; or get tired of not being appreciated--or having ridiculous nitpickey remarks piled on, by cretins who are NEVER satisfied, and live in an inner ideal world where 1945 phonograph records sound like the heavenly angels; anything less than that makes them irate and indignant!
I shall STOP this social experiment BEFORE that happens. Meanwhile, *do* get every scrap that Buster has taken his time to reinvest with new value!
8H Haggis
How to thank you for all these treasures and rarities...
This is the first of at least 8 posts, generally each consisting of three albums that were interesting-to-great issues from the mono period; most are of secondary interest to the jaded collector; many have artists that are now quite obscure; and the sound quality is often somewhat substandard--even for their time.
They also have something else in common: they were uploaded on a certain now-defunct blog run by a VERY nice, well-informed enthusiast who was a musician and an uncommonly good writer, able to express his zeal for a particular record in a way that was almost irresistable. But: the fly in the ointment was THAT HE WAS TECHNICALLY INCOMPETENT: and I *do* mean unskilled in the *extreme* Practically everything was WRECKED. He seems to have bought most of the records at a second-hand shop, and often they were nearly TRASHED.
What's worse is that *he added to their defects* by using HORRIBLE equipment. I suspect he employed one of those $79 USB-turntables you could buy at Big Lots; and perhaps he plugged the audio output into the WRONG device: so that the highs were rolled off starting at about 2 kHz; by 4 kHz and above, NADA. The tone arm and cartridge were very loose and undamped: so a warp, or a smll physical defect, tended to cause HAVOC, with horrendous low frequency modulations in the sound. Sometimes his records had needle-skips. And certain items had the highs overloaded and distorted--but then filtered severely at the top; all you had left were the intermodulations down into the midrange when the percussive sounds distorted.
Could any of these problems be FIXED? That was the challenge--and sometimes I succeeded, quite well indeed (in my opinion.) Because he generally used the lossless FLAC format, it ws possible to add changes and re-EQ, keeping the result also in FLAC, without adding more loss of definition.
Eventually, somebody (by his explanation) "narced" on him to Mediafire, and his files were deleted: discouraged, he gave up.
I saved virtually ALL his uploads; and now have at least 5 dozen unedited ones on my HD, waiting for attention. Some of the ones that were more interesting (to ME, at least) were ones I worked on first. I've already uploaded a few, but here is a big chunk of the rest of them.
I call these "Random Fixes" because 'random' was one of the words in the name of his blog, which otherwise I shall not explicitly identify; I wouldn't want to embarrass its owner, who was a very fine gentleman.
I could not figure out how to arrange these consistently, each to appeal to a certain range of musical taste, but had -- instead -- to get them into maximum sized chunks of data that Zippyshare would allow me to upload free, as a non-registered user; apologies if readers perhaps may want only 1 or 2 items in each one but have to get ALL, in each group.
Installment No. 1 follows: 3 old Westminster monos. Albeniz Iberia, Jose Echaniz; Bartok Sonata for 2 Pianos, Contrastes: Iris Loveridge, Wilfrid Parry, Gilbert Webster, Jack Lees, et al.; and Brahms Choral Works, including Gesang der Parzen & Naenie, Vienna Akademie Choir & VSO, Henry Swoboda.
https://www60.zippyshare.com/d/gxFhBwCG/45292/Random%20Fixes%20-%201%20%28Albeniz%2c%20Bartok%2c%20Brahms%29.zip
--or--
https://www60.zippyshare.com/v/gxFhBwCG/file.html
(435 MB, FLACs with covers and Discogs track info; file MAY not last more than 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.)
8H Haggis
Random Fixes No. 2: more antique monos, now surely (at least in the USA) in the public domain, from LP rips by a certain blogger, whose defects I have endeavored to repair --
Copland: Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, etc. - Howard Mitchell, Westminster.
Chamber Orchestra Of The Leningrad Philharmonic in Modern French Orchestral Miniatures: Milhaud, Satie, Poulenc, Ibert; Rohzdestvensky, Westminster Gold.
Mendelssohn: Symphonies Nos. 3, 4 - Philharmonic Promenade Orch (probably RPO), Boult, Westminster.
Quantz: Flute Sonatas by Frederick the Great - Wummer, Valenti, Westminster.
https://www60.zippyshare.com/d/RwIlQ3vE/45395/Random%20Fixes%20-%202%20%28Copland%2c%20Mendelssohn%2c%20Quantz%29.zip
--or--
https://www60.zippyshare.com/v/RwIlQ3vE/file.html
(448 MB, FLACs and mp3s, with covers and Discogs track info; file MAY not last more than 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.)
8H Haggis
Random Fixes No. 3: old mono LPs, AND one stereo issue, salvaged and cleaned up--
Nielsen: Sym No. 4 - Cincinnati SO, Max Rudolf, originally a Decca US Lp release;
Sibelius: Incidental music to "The Tempest"; King Christian Suite. Stig Westerberg, Westminster.
Villa Lobos: The Baby's Family; Jose Echaniz; Westminster.
https://www60.zippyshare.com/d/07GQXdxO/30320/Random%20Fixes%20-%203%20%28Nielsen%2c%20Sibelius%2c%20Villa-Lobos%29.zip
--or--
https://www60.zippyshare.com/v/07GQXdxO/file.html
(433 MB, FLACs, with covers and Discogs track info; file MAY not last more than 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.)
8H Haggis
Random Fixes No. 4:
Chabrier: Pieces Pittoresques, Ginette Doyen; Westminster
Gottschalk-Kay: Cakewalk Suite, Philadelphia, Ormandy; Morton Gould: Fall River Legend Ballet Suite; NYP, Mitropoulos; Columbia mono LP, c.1954 [Please note: ORIGINAL upload had defect of bursts of IM distortion in Gottschalk during moments with VERY hi frequency percussion transients; this was intrinsic in the file and could NOT be fixed; otherwise, good sound resulted in the final cleanup. GREAT performances!]
Handel: Water Music (complete); Philharmonic Promenade Orch (likely RPO, or maybe LPO, Boult; Westminster mono. Rare!
(353 MB, FLACs, with covers and Discogs track info; file MAY not last more than 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.)
8H Haggis
Apologies: linx to Random Fixes No. 4 slipped out of my remarks before I posted them; here they are:
https://www18.zippyshare.com/d/R4FQtTq8/6338/Random%20Fixes%20-%20No.%20%204%20%28Chabrier%2c%20Gottschalk%2c%20Gould%2c%20Handel%29.zip
--or--
https://www18.zippyshare.com/v/R4FQtTq8/file.html
(353 MB, FLACs, with covers and Discogs track info; file MAY not last more than 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.)
8H Haggis
Random Fixes No. 5: more old public-domain antique LPs, recovered, restored, and improved:
Bach: Complete Brandenburg Concerti, London Baroque Ensemble, Karl Haas, Westminster Mono (Rare).
Bartok: Divertimento for Strings; Weiner: Hungarian Folksong Suite; Philharmonia Hungaria, Antal Dorati, Epic (mono only; no stereo).
Bloch: Cto Gross 2; Antheil: Serenade; Marga Richter: Lament for Strings. MGM Chamber Orchestra, Arthur Winograd; MGM mono (VERY, very rare!)
"Schuyler Symphony Orchestra" - actually Saint-Louis Symphony, Vladimir Golschmann - Dvorak Slavonic Dances 1, 3; Milhaud Suite Provencale; Schoenberg: Transfigured Night; RCA Camden mono (Victor 1940s 78s reissued; VERY rare!)
https://www80.zippyshare.com/d/E6qhq5Pq/18311/Random%20Fixes%20-%20No.%205%20%28Bach%2c%20Bartok%2c%20Bloch%2c%20Milhaud%2c%20Schoenberg%29.zip
--or--
https://www80.zippyshare.com/v/E6qhq5Pq/file.html
{443 MB, FLACs and mp3s; original cover scans & track details; ZS states that it will delete this folder about 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.}
8H Haggis
Random Fixes, No. 6: old, now antique, PD items restored from LPs, and whose POOR initial uploads have now been repaired: declicked, slightly denoised, and with EQ corrections:
Violin, Piano Recital by Robert Gerle, with Regis Benoit, pf. Folk-inspired works by Bartok, Kodaly, and Dohnanyi - Westminster stereo LP.
Lars-Erik Larsson: The Disguised God, Op. 24 (lyrical suite, with vocalists, chorus, and sans narration),
Stig Westerberg, cond. with Elisabeth Soderstrom, s & Erik Saeden, b, and Martin Lidstams Vocal Ensemble
with Stockholm Radio Orchestra; Westminster mono (VERY, very, very rare!)
Two Centuries of Austrian Piano Music, Jorg Demus (Mozart Rondo K.511; Fux Harpeggio e Fuga; Schubert 2 Scherzi and Var. on Diabelli; Haydn Piano Sonata 23 in f; Berg Piano Sonata; Bruckner Erinnerung; Beethoven Piano Sonata "Les Adieux"; Music Guild.
https://www39.zippyshare.com/d/nLblJPMy/25073/Random%20Fixes%20-%206%20%28Bartok%2c%20Kodaly%2c%20Dohnanyi%2c%20Larsson%2c%20Austrian%20Piano%20Music%29.zip
--or--
https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/nLblJPMy/file.html
{473 MB, FLACs, plus cover scans and artist, tracks info; ZS asserts they will delete this folder some 30 days after initial upload of 10/22/18.}
8H Hag
Random Fixes, Installment No. 7 - my attempt to recover and correct some deficient transfers once uploaded on a now-defunct blog, which posted interesting PD old LP records -
Paul Creston: Symphonies 2, 3 - National Symphony, Washington, DC, Howard Mitchell; Westminster mono.
Hi-Fi Feast for Orchestra - a remarkable and brilliant "hi fi demo" album of the mid-fifties, with excellent performances by the "Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of London" (likely the RPO) conducted by Argeo Quadri, in Dukas Sorceror, Saint-Saens Bacchanale, Chabrier Marche Joyeus, Mossolov Iron Foundry, and two pieces by Revueltas: really outstanding performances in state of the art hi fi mono sound; Westminster.
Dallas Symphony, Antal Dorati - Strauss Rosenkavalier Suite (arr. Dorati); Offenbach-Dorati: Helen of Troy Ballet (c.1949-50, originally issued as RCA Victor 78s, 45s, and LP); original upload sounded VERY, very dim but has been HUGELY improved here!
{431 MB, FLACs and mp3s, with original cover scans and track info; folder may be deleted by ZS at about 30 days after the original upload date of 10/22/18.}
https://www39.zippyshare.com/d/fpG1JLBX/22541/Random%20Fixes%20-%207%20%28Creston%2c%20Strauss%2c%20Offenbach%29.zip
--or--
https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/fpG1JLBX/file.html
8H Haggis
Random Fixes, No. 8: more of the old, deleted, mono public-domain LPs that were once transferred very deficiently and provided by a now-defunct blog; I have attempted to fix remediable defects using superior methods.
However, the three offered below are items I found in the same folder as my collections obtained from that blog--but now I'm NOT so certain of their provenance. They MAY have been from that blog, or perhaps somehow accidentally slipped into my archive from Russian blog sources; so, who knows? It appears that a FEW items on that "now defunct blog" are no longer listed in its menu, and many of the files are non-active; so these could have been VERY early ones. Can't be sure. At any rate, these are very interesting records!
D'Indy: Istar Variations; Dukas La Peri Ballet (sans Fanfare section); Anatole Fistoulari, conducting. MGM mono. Originally c.1953, probably from UK-Parlophone sources. Cover listed D'Indy Fervaal Prelude, but it was not included in the upload (too defective?)
Ibert: Capriccio; Divertissement; Suite Elizabethiane (Emmy Loose, s., Women's Choir of the Vienna Akademie Kammerchor; Vienna Symphony Orchestra; Henry Swoboda) Westminster WL5061, 1951.
"Italian Woodwind Music" - Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet. Vivaldi: Concerto in G Minor for Flute, Oboe and Bassoon, P, 402; Cambini: Wind Quintet No. 3 In F Major; Rossini: Wind Quartet No 4 In B-Flat; Ponchielli: Quartet in B-Flat Major for Winds with Piano Accompaniment (with Anthony di Bonaventura), Columbia MS-6799, 1969. Perhaps this has not been reissued as the recital is too short for a CD's capacity; but nevertheless, this is one of MY personal "desert island disks"!
{468 MB FLACs, with tracks info and cover scans; please note that this is a LIMITED TIME availability file, with MAY be deleted by ZS some 30 days after the upload on 10/22/18.}
https://www39.zippyshare.com/d/mYzVInk6/24509/Random%20Fixes%20-%208%20%28Dukas%2c%20Ibert%2c%20Wind%20Music%29.zip
--or--
https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/mYzVInk6/file.html
8H Haggis
Random Fixes, No. 9: continuing my repairs of some deficient uploads of old, PD, monophonic LP transfers from a now-defunct blog -
Beethoven Sym No. 5 & Overtures Egmont, Coriolan, Leonore No. 3, Minneapolis Symphony, Antal Dorati; Mercury MG50017, rec. Feb. 5-7, 1953 (no CD version). Solid, tight, dramatic performances--extremely well-played--in traditionally very vivid Living Presence mono sound (with an especially lovely cover, I think!)
Italian Baroque Music, by Societa Corelli (rec. c.1952-3) Vivaldi: Cto in a, Op. 8/3; Cantata "Cessate Omai" (Luisa Ribacchi, mezzo); Sinfonia No. 2 in G. Marcello: Concerto Grosso in F, Op. 1/4. Carissimi: "Suonera L'Ultima Tromba". Geminiani: Concerto Grosso, Op. 3/3. "Pre-HIP", very good performances of baroque works, from old RCA Victor LM-1767.
Piano Music of Latin-America, with Charles Milgrim, piano. Crossroads (US) Crossroads 22 16 0113. A vivid sounding 1967 American production, with brilliant interpretations of piano pieces by Villa-Lobos, Guarnieri, Milhaud, Herrarte, Tosar, Lecuona, Viana, Pinto, Mendoza-Nava. Aside from parts of the disk with a soft "swishing" background sound, in general the transfer is now VERY good; this is one of my OWN "desert island disks"!
https://www39.zippyshare.com/d/8HGxmsdH/40605/Random%20Fixes%20-%209%20%28Baroque%2c%20Beethoven%2c%20Latin-American%20Piano%20Music%29.zip
--or--
https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/8HGxmsdH/file.html
{472 MB folder, FLACs and mp3s; plus track info and cover scans. Zip file MAY likely be deleted by Zippyshare some thirty days after upload date of 10/22/18.}
8H Haggis
Random Fixes, No. 10: for now, probably my last grouping of old public-domain LPs that I found uploaded on a certain blog, in defective transfers: which I've endeavored to repair.
William Boyce Six Overtures, Orchestre Des Concerts Lamoureux Conducted By Anthony Lewis:
Overture To His Majesty's Birthday Ode 1775 ; Overture To The New Year's Ode 1772; Overture To The New Year's Ode 1758; Overture To His Majesty's Birthday Ode 1769; Overture To The Birthday Ode 1768; Overture To Peleus And Thetis. L'Oiseau-Lyre OL.50210. Original upload was a mono copy with EXTREMELY bad, dull sound; I knew it was inadequate because for 20 years, I had owned the LP; over the years, I was *finally* able to get a good, accurate stereo disk transfer from a friend of mine on the east coast: THIS is one of my supreme "desert island disks".
Beethoven - Young Prometheus: Contrapunctal Studies of Beethoven transcribed & arranged for
late 18th century orchestra by Alexander Brott. Everest (fake stereo) SDBR 3419. I have cleaned up the surfaces, and eliminated the ugly echoing/repeating of the original fake stereo, adding my OWN spatial ambience to improve the original, very dry, acoustic.
Berwald: Piano Quartets 1 & 2, Robert Riefling, piano & Robert Riefling, piano plus Benthien Quartet, Nonesuch H1113 and H-71113 (fake stereo). I took original upload of H1113 and created a slightly spatialized version, without the heavy echo and confusion of the original bad Nonesuch fake stereo, and now I can *really enjoy* this, one of my all-time favorite Nonesuch releases.
{418 MB, FLACs, with track info and cover scans; note that ZS customarily deletes uploads may by non-registered users, such as myself, about THIRTY DAYS after they were provided; so this file may expire by 11/22/18.}
https://www39.zippyshare.com/d/NapkAMT3/26151/Random%20Fixes%20-%2010%20%28Boyce%2c%20Mozart%2c%20Berwald%29.zip
--or--
https://www39.zippyshare.com/v/NapkAMT3/file.html
{418 MB, FLACs, plus track info & cover scans; *limited time* zip file availability, which *may* likely be deleted by Zippyshare by 11/22/18.}
8H Haggis
Random Fixes No. 11
I had time, while my wife was half-way across the country, visiting relatives, to add some further items to the repair jobs I did on uploads from that unnamed blog that did, in my opinion, such a poor job that it was almost POINTLESS for the well-meaning host to make his flawed attempts. I couldn't listen to his results; so I worked on the items (sometimes for DAYS!) to remove needle sticks, turntable bumps, bad frequency response, horrendous scratches, etc.
Here are some further items:
1. Glazunov: Raymonda highlights. A 1952 Capitol LP by the so-called "Paris Philharmonic Orchestra" under Manuel Rosenthal, featuring his fine performances of many of the most memorable excerpts. After my extensive cleanup, I did notice that his copy was pressed *slightly* off-center: right about at my threshold of tolerance. Oh, well...the time I took to clean this up perhaps justifies the upload, here, in case other enthusiasts are not as persnickety as I am about pitch-stability. (I am sorry that I haven't located a detailed listing of the individual tracks.)
2. Lumbye: A Concert At Tivoli, Sven Christian Felumb. Though the blogger uploaded a photo of the STEREO edition of this 1965 Vox LP, he actually provided a mono transfer; drat! I was just about to work it over, and made mention of this to an east coast musician friend, when he informed me that HE had just accomplished a tranfer--of the true stereo pressing. Huzzah! (But, he sent me files that had all the channels reversed. After all, he plays in bands and orchestras, and that's the way he HEARS music! I don't--so I had to undo the channel reversal, to conform to my own pleasant recollections of using my copy of this disk, for years, on my radio shows.)
3. Lumbye: Dances from Tivoli; Mercury MG 50009. Tivoli Concert Symphony Orchestra, Tippe Lumbye, conducting. According to the Danish version of Wikipedia (which I ran thru a web translation engine): "Tippe Lumbye wass educated at the Copenhagen Conservatory of Music in July 1896 - December 1897, and in Paris. He was a violinist and chapel master at restaurant Wivel in Tivoli , Copenhagen from 1901-1918...he became a restaurateur at the restaurant Grofften i Tivoli. Tippe Lumbye came from a musician family. He was the son of musician and composer Georg August Lumbye and son of HC Lumbye. Tippe Lumbye was born in Stockholm in 1879 where his father played, and died in Frederiksberg in 1959. He is buried at Holmen Cemetery in Osterbro, Copenhagen."
This issue was licensed from a series of late-fifties LPs that were drawn from Danish Tono recordings. The Mercury LP was released only in mono, though I believe the Danish masters were stereophonic. I could not find a copy on the net of the Mercury cover, so I used a Discogs version of the Tono version; this transfer is from the mono Mercury pressing.
https://www80.zippyshare.com/d/RbyXgkfM/46774/Random%20Fixes%20-%2011%20%5bLumbye%2c%20Glazunov%5d.zip
--or--
https://www80.zippyshare.com/v/RbyXgkfM/file.html
{422 MB, FLACs, plus cover images and (in the Lumbye issues) full track info; NOTE that this file has LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, and may be deleted by ZS by 11/23/18.}
8H Haggis
{Part 1 of 2 Parts}
Here are some further "blog restorations and resurrections": items I found online, in well-meaning amateur transfers, that were, however, SO BAD that they were definitely NOT much of a public service; in some ways, they were *worse* than not contributing them at all.
And yet, the performances were so interesting and valuable that I saved them, hoping (one day) to have the time to see if something could be done. And--they're finally finished!
The first three items are from a certain Japanese classical music record blog that is THE WORST ONE ON THE NET, EVER. The owner does indeed employ one of those cheap Chinese USB-turntables; there is a thumbnail picture on his main page, so we know what we're up against. The records are very clearly from junk shops. And yet, the blog author IS musically cultured and sophisticated, able to spot culturally valuable artifacts, sharing them to the best of his ability: which is, sadly, very low.
I know this sounds snobbish and insufferable; but believe me, there are plenty of NON-engineers and NON-high end audiophiles who have published amateur transfers that essentially preserve and transmit the real contents of the records, taking virtually nothing away, and adding nothing bad. It CAN be done--by someone who is practically a beginner at the task: because it's so easy now. But, to chose severely warped and offcenter records, defaced by horrible scratches, skips, and needle-sticks; and to use VERY poor, super-high data compression (while at the same time, being capable of scanning cover art and representing it with considerable faithfulness and quality) is extraordinarily contradictory and frustrating. Such people can UNDERSTAND and APPRECIATE really fine music and performances, can SEE things, and do know how to generate a good graphical image; but they seem not to HEAR things. Go figure.
At any rate, I've done the work needed, up front, which should have been accomplished BEFORE the uploads were offered. The one thing that is not absolutely possible is eliminating *all* the artifacts generated by inadequate mp3 sampling. (But, I've devised a cute and clever technique, if I do say so myself, that HELPS quite a bit: though it works *only* with 'stereo' 2-channel mp3 files of MONO material. It's possible to isolate some of the compression artifacts, as they are never IDENTICAL on each of the two audio channels; then they may be subtracted from a 'mixed' mono signal, effectively taking away some of the "gargly grunge".)
{End of Pt. 1, by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2, plus links}
The Saint-Saens record was ABSOLUTELY unlistenable in the original upload; something from distorted shortwave radio. It's now *just* barely listenable, with enough clarity to appreciate the work of the very fine conductor Louis Fourestier. These performances mey be just the tiniest bit more idiomatic and magisterial than the intense Mitropoulos/NY Phil issue I uploaded earlier.
The Miklos Rozsa album is a 1965 RCA Victor Living Presence LP that has no official BMG CD release; I used to own not only an early American domestic pressing but also a UK LP, and kept hoping for a compact disk version, but RCA/BMG hasn't seen fit. The Japanese blog transfer was from an obviously damaged disk that had a skip, tracing distortion and scratches. My 'cleanup' is impefect (for instance, to repair the bad skip, a tiny bit of music had to be excised); can any of the Big 10 blog readers contribute a BETTER copy?
The third item is the Shostakovich Seventh symphony, the first actual *commercial* version from 1945 (though of course, Toscanini's & Stokowski's NBC b'casts, nearly 3 years earlier, preceded this; and there was a Russian aircheck.)
A friend of mine in Palo Alto actually owned the Musicrafters 78 rpm album and he once played it for me: I was quite amazed at the clarity, transparency, and vividness of the recording, in his pristine copy! too. The blogger scanned the cover *perfectly*, but -- of course -- messed up the transfer. I've done what was POSSIBLE; it would be much more desirable to have a professional to do this all over from a perfect set of the 78s. In lieu of that (or if you don't have the Lys transfer, which I have not heard) perhaps this can serve as a modest stop-gap (though the old Allegro LP does not do full justice to the original 78s.)
The fourth item was from another blog which nearly always severely diminished the records it presented, dulling the already antique sound severely. Again, I've done what a trained person COULD do with a flawed artifact; it should be redone properly, 'eliminating the middle-man'; but RCA hasn't accomplished that *yet*. It is the Dorati confection, the ballet "Graduation Ball", which he compiled and rearranged from Johann Strauss, Jr. music, recorded in the late 1940s in Dallas. Dorati remade this almost a decade later, in stereo; but that Minneapolis performance seems to me to be hectic -- almost manic and frenzied -- compared to this far more charming presentation.
1. Saint-Saens: 4 Tone Poems (La Jeunesse d'Hercule; Danse Macabre; Phaeton; Le Rouet d'Omphale), Orchestre de l'Association des Concerts Lamoreux, Louis Fourestier. Angel mono 35058, c.1954-55. The Lp was *just slightly offcenter* so that pitch is NOT absolutely steady. There IS a software program designed to correct such flaws in existing recordings with wow: it costs *$5,000*!:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/927837-REG/celemony_10_11095_celemony_capstan.html
2. Miklos Rosza conducts the RCA Italiana Orchestra in his own serious concert works, including "Overture to a Symphony Concert": and Theme, Variations, and Finale. LSC-2802.
3. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad". Buffalo Philharmonic, William Steinberg. Allegro LP, no. 3041 (reissue, c.1950-51, of Musicrafters 78 rpm set)
4. Strauss, Johann Jr./arr. Antal Dorati: Graduation Ball. RCA Victor LM-1061, released in 1950 in the 33.3 rpm microgroove format, from earlier 78 rpm version.
https://www41.zippyshare.com/d/PA4GP7nz/5788/SSaens%2cDS%2cStrauss%2cMR.zip
--or--
https://www41.zippyshare.com/v/PA4GP7nz/file.html
{222 MB, mp3s, plus cover scans and Discogs track info; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, me be deleted by 11/24/18.}
8H Haggis
{Part 1 of 2 Parts}
I am closing in on the last of the "forgotten" Mercury monos, with three string quartet recordings, and one orchestral performance: all brilliantly performed and well recorded, surely worthy to have been included in the commercial restorations of Mercury material on CD.
The first two are VERY early records by the Fine Arts Quartet, from as early as 1948, including Schubert's Quartets Nos. 13 & 14, and Mendelssohn's Quartet No. 1. These were produced *before* Mercury introduced the "Living Presence" Olympian Series LPs, though they *sound* worthy to be included with their historic post-1951 issues with that imprint.
I do NOT remember where these came from; but I believe I harvested them from blog posts that date back perhaps a decade ago.
The third is a marvelous Mozart quartet recording by the Roth Quartet, probably dating from around 1951 or 2. Mercury also recorded the ensemble in the Mozart Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn (nos. 14-19) and the last two quartets (nos. 22, 23); the Bloch Quartet No. 1; and the Kodaly Quartet (which I uploaded earlier); there may have been other items but I cannot document them at the moment. Again, the sound quality is evidently consistent with C. R. Fine's well-conceived recording technique. Unfortunately, this particular album, Mozart's Quartets 20 & 21, came from a blog that posted a large number of the historic Olympian series recordings, many from the mono period, boasting that the transfers were produced with 'high end tube equipment' of fantastic quality...while, actually, nearly each one was burdened with a GROTESQUE BUZZ I've mentioned in some of my pertinent earlier "clean-up" posts. This particular item was nearly the worst offered by that blog: each movement sounded different, with more or less of the buzz; and the Quartet No. 21 also had a horrible 60 Hz hum. The files have been on one of my hard drives for more than *eight years*; I couldn't stand to play them due to the sonic defects. It was only because I've decided to make uploads to the Big 10 Blog that I was *finally* motivated to edit and correct them!
{End of Part 1 - 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2 plus links}
Sadly, there is still a small trace of a faint tone-intermodulation effect (due to all the individual buzz carrier tones) that is audible in a couple of spots in the last movement of Qrt 21; try as I might, I could NOT excise the last bit of it, even after using my custom complex buzz-signature filter. After about 2 hours of work on this album, I gave up and put an end to my travails! (I am sure it will sound better to most listeners than my pessimistic comments suggest.)
Finally, the reverse side of Mercury MG 50015 (1953) featuring on side A the Mozart Symphony No. 38, the "Prague", by the Chicago Symphony under Rafael Kubelik, included in the official Mercury Living Presence CD reissues. Side B, however, was omitted in the CD releases: Mozart's Symphony No. 34 in C, K.338: one of the very few performances available at the time of its initial release (WERM lists also only Blech, Markevitch, Otterloo, and Boehm at the time, in addition to the 78s by Beecham and Koussevitzky; while Sym. 38 had *3* times that number available in 1953.)
My friend, the east coast musician, transferred his clean copy of this recording, which I'm very pleased to include; since the original session masters of #38 have been so superbly restored by Wilma Cozart Fine, I am omitting Side A; I heartily recommend the Mercury CD.
https://www61.zippyshare.com/d/YKFDWrNA/33331/Mercury%20Monos-Mozart%2c%20Schubert%2c%20Mendelssohn.zip
--or--
https://www61.zippyshare.com/v/YKFDWrNA/file.html
{355 MB, FLACs and mp3, plus original cover scans and track info: LIMITED TIME availability, to be deleted by ZS by 11/24/18.}
8H Haggis
Clarification: I said, above, "The Saint-Saens record was ABSOLUTELY unlistenable in the original upload; something from distorted shortwave radio"; but what happened when I uploaded the comments was that the word "like" was omitted. So it's NOT actually FROM shortwave radio; it sounded LIKE shortwave radio, in the initial, uncorrected upload.
8H Haggis
Oh, and yes: I do know that the 1965 RCA Victor LP by Miklos Rozsa was in the "Living STEREO" series--not "Living Presence" as I mistyped (had Mercury too much on the mind!)
8HH
As an old radio announcer friend of mine once said -- redundantly -- "Here now is some Haydn to hear, with, herein, The Little Orchestra of London under Leslie Jones. Hear, hear!"
1. Jones and the Little Orchestra of London will be heard in Haydn Symphonies Nos. 13, 19, 29, 31, 44, 45, 49, and 64, from three Nonesuch stereo LPs, which a friend of mine and I transferred from mint-condition albums...
2. More Haydn: a c.1960 Epic stereo LP of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Szymon Goldberg, in excellent performances of Symphonies Nos. 44 and 57; and Kurt Redel conducting a quartet of Haydn pieces: the Trumpet Concerto; a Divertimento for Flute; the Serenade; and "Das Echo", from an Angel stereo disk; both transferred by me from mint condition disks...
3. ...and two of my old favorite Haydn records: Karl Ristenpart, on Nonesuch, with the Saar Chamber Orchestra, and soloists, in the Organ Concerto in C and Sinfonia Concertante in Bb; plus the Lamoreux Orchestra under Roberto Benzi, in Symphonies Nos. 55 and 85.
Three separate folder, mostly mp3s, with cover scans and track info. LIMITED TIME availability; ZS may delete these by 11/24/18.
1) Haydn,Jones, 380 MB --
https://www82.zippyshare.com/d/F1HF8f3j/48322/HaydnJones.zip
--or--
https://www82.zippyshare.com/v/F1HF8f3j/file.html
2) Haydn/Goldberg,Redel, 311 MB --
https://www82.zippyshare.com/d/F1HF8f3j/48322/HaydnJones.zip
--or--
https://www82.zippyshare.com/v/KrdeTYbI/file.html
3) Haydn,Ristenpart, 279MB --
https://www82.zippyshare.com/v/mLuSBqR9/file.html
--or--
https://www82.zippyshare.com/v/mLuSBqR9/file.html
Cheers from Franz Joseph,
8H Haggis
(And now, I'd better wait a month before continuing this farago!)
Dear 8H Haggis and Buster,
Words fail me.....
Inadequate as the following words are, I feel that I must in some small way thank you for your generosity of spirit in sharing your love of music with us.
Such a cornucopia of delights of recordings long since submerged into the dust of decades.
Such a remarkable dedication and enthusiasm in presenting the best possible sounding reproductions of idiomatic and often eccentric performances.
And the commentary.... - superb, superb, superb - with a wry sense of humour.
I'm so much indebted to you for bringing such enjoyment.
Many, many thanks.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
Bravissimi !
{Part 1 of 2}
Thanks, Alkillian and Douglas. I've been smoldering with frustration and resentment for nearly 15 years, based on lies, accusations, and slanders against me on the RMCR newsgroup, where I was accused of being "a liar and manure spreader"; a "b------t artist"; a "pseudoscientific fake", and a "fraud". I made the mistake of enthusiastically contributing some anecdotes from my years as a professional recording engineer and broadcaster...and a number of persons whom I would *not* have expected to be trolls, excoriated me. I completely understand that persons on the Internet are sometimes flawed screwballs who narcissistically live out a 'false persona'; but not EVERYBODY who posts is guilty of such a disorder. Because I sometimes used monikers (8H Haggis, or AFT: my joke for "A Fanatical Toscaniniphile, to make fun of "fanatics" who were fanboys for their object of veneration) I engendered some curiosity--and resentment. However, at least a half dozen REAL authorities on that ng. were regular correspondents of mine (such as the noted discographer Mike Gray; a full professor at NYU whose father was a noted music critic and official at the UN; and two or three different transfer engineers who were entrepreneurs, selling restorations, either to Biddulph, Pearl, Music & Arts, or via their OWN private labels) knew me personally, by name and reputation, and considered me a friend and colleague. I had a nearly 30 year professional experience in broadcast and recording engineering; produced and recorded at least a few issues for small commercial labels; did recording and editing for one of America's "Big 5" orchestras; hosted a regular broadcast concert syndicated orchestra program; and had been the writer and webmaster for one of the world's most acclaimed classical recording restorers. I used a moniker because though I was at the time only recently retired, I had some hopes of perhaps doing some further commercial work and did NOT want any of my alleged 'controversial' remarks to be held against me; furthermore, previous experiences on the Net, and earlier with bulletin boards, had shown me that if I gave my real address and email, I'd be inundated by nonsense from cranks.
{End of part 1 of 2 by 8HH}
{Part 2 of 2}
It was frustrating to me to KNOW that I had done some original transfer work that CERTAIN small companies now still offer in their commercial issues--but RMCR trolls would still insist that I was a *complete fake* who made up everything I said; had absolutely NO true background in recording; and was conducting a campaign of bluffing and foolery to annoy people...by merely reciting some information I'd learned; experiences I'd gained; and opinions I'd formed, based on considerable amounts of study and practial work. Some of my posts were collated, after I suddenly left RMCR, by a *few* of the appreciative fans I'd collected; but these were soon joined by the same crew of nasty detractors; and their snippy insults are faithfully preserved by the Google Groups archive. Now, I'd ask readers to listen to my transfers of the Redel and Ristenpart Haydn records, or the repairs of the GROTESQUELY ruined transfers from the "buzzy blog" or the unfortunate character in Japan with the USB-turntable, or the hollow, mushy "Abbedd" desecrations that I've improved; and then decide if I am *really* a "liar, manure spreader, and fraud".
I wrote a LOT about Toscanini records and their myriad audio characteristics (mostly defects related to miking and audio limiting); noise reduction techniques; record surface noise and 'soundstaging' issues; and recording equalization employed for disk cutting and tape recording--and virtually every statement was NEGATED by my arch-critics: on the ground that I was unwilling to debate them over Sophistries and perverse semantical arguments.
So the only "reply" one could make would be to "put my money where my mouth was" and give real evidence of my point of view...but, as I said, where I lived, the internet service was SO abominable that my upload speed was (on a good day) no faster than about 0.5 mbs, and a large file would simply stall. So I could not, back then, use the net to upload large folders of lossless FLACs. NOW I can do it--but am always wary of genuine copyright infringements, and don't want to discourage other workers to upload perhaps BETTER transfers, from superior sources, since (as I said) I have provided only "stuff" I've scarfed from the Net in the years after I sold off my old professional tape machines and retired from the business.
As such, I venerate people like Buster, who have established a track record of being a TRUE expert and skilled craftsman.
8H Haggis
Finally -- and I *must* cease any of these self-serving whinings! -- I should give a concrete example of the appalling lack of collegiality that the Net has unleashed, amongst persons of similar interest who SHOULD be compatriots and collaborators.
If you look at this thread on Pablo Varela's blog --
http://elbaulcoleccionista.blogspot.com/2018/07/tchaikovsky-por-horowitz-y-toscanini.html#comment-form
-- you will find some posts I've made that explain how a certain exalted expert in Toscaniniana denounced me on RMCR as "a fraud and manure spreader" -- based, I intuited, on perhaps *four* tiny mistakes I'd made in my thousands of words about the history and contents of Toscanini's records (I think my WORST was the mis-recollection of the provenance of one of the amateur tape dubs I had heard TEN YEARS EARLIER, improperly conflating the aircheck source by confusing one of the two possible NY area early FM stations); for this I was PILLORIED...and then a significant number of Toscanini enthusiasts I had been corresponding with now suddenly *refused* to answer my emails...because I was a "nonperson" due to the ridicule I'd suffered by this authority! (Yet, I agreed with that gentleman about 99% of the time; venerated and praise him all over the net--even praising his work in an article I had written on the website of his closest COMPETITOR; and ultimately *recommended him personally to Klaus Heymann of Naxos, who -- at my encouragement, flew to NY to meet him and negotiate some contributing work*...on my enthusiastic encouragement! "No good deed goes unpunished"!!)
My reaction was, at the time, "Et tu, Brute". I realized that virtually ANY statement about the techniques of historic record transferring would engender resentment, objections, and denunciations--from ideologues who had ONE PRECISE WAY of doing things, and rejected ANY other solutions, or even the entire existence of OTHER persons employed in the same kind of work. So, why continue to, um, INFORM the unwashed masses, as it were: the audiophiles who NEVER, not one time, in their lives, had done ANY professional work; but "knew" about audio by merely buying records or certain 'approved' gear; and had read too many puff-pieces by Fantel or Darrell, or idiosyncratic ravings by Haggin (bitterly composed in the years immediately preceding his diagnosis of mental disorder), obtaining "received wisdom" therefrom.
SO: was I willing to allow the so-called "remasterings" of the preposterous "Abbedd" to continue to pollute the community of music-lovers (preserved now in the sound tracks of many YouTube videos): the alienated dummy who objected to ME on RMCR as being, allegedly, "the biggest b------t artist ever to enter Usenet. On the subject of musical sound he is clueless." Or would I, someday, make concrete some of my claims, and opinions, about sound recordings and transfer techniques? Buster's blog convinced me, recently, that The Time Had Come.
8H Haggis
WOW!! What an astounding difference! Thank you so much for the miracle you were able to work on the horrendous Abbedd versions of these Toscanini concerts. Like, I'm sure, many others, I was torn between being grateful to have them at all and yet appalled at Abbedd's deliberate degradation of the sound. At one point I begged him to post both the originals and the versions he insisted upon so those of us who might possibly disagree with his aural peculiarities could try our own equalization (or not), but his reply (and refusal) was arrogant, to say the least. Such a shame! Any others you might want to restore to listenable sound would be most appreciated as well!
Dear 8H Haggis and Buster, too,
Your generosity is greatly appreciated. To date, I’ve listened to only about 25 of your listings (mostly, the Dorati recordings) and have been very impressed with the sound quality. I have downloaded most of your other listings over the past two months, including the recent deluge over the past week. It will take me awhile to listen to them all, but I will look forward to it. I actually have about two thirds the Random Classics offerings you included, and it will be fun and informative to hear how you were able to enhance them. (As an aside, the Random Classics blog provided many terrific offerings and its a shame it was put out of business). I also have a few of the offerings from the Japanese blog. Yes the sound quality is awful, but on occasion there would be listed a rare and interesting recording, so I downloaded. This include the recording of Dinu Lipatti compositions. I look forward to see if you able to rescue it. Again thanks. By the way, I very much enjoy your commentary, both on music and music restoration. At some point in the future (at least 5 years off) I will attempt to digitize some of my LPs. Your commentaries have given me a few pointers to consider when I get to that project.
Buster,
Please keep going with your wonderful blog. So many great listings, like your recent RVW Pastoral Symphony.
If I may be permitted to be a little obnoxious and greedy, would you mind if I make a few re-upload requests?
Leo Sowerby Orchestral Works
Robert Ward 3rd Symphony
Barber Knoxville
Django Reinhardt
Johnny Costa
Roy Harris on M-G-M
The Wild One (I am a big Shorty Rogers fan)
Feel free to ignore my requests.
Best regards,
Purcell - Thanks for your comments! I'll be happy to reup those files. Might take a few days or so.
Buster,
I got them all. Look forward to listening. Thank you kindly.
Best regards,
It seems the D'Indy did make it to CD.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Franck-Variations-Symphoniques-Symphonie-Montagnard/dp/B00374KWA4/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1540899415&sr=1-1&keywords=d%27indy+casadesus
Any chance you could re upload the Handel concertos by Carl Weinrich and Arthur Fiedler?
Thank you for the uploads of Goldberg's Haydn symphonies. I look forward to hearing them.
Here's what one noted critic said about Goldberg in 1964 in an interview on WNYC.
Marx: What has been the really high point of the musical season last year in your opinion? Is there one thing that stood out more than others?
BHH: Let’s see. Actually, I heard one I can remember hearing one concert, by the violinist [Szymon] Goldberg and his Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, that was certainly one of the high points of the season It was fabulously beautiful. He’s a, he’s one of the great musicians of our time and it comes out in his playing.
The interview is available on the WNYC Web site:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/bh-haggin-part-ii.
More Leslie Jones Nonesuch records that I just turned up in my collection...
Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 3, 39 ("Fist"), 73 ("The Chase") Little Orch of London, Leslie Jones. Nonesuch H-71096. I don't *think* I did these transfers; they do not sound the way I think I would have equalized them; and perhaps the transfer should be slighly revised with respect to the pitch of certain movements. I do not have time to do this one over (it could take me all evening or half a day, based on my current standards of obsessive-compulsiveness) so I'll just pass on what I put onto CDR about 12 or 13 years ago.
Johann Christian Bach: Two Sinfonias for Double Orchestra (in E, Op. 18/5, and in D, Op. 18/3); Nonesuch H-71165. I am sure I did not do this transfer as the third work on the album - a Sinfonia Concertante in C - is missing. I almost think there is some engineering tomfoolery (overdubbing?) as the 'second orchestra' is so far to the extreme of the right channel, and seems to be in a different acoustical environment.
Carl Philip Emanual Bach: Four Orchestral Symphonies (in D, Eb, F, and G) Nonesuch H-71180
I am pretty certain that this transfer was done by my good friend DP on the east coast.
{204 MB, mp3s plus covers and track info; Zippyshare will keep this online until at least 12/12/18, and it MIGHT continue to be offered after that, as long as DL's are requested.}
https://www20.zippyshare.com/d/MzBkZpUs/37869/More%20Leslie%20Jones.zip
-or-
https://www20.zippyshare.com/v/MzBkZpUs/file.html
8H Haggis
Laurence, I know I've said that Zippyshare will keep the files ONLY for one month. But as others have observed -- and I've confirmed -- quite often they do NOT delete them. I cannot find the link to it given on the Big 10 blog; if you have seen it, please DO try it and let us know *for certain* that it is now dead. I *might* consider reposting but would rather not divert my time from MANY other items that I am planning to offer. Re-posting means recompiling the original folders, as the transfers are all on CDRs, with few exceptions; and once I uploaded them, I erased those rips. Lots of work, so DO confirm it is DEAD, first, please.
8HH
I have reconstructed about thirty of the AT broadcasts from Abbedd desecrations. One I posted at Pablo Varela's blog: an all-Tchaikovsky concert from 1941. But I am very reluctant to do more than this, based on the long campaign of vilification I suffered on RMCR from "alleged" Toscanini enthusiasts. My friend Mark Obert-Thorn once referred to such people as "The Audio Taliban"--they have a very dogmatic and ideological point of view and believe ONLY ONE HUMAN BEING on the planet has the "proper" way of fixing these old artifacts. If that person doesn't do it--then, we don't need to hear them! One of them wrote that it was more important to go to the New York Public Library once a year to hear one of these "precious" tapes than to have the Toscanini material available for world-wide music lovers. This is definitely a "cult of personality" now that makes it difficult for anybody else to try to offer some kind of alternative work.
I also feel that many of them are over-influenced by reading the crabbed and alienated works of B. H. Haggin, who viewed the entire world, apparently, as consisting of enemies and Philistines who intentionally WRECKED the great and sincere musicianship of his idols. Abbedd was one such accolyte. It is ironic that HE attacked the finest commercial sound engineers who did extremely competent, diligent, and respectful work on the Toscanini legacy: no good deed goes unpunished!
I'm waiting for all of this to die down. I even gave copies to a friend on the east coast, with instructions to release them "only when I'm dead."
Now, with respect to Andrew's link to the D'Indy: I have never seen a domestic US distribution of this old, deleted CBS Masterworks Portrait CD but it's good to know that it EXISTED. I also suspected that it would have been released on CD at least in Japan. I *do* hope they took the trouble to correct the severe pitch jump in the third movement. Thanks for bringing this to my attention; but without hearing it, or at least reading a trustworthy critic to confirm that, I am reluctant to buy a pig-in-a-poke.
8H Haggis
It should be added that Barrington-Coupe was only involved with Saga, which started in 1958, for the first couple of years of its long history. By 1960 B-C had left, under a cloud, but Saga retained the Hatto recordings that had been made before that. After Saga ran into financial difficulties, reportedly caused by B-C, it was purchased in 1961 by Marcel Rodd (real surname Roditi), who continue to run it until his retirement in the early 1980s.
Meanwhile, Barrington-Coupe established a new family of labels in the 1960s, including Delta, Summit, Fidelio, Revolution and Concert Artist (the last named of which he also used for the Hatto CDs). These labels had no connection to Saga and were in fact in direct competition with it.
The Rózsa LP was in fact released on CD only last year, by Dutton Vocalion, from master tapes.
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