What better way to herald a post on the Brits than a cover with two royal shields and the symbol of that most English of labels, His Master's Voice, or HMV, with its royal overtones of His/Her Majesty's Ship, or HMS. Even old Nipper looks majestic in this company. The music is by the two most popular English composers, Vaughan Williams and Elgar, performed by the royal favorite conductor, Malcolm Sargent, and the empire's own BBC Symphony, which Sargent led in the early 1950s, when this was recorded.
That said, Sargent was never the favored conductor of these composers, Boult and Barbirolli were; the BBC was not the best English orchestra at that time, the Philharmonia was; and the impressive cover was actually HMV's default design, which afforded economies in production. Even the left royal shield proclaims that the Gramophone Company (HMV's parent) purveys "gramophones, records, radio and television apparatus to the late King George VI." They apparently hadn't signed up the new Queen yet. Perhaps I should ask if she would like to be the sponsor of this blog and I could rename it the Royal 10-Inch Record.
Despite what the above paragraph may imply, this is a very fine performance and recording of some exceptionally beautiful music.
15 comments:
Your Sargent Lp of Elgar is much appreciated! And another recording of the two Wand of Youth suites, issued a little earlier perhaps, is even better: Eduard van Beinum's recording with the LPO, for Decca. From what I have learned from Barry Coward, the Suite No. 2 was recorded onto a 78 rpm master, and a year later Suite 1 was recorded to tape. Barry's label Beulah issued a 78 transfer of the Suite 2, and licensed the Decca tape for Suite 1. And Dutton transferred the 78s of Suite 2 for the LPO's own label. However, I used to own a 10" Decca/London LP of both that had amazingly superior sound in Suite 2; it was reissued later on Ace of Clubs, I believe, and that was good too (though in mild fake stereo.) Do you by any chance have the 10" Lp release, which I feel is THE version to hear? That Lp would make a good item for "the Big 10 Inch" site. Thanks also for the Collins version of Delius' "Cuckoo" which I haven't heard in many years.
Sincerely yours,
S. Waldee - San Jose California USA
Steve - Thanks for your note. I am sure I don't have the 10-inch of the van Beinum recording, unfortunately. I might have a 12-inch reissue. I'll look later this week - on a trip at the moment.
I do hope you have the 12" version. The two CD transfers sound really terrible, not at all like the LP editions sounded. My recollection is that there was hardly any sonic difference between the two suites on either LP copy. I think EVB's performances of the music are even better than Sir Edward Elgar's own recordings!
Thanks,
Steve Waldee
Steve,
I did have an LP version of the first suite, which is available at http://rapidshare.com/files/126948910/Elgar_-_Wand_of_Youth__Suite_No._1.zip. The transfer I worked from did not seem to be equalized properly to the original recording characteristic. I've corrected that and combined the channels. The result sounds to my ears fairly good. Hope you enjoy.
Well, your file sounds GREAT! As you noted, the 12 inch version (was it Ace of Clubs?) was in a mild fake stereo and sounded a little "tubby"; your modifications are well done!)
The two CD versions of the First Suite were prepared from shellac 78 commercial pressings: Barry Coward's Beulah release obtained a licensed copy of Decca's authentic source but they decided it did not sound right; so they had another transfer done by David Michell from 78s (and the disks were VERY noisy and swishy.) Michael Dutton's transfer for the LPO's own label used shellacs, but he employed extreme amounts of noise reduction filtering (so that many passages are very dim and submerged.)
The sound you have obtained from the LP is excellent, and barely differs from the Beulah transfer of the licensed Decca source tape of Suite no. 2: AS I SUSPECTED, based on my memory over many years of playing the LP editions. Many thanks!
I have spent at least five years scouring the world for a copy of that material, and you've done me a big favor for providing this public-domain recording (which should be perfectly legal, as far as I can intuit.)
Thanks...thanks...THANKS!
Srw
Steve,
You are welcome. It was from an old Decca pressing. It sounded to me as though the transfer used the wrong preemphasis so I changed it to the ffrr characteristic. Sounds better!
Don't mind me; I'm an old retired sound engineer who recorded and edited tapes for 35 years...
I had heard your file only on my PC's speaker but when I listened to it on the main stereo system with subwoofer: OOPS! There was a rather bad 60 Hz hum, but a 3-Hz wide -50 notch filter got rid of that (no genuine musical sounds in that particular frequency range) with no audible side effects; but now the ~90 Hz hum of the original transfer is quite audible (that is a typical sound on old Deccas; they were mastered at half-speed and I think it is related to mains hum plus the lathe rumbles, all mixed in.) I did not do anything to that because there IS musical info around that frequency.
Now I can understand why Barry Coward was appalled at the tape that he got from Decca: the First Suite is a composite from at least THREE different sounding sources (what the Brits call "the dog's dinner".) The opening movement is the typical sound of a very late ffrr 78 played back correctly; the last movement is EXTREMELY different in balance (more like an early ffrr tape.) The middle movements are dull, and one of them is probably a dub of the original disk, from 78 to 78: there is an odd loss of transient response and a "nasal coarseness" in the Sun Dance.
I also found that the pitches of movements are variable, and had to be individually adjusted as much as a bit over 2% worst-case. In the original Lp transfer they did not get them all at the same reference (I used a modern recording of the music, also by the LPO, as my reference, after checking it against our piano.)
The individual movements also needed individual EQ corrections. The middle ones were all quite dull, as though the transfer engineer used some sort of filtering. The outer movements were wider ranging, with (as I said) a rather enormous treble boost in the last one. I was able in the course of about FOUR hours' work to make them all seem fairly similar and to match them to some other typical ffrr material of the period.
I think I understand, after this marathon, why Barry Coward had David Michell transfer it all over again from a set of Decca shellacs...no doubt this particular recording has not been subjected to this much editing and correction since the Ace of Clubs issue was done -- rather incompetently, I might add, as the fake stereo effect was peculiar sounding and unnecessary!
The end result is that the First Suite sounds pretty darned close to the authentic licensed Decca tape of the Second Suite that Barry issued on Beulah.
Srw
Well, Steve, you're a better man (and engineer) than I! I am sure the original had all the faults you specify except for the hum, which my MC cartridge tends to supply. When I did the re-EQ I only listened to the first section, never expecting such variations in the source file. Hope you are enjoying - it's a fine performance.
Hi. Any chance of re up? Whener you can. I've grabbed lots of records. Thanks!
Forgot to activate notification. Sorry
Remastered version (Apple lossless):
https://mega.nz/#!nUkFQLhR!XPWfb8uqtVKGdV9iOgShpPG5qy1kvL2u8xYHJwehWs0
thanks
Transfers are sometimes NEVER done! This one from the 78 masters of Van Beinum in 1949 doing the Elgar Wand of Youth suite 2 sure isn't as I still hear some hum and even, in one movement, a faint whistle; the suite 1 is less problematical, having been mastered to early Decca tape (upload is a zipped archive of about 18 MB.)
https://www101.zippyshare.com/v/DWxJThBw/file.html
A bonus: Sir Adrian Boult conducting the Moeran Symphony in G-minor; my transfer of a short-lived HNH stereo Lp; 102 MB zipped file, with cover image.
https://www65.zippyshare.com/v/6GEBFvRD/file.html
*30 days limit through around 8/24/18*
8H Haggis
I believe I erred with respect to the dates: my folder shows that the file titles (which I am pretty sure are correct) indicate that Wand #1 is from 1949 (78 master) and #2 (which does indeed sound more vivid) is from tape, in 1950.
8HH
Thanks for the Van Beinum and Moeran. I do believe I have the Lyrita version of the latter. Great record.
Post a Comment