Some of you may have noticed that 8H Haggis has been busily laboring away in the comments sections, providing links to limited-time uploads of mainly rare or unusual classical uploads. These generally feature his savvy improvements to older items in need to repair.
Goodness, has he been busy! Let me get a few other items out of the way first, then I will provide a list of his labors.
First, if you have enjoyed the Paul Whiteman recordings uploaded here or on my friend Lee's blog, please be advised that genial blogger has done it again, this time with 22 new transfers from his extensive collection. Go here for the latest tranche.
Also, let me mention that I recently remastered and reuploaded my collection of 1947-50 Andre Previn Trio recordings. Mind-blowing pianism, I assure you. Here's a link to the original post.
Now back to 8H and his profusion of plenitude. I can only offer the briefest synopsis of what is available - just composer and principal artist(s). See the comments to these posts for what 8H has on offer. I suggest searching on the composer or artist to minimize scrolling.
In the Hanson Conducts MacDowell comments
Bach - Elsner/Reinhardt
Bach - Videro/Sorensen/Friisholm
Ballet Program - Perlea
Bartok - Byrns
Beethoven - Davisson
Beethoven - Goehr
Beethoven - Keilberth
Beethoven - Perlea
Berlioz, Debussy - Dorati
Bizet - Goehr
Borodin - Dorati
Brahms - Dorati
Brahms - Kubelik
Cherubini - Schmitz
Corelli - Goehr
Dukas - Sebastian
Dvorak - Swoboda
Enescu - Ormandy/Kindler
Franck - Wolf
Haydn - Goehr
Haydn - Swarowsky
Kodaly - Roth Quartet
Liszt - Sebastian
Liszt, Weber - Milner/Rother
Mendelssohn - Steinberg
Meytuss, Mossolov - Ehrlich
Mozart - Barchet
Mozart - Lehmann
Mozart - Steinberg
Mozart, Boccherini, Weiner - Starker
Pastorales - Phila Wind Quintet
Prokofiev - Samosud
Prokofiev - Stasevich
Ravel - Dorati
Rimsky - Chalabala
Rossini - Rossi
Schubert - Prohaska
Schubert - Steinberg
Schubert - Susskind
Stravinsky - Dorati
Tchaikovsky - Gauk
Tchaikovsky - Kubelik
In the More Limited-Time Uploads comments
Albeniz - Echaniz
Bach - Haas
Barber - Walter
Bartok - Loveridge/Parry/Webster/Lees
Bartok, Weiner - Dorati
Bartok, Kodaly, Dohnanyi - Gerle/Benoit
Beethoven - Brott
Beethoven - Petri
Beethoven - Stern/Rose/Walter
Beethoven - Swarowsky
Beethoven - Walter
Beethoven - Weingartner
Berwald - Riefling/Benthien Quartet
Bloch, Antheil, Richter - Winograd
Boyce - Lewis
Brahms - Fiedler
Brahms - Swoboda
Brahms - Walter
Busoni - Busch/Walter
Chabrier - Doyen
Cimarosa - Swarowsky
Concert in the Park - Fiedler
Copland - Mitchell
Creston - Mitchell
Dello Joio - Swarowsky
D'Indy - Walter
D'Indy, Dukas - Fistoulari
Dvorak - Walter
Dvorak, Milhaud, Schoenberg - Golschmann
Favorite Overtures - Fiedler
Gershwin - Dorati
Gershwin - Hatto
Gershwin - Sanroma/Fiedler
Gottschalk-Kay - Ormandy
Gould - Mitropoulos
Gounod - Fiedler
Handel - Boult
Handel - Weinrich/Fiedler
Haydn - Swarowsky
Hindemith - Walter
Ibert - Loose/Swoboda
Italian Woodwind Music - Phila Woodwind Quintet
Larsson - Soderstrom/Saeden/Westerberg
Liszt - Sanroma/Fiedler
Mendelssohn - Boult
Mendelssohn - Frugoni/Mrazek/Swarowsky
Modern French Orchestral Miniatures - Rohzdestvensky
Mozart - Newstone
Nielsen - Rudolf
Offenbach - Fiedler
Quantz - Wummer/Valenti
R. Strauss, Offenbach-Dorati - Dorati
Ravel - Walter
Ravel - Wittgenstein/Walter
Romances and Serenades - Lane
Saint-Saens - Frugoni/Swarowsky
Schumann - Walter
Sibelius - Westerberg
Smetana - Fiedler
Smetana - Swarowsky
Strauss Family - Fiedler
Two Centuries of Austrian Piano Music - Demus
Vaughan Williams - Walter
Villa-Lobos - Echaniz
Remember that these uploads will be available only for a matter of 30
days or less. They are on Zippyshare, which has certain peculiarities.
When you click on a download link, you may be taken to one or more
nuisance tabs or pages. Close those and try the download link again.
Follow @BusterBig10Inch
3 months ago
47 comments:
{Part 1 of 3 Parts}
Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Dorati/MSO (featured in this upload by 8H Haggis)
Bye, bye, buzz, Bye, bye, buzziness, Hello, happiness: I just wanted to cry-aye...
But now the buzz: bye-bye-ee!
There is a high-end audiophile who has a LARGE blog, offering a huge quantity of LP rips from his Mercury
Living Presence classical collection. AVOID IT! Because, his tube equipment picks up A NASTY RF-INDUCED BUZZ
which is actually louder than the very softest musical signals...and he CANNOT hear it!
Luckily, I had ALL of those selections on vinyl, and now have the complete Mercury commercial CD issues of what
Living Presence mono and stereos they have deigned to issue. But, ONE OR TWO items on that blog are not reissued in official Wilma Cozart Fine restorations from the session master tapes...drat!
And that blog had at least ONE of them that I desired: the complete Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty by Dorati and
the Minneapolis Symphony. I don't consider this the ne plus ultra, or *ideal* performance, but it was surely
the very *first* uncut one. Mercury issued it several ways: in a deluxe 3-LP box; in some individual disk
excerpts of the acts; and in a compilation suite. All of them stemmed from the same mono-only masters, done
April 10-11, 1955: *just* before the company switched to stereo mastering: the following November. Drat again!
But the recording is typical of the Living Presence mono sound that we collectors have adjusted to and come to
know and love. (Some of us are still a bit, um, resistant, preferring the more 'tasteful' approach of Decca,
which does not place the mikes as close as Mercury's recording engineer, C. Robert Fine.)
Dorati is also something of an 'acquired taste'. He can be BRUSQUE. He can seem BRUTAL. He DRIVES the
orchestra, sometimes nearly to frenzy. (Does Toscanini come to mind here?) Certainly this is not a "Monday matinee Sleeping Beauty"; everybody scraps, blows, and bangs *as if their very LIVES depended on it!* (Over the years, I've personally tended to prefer Ansermet, whose poetic recording is, unfortunately, considerably cut, compared to Dorati's.)
As a youngster, I owned only the Dorati single-disk suite version (on Mercury Wing; which I believe I've
offered in the remarks here on this blog--but don't care to go looking for it. I used the "electronic stereo"
version of the 1960s and, really, it sounds pretty nice. The original true-mono is much more "in your face".
{End of Part 1 - 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 3 Parts}
Sadly, the big Mercury LP blog did its usual incompetent job, and uploaded a BUZZY version of the long work.
BAH! But I'd already, long before, developed a special "transform" for my audio editing program, CoolEdit 2000, that *removed* the buzz: which consists of about three dozen very narrow pulse-signals, just a few Hz wide. It's pretty much impossible to do an A-B and feel as if you can tell what audio damage this filter does; but I've run recordings with NO such buzz thru it...and, while--yes--there is a VERY slight change of coloration, at times, it seems surprisingly innocuous.
So, here's the final result of TWO DAYS of work on my part (the original file uploader trickled the data into my PC at about 20 kbs!; then the editing and noise reduction took me about 8 hours, altogether!! This was done in the days when I had a PC with a 600 Mhz CPU and 250K of RAM.)
See the included files "BUZZ signature.gif" and "NR filter.gif" to see a graphical illustration of the problem I had to try to solve.
I have taken the time to upload this, because I wanted to rip the ancient CDRs that I made years ago, to place them on my network HD. So it was not too much extra trouble to provide the files to this blog. Naturally, I prefer to archive high resolution files in FLAC (lossless) format; but many of
my previous uploads, here, are from mp3s: because they were my *own copies* transferred into 320 kbs mp3, for use on my network delivery music hard drive; I have the FLACs in storage. This time, however, since the
recording is so vivid, I shall upload the FLACs of Sleeping Beauty (which means they will be another 30% larger than the mp3s I might have made. But I don't wish to annoy fellow audiophiles, who might feel slighted.
(Truly, in a 1955 mono recording, there is only, subjectively, about a 2% difference of a FLAC vs. a 320 kbs mp3.)
At the time I DL'ed this, I did not have access to full track info, the original labels, or the jacket text; so I did my best, using a modern CD of the complete work, to try to cut the files into major demarcations of acts (and some subdivisions) as uploaded by the blogger. If a reader intends to burn this on conventional CDs, tracks 1-3 will fit one; 4-6 will fit two; and 7, 8 will be used for a third disk (with a lot of room left over. I have provided two extra files of Rimsky-Korsakov for that purpose; more, below.)
The FLACs are all single-channel mono; most modern burning programs will accomodate that and convert them on the fly to two mono
channels for the CD convention. If not, there are many conversion programs on the net that will change them to two-channel FLAC or WAV files.
{End of Part 2 of 3 Parts}
{Part 3 of 3 - plus DL links}
The original blogger -- who never gave a name -- said vaguely that he used high-end tube equipment. Or course, the records were mono; 16/44 FLACs were uploaded; not only did they have buzz, but also considerable rumble and
surface clicks.
I DL'ed these and converted the FLACs to WAVs for editing in CoolEdit 2000, occasionally applying digital click-suppression *lightly* as the heavy upper mid/high frequency signals on Living Presence records do tend to 'confuse' declicking software. So there will not always be PERFECTLY silent surfaces. Only a very slight amount of LF denoising, to kill a small amount of hum/rumble, was done--not enough to audibly change the *musical* signal.
These were then saved onto three CDRs from the lossless WAVs--years ago. I made multiple copies, on different brand blanks, for safety. Today I took the best (most expensive) of these disks and ripped them to lossless WAVs; I then converted the 'stereo WAVs' (which had identical monophonic data on both L and R) to *mono* single channel WAVs. These were then directly converted to 16/44 mono single channel FLACs.
At the same time, I prepared some screen captures showing the hum/buzz signature from the lead-in groove to the third act, as well as the effect of my multi-channel narrow filter to get at each of the small narrow noise
pulses. You will note from the second screen cap that I did not notch out the faint pulses above 17 kHz; I just cut off the audio at 16 kHz when I made the original CDRs. VERY little signal exists there, other than harmonic distortion products from the tracing defects of the original records.
Other than using the special filter to take out the buzz, I did not re-equalize the very "hot" Mercury sound; it seemed to me about par for the course, recalling my collection of nearly all the original Olympian classical records: which is to say that today's gear and speakers might make them sound objectionably harsh! I prefer to turn the treble down on some of these old records--but I cannot predict how YOU, Dear Reader, will want them to sound!
I encourage readers to DISCARD THESE IMPERFECT FILES, if Mercury decides at long last to produce a "purist" original session-master CD restoration! Consider these transfer "improvements" of mine to be ONLY STOP-GAP
TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS.
I might add that there IS one CD transfer of this item; it is actually a rip of the LP set, cleaned up a bit, and issued as part of an historic line of old records; we still do not have an OFFICIAL one from Mercury, remastered from the session tapes! In all honest disclosure, *I haven't heard it* so there certainly is a scientific possibility that it might sound better than the composite work I've supplied.
The two extra tracks are from a London/Decca LP (recorded originally in 1952) of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnole, and Le Coq d'Or suite, by Ernest Ansermet and L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. I had to work with a blogger's upload, which was flawed by having a c.20 Hz rumble (a belt-drive turntable?), plus scratches and ticks in the disk surface (which were removed before I re-digitized the mono FLACs.)
{437 MB, mono FLACs, plus track info & covers; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY: ZS will likely delete this after 11/22/18.}
https://www117.zippyshare.com/d/01HercJy/51035/PIT-SB-AD%2cMSO.zip
--or--
https://www117.zippyshare.com/v/01HercJy/file.html
8H Haggis
I couldn't resist adding one more Mercury LP, an extreme rarity that I've never even seen before: recordings made at Free Trade Hall, Manchester (UK) on Oct. 20, 1956 by C. R. Fine & Wilma Cozart of pianist Richard Farrell, with the Hallé Orchestra, George Weldon conducting, of Grieg's Piano Concerto and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 in Bb. Mercury SR90126, issued in mono in 1957; here is a really good sounding transfer of the stereo LP (in MINT condition), by a musician friend of mine on the east coast.
266 MB, FLACs, scan of covers, with Discogs info; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY: may be deleted by ZS on or about 11/23/18.
https://www69.zippyshare.com/d/uk4Eqgeo/13913/Grieg%2c%20Liszt%20SR90126.zip
--or--
https://www69.zippyshare.com/v/uk4Eqgeo/file.html
8H Haggis
The same friend of mine who provided the fine-sounding transfer of the rare Mercury stereo LP of Grieg and Liszt, my previous post, has also transferred two very old monophonic Bach Guild LPs: "The Virtuoso Harpsichord", volumes 1 and 2, by Anton Heiler, dating from the late fifties, and long out of print (some may have seen a CD reissue but this, too, is deleted.)
The sound is, unfortunately, rather too much "in your face" and is VERY clinical, with the microphone way too close to the instrument (by my taste, having done several digital recordings of my wife's 8-foot Wilson harpsichord.) Otherwise, the Heiler records are very engaging.
Vol. 1 - all Jean-Philippe Rameau "hits" (such as Le Rappel des oiseaux, Tambourin, etc.)
Vol. 2 - Francois Couperin le Grand: Les Petits Moulins À Vent; Le Carillon De Cithére; Les Baricades Mistérieuses; Le Tic-Toc-Choc; etc.
{434 MB, mono FLACs, plus large scale scans of covers and backs; Discogs track info. LIMITED AVAILABILITY: ZS *may* delete this folder on or about 11/23/18.}
https://www50.zippyshare.com/d/UUoBGpbI/2247/VirtuosoHschd-Vol%201%2c%202.zip
--or--
https://www50.zippyshare.com/v/UUoBGpbI/file.html
8H Haggis
Buster,
Thanks to 8H Haggis for the links to so many wonderful uploads. One of these uploads is a mono Columbia LP (ML-5984) of music by various composers played by the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet (PWQ). In his comments for this upload, 8H asks if anyone has a clean STEREO copy of this LP (MS-6584). I do NOT have a copy of this stereo LP, but Boston Records (www.bostonrecords.com) has issued four CDs containing most (but not all) of the PWQ’s Columbia recordings in transfers from Columbia Records’ tapes made for them by Sony Records. The couplings on the Boston CDs do not match up with the LPs, but there are three Boston CDs that together contain all but two of the tracks from ML-5984. The missing tracks are (1) Schubert: Rosamund - Hirtenlied, and (2) the Stravinsky: Pastorale for voice and four winds with Judith Blegen. These two tracks are each less than two minutes long. The LP contains two Stravinsky Pastorales, one for voice and one for violin, on a single track. The Boston CDs only contain the Pastorale for violin and four winds and omit the Pastorale for voice and four winds.
As a side note, Richard Kaplan recently published a complete discography of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which contains an appendix of all the recordings made by the PWQ. The PWQ recordings span the end of the mono era and the beginning of the stereo era. The selection on ML-5984 by Paul de Wailly was recorded on May 17, 1954 only in mono, but was included on both ML-5984 and MS-6584 with no mention on MS-6584 that it was in mono.
Thanks; I really should delete the mono upload but Zippyshare will do that for me--in a few weeks. I appreciate your information!
8H Haggis
Here is another album that I cleaned up from the infamous "Buzzy Blog" [TM] that defaced the Mercury Living Presence records with a horrendous noise. It is the excellent 1958 album featuring Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and the London Symphony Orchestra in Mozart's Symphonies Nos. 39 and 41 (Mercury SR 90184); with a bonus track. I believe that when Mercury made up their Living Presence CD reissues, the *missed* (or couldn't find disk space) for Antal Dorati's recording, with the "Festival Chamber Orchestra" (Bath? LSO? Pickup group?) of the Mozart Lucio Silla Overture, K.135, from SR90438. A friend of mine had the MONO issue of Dorati's album "Mozartiana" (partially issued on Mercury CD) and transferred it for me; I'm still looking for the stereo one. Critical listeners may note that I have done a bit of spatial enhancement to this overture bonus track, but it's not true stereo. The two Mozart symphonies ARE, however, indeed in full Living Presence stereo.
https://www67.zippyshare.com/d/iAS8bJfy/40176/Mozart%20Sym%2039%2c%2041%20-%20Hans%20Schmidt-Isserstedt%20%5bMercury%20SR90184%5d.zip
--or--
https://www67.zippyshare.com/v/iAS8bJfy/file.html
{45 MB, mp3s, cover image, track info: LIMITED TIME FILE, which will probably be deleted by 11/24/18.}
8H Haggis
Byrd - My thanks as well!
Buster, et al. --
I was planning on resting for about a month (when all the ZS files were finally deleted) before contributing more items; but today my wife was busy and did not need my assistance with anything: so time for ONE MORE offering.
I shall be VERY vague about this one. The records are PD, of course, and are just about 60 years old, and the *originators* have NOT reissued them. And, the files were online for at least a half-dozen years on the infamous "buzzy blog" that had LP rips done by defective equipment; this is the complex buzz signal that I developed a filter to correct and eliminate the nasty whine, while doing almost nothing to the audible music.
Are you, like me, a "completist" with respect to certain labels? No matter what classical music TYPE that the label has issued? (I am, to a limited extent: to wit, if post-Second Viennese School serialism is concerned, count me out. Otherwise, I'm up for anything: renaissance, baroque to modernism, choral, lieder, and...OPERA.)
Here is a "Mercury Surprise"; I shall not be more explicit. Mercury/Philips have NOT reissued these vinyl releases, and the LP rips, herein, are characteristic of stereo pressings from that label dating this far back: i. e., there is a bit of EOS-distortion; lots of tape hiss; some occasional "chiff" from time to time. BUT...NO BUZZ-INDUCED NOISE caused by the original blogger! THAT has been fixed, by me. The music is also PD; to the best of my knowledge; in virtually all principalities, disks this old would also qualify for such status.
{453 MB, mp3s, cover images and Discogs info; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, as ZS states that the files will be active ONLY up to 11/25/18.}
https://www93.zippyshare.com/d/7Qu3Dg87/11326/MercurySurprise.zip
--or--
https://www93.zippyshare.com/v/7Qu3Dg87/file.html
8H Haggis
Buster, may I beg you for an upload of Paul Weston's ravishing 1955 album, "Reflections of an Indian Boy," composed by Carl Fischer (whose most famous melody is "We'll Be Together Again"). It really is glorious--so much so that Fred Katz, the cellist with Chico Hamilton's quintet at the time, recorded the fourth song of the suite, "Loma," for his album "Zen," which was released as a 45. Indeed, I think Weston also released "Loma" as a single. I know you admire Weston and I think you'll find this album is one of his finest. Thanks.
Hi David - I think I have that one. I'll see if I can locate it.
You know, I don't think I am a completist for labels. For the Mercury label, I generally stick to American music. I often find the sound to be harsh and dry, and I am not terribly fond of some of the Mercury artists (e.g., Dorati and Paray). That said, I am certainly intrigued by this one!
My *surprise* upload is the antithesis of what you don't care for; it consists of European recordings (it is not entirely clear to me if C. R. Fine personally did them, though he was touring Europe with the Mercury recording van during that time period); the sound is anything else but harsh & dry; and it is NOT by the domestic Mercury conductors who did tend to favor zippy Toscanini-like tempi, and clipped, unrhetorical interpretations.
Incidentally, I did some further experimentation with Zippyshare on various browsers. MODERN ones with the latest javascript and with no ad-blockers are open to all sorts of abusive behavior, opening a series of unwanted pages. I was unaware of that, as for the past decade (approximately) I've been using, for DL'ing, an antique Firefox version (3.6 something) with several addons to block undesired things. I had it set up with just enough functionality to make functional the primary embedded links, using standard HTML 3.0 coding; nothing fancy or nefarious would be spawned (no extra pages would open; no exe files would download; no videos or ads would open up.) Now that I know that ZS has gone to the dark side, I'm possibly NOT going to continue to offer these things; I do NOT want to register as a user of any of these services.
8HH
So many rare, interesting and excellent recordings.
THANKS a million !!
"Missing Mercury Monos" - Antal Dorati's early LP recording of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker.
This uncut performance of the complete ballet (recorded in mid-December, 1953) was issued on 2 LPs in a deluxe boxed set featuring a fancy tassle on the edge, and a fabric binding. The performance is as kinetic as Dorati's 1955 Sleeping Beauty, and is very powerfully and brilliantly recorded; but when Philips produced their official "Living Presence" CD collection, employing Wilma Cozart Fine, of the original Chicago Mercury staff, to transfer the original session tapes on restored Mercury tape machines and electronic mixing equipment, only the later *stereo* version by Dorati was included: perhaps an even more hair-raising performance that is positively electrifying. The old one, however, still has its period charm, though (as usual for early mono Living Presence) the brass balance is sometimes a bit "over the top". Though one or two LP reissues of the 1953 complete ballet (and various suites) were produced, Mercury has never offered a ditigal version; so the recording has been out of print for about half a century.
I obtained this amateur LP transfer in very noisy, rumbly sound from a Russian blog; but luckily a small amount of declicking and denoising created a very listenable result. The Discogs website supplied the original selection listing, and I've divided the tracks into the major sections: overture, act 1's two tableaux, and act 2. (180 MB, FLACs, zipped.)
Note: Zippyshare promises only 30 day availability of this folder, uploaded on 10/30/18; after that, it may be deleted if there are not regular downloads.
https://www90.zippyshare.com/d/ogLBxM0T/35222/PITNutcrMSOAD.zip
--or--
https://www90.zippyshare.com/v/ogLBxM0T/file.html
8H Haggis
{Part 1 of 2 Parts}
Here are the fruits of the last weekend of editing of some old records found on the web, in amateur transfers. I only provide 2 Lps as the challenges were sufficient to require about one day each at my digital editor, per item.
1. Cherubini's Symphony in D; Carl Maria von Weber's Sym No. 2 in C - Vienna Symphony under Carlo Zecchi and Willem van Otterloo, respectively (issued c.1956-7 by American Epic label, in mono.) I found this rare but pleasing item on YT, the "world's greatest copyright infringer" according to near-universal account, shocking those of us who would NEVER deign to offer brand new, modern, in print performances, or video rips from current TV.
However, this item is so elderly as to pass unnoticed by the copyright algorithm. Zecchi gives a very gentle treatment of this charming Beethoven-era piece; here it seems to have much in common with Haydn, compared to Toscanini's more familiar 1952 account. Both conductors could surely be described as being familiar with the genre and idiom: so their versions represent the very polar extremes of practical possibilites.
Van Otterloo is much more aggressive--in a much more dramatically rumbustious work; but one of such small scale as to be almost a kind of musical jest!
The original uploader is a Dutch gentleman who, on his own blog, stated that he was doing some work for the European Archive; and I'm sorry to say this was typical of his previous offerings, having SEVERE rumble and hum. I hope I've made a significant improvement.
[End of Pt. 1 by 8HH}
{Part 2 of 2; plus links}
2. Debussy's Martyrdom of St. Sebastien, in the renowned early 1950s Allegro "Elite" Lp issue by (of all people) the San Antonio Symphony under Victor Alessandro, is a legendary record: probably the very first one of the complete score. The original blogger asserts that RCA did the recording in 1951 for the 1953 issuance by the small label, Allegro. Frances Yeend is one of the soloists, and she's in great voice here. I was prepared for a fine performance by my attendance of a San Antonio Symphony concert, under Alessandro, in the 1960s; every aspect of this rendering is as luminuous and beautiful as the finest modern recordings--though the artifact was GROSSLY flawed. It took me a full day to correct the ticks and pops; thumps and thuds; needle stick and needle skip; and -- worse -- the disk damage throughout the first half of s. 1 (due to liquid?) that caused a repetitive "scuff" sound. Finally, the exceptionally dry and dead acoustic in the original mono recording was anything but helpful to Debussy; so I've had the effrontery to apply my patented "Haggisizing Method" to recreate a more spatially ingratiating ambience.
A full accounting of my restorative work, plus the enthusiastic analysis of the original blogger who provided this back in 2011, are provided in a text file in the folder.
Both zipped folders feature FLACs, with original cover images; and MAY be deleted by Zippyshare about 30 days after initial upload on 11/2/18, if no further requests are presented on a regular basis.
{182 MB, Cherubini/Weber}
https://www104.zippyshare.com/d/a4VrXFJq/27640/LCherZecchi-CMWeberOtterloo.zip
-or-
https://www104.zippyshare.com/v/a4VrXFJq/file.html
{202 MB, Debussy}
https://www104.zippyshare.com/d/iJpdsZyp/45885/CDebMartyrdom-VA%2cSanAnt-1951.zip
-or-
https://www104.zippyshare.com/v/iJpdsZyp/file.html
Yours, 8H Haggis
A small correction to info of the Cherubini, Weber album: I mis-identified Van Otterloo's performance of the Weber as being by the VSO; you should rename the file with, instead, Hague PO. Apologies. None of the other aspects are affected.
8HH
Thanks so much for the Debussy in particular. I think I have this performance (I collect all Martyre performances I come across), but I am sure your work will be an improvement.
I will notify readers on the main page about your recent exploits as soon as I get some time.
{Part 1 of 2 Parts - An 8H Haggis Offering...}
By request: Werner Janssen, and Janssen Symphony of Los Angeles --
A reader of this blog made a request for recordings by the above artists; I cannot find the post on Big 10 Inch now, and Google and other search engines are blocked from searching its contents. I suppose the OP will never see this, but surely anyone loving American music and excellent historic performances will appreciate the following.
Here are two records by Janssen that are amongst my favorites of his small, select discography. First, Samuel Barber's School for Scandal Overture (its premiere recording) from Nov. 3, 1942, on an RCA Victor 78. Bill Anderson of Chicago, an acquaintance of mine, made the disk transfer and posted its link to RMCR more than a half dozen years ago. I felt that the sound was slightly "boxy" and hollow, and did some further processing; now (in my opinion) it is actually sonically superior to the Howard Hanson record made c.1952--and is an even BETTER performance!
The second issue is a Columbia Masterworks LP release, recorded in the period of 1951-53, and features two (then rare) works by Virgil Thomson: his lyrical Cello Concerto, played by Luigi Silva; see --
https://www.ovationpress.com/c-62.aspx?searchEngineName=silva-luigi#[PageNumber(0)|PageSize(99999)|PageSort(Composer,name)|DisplayType(Grid)]
...plus the orchestral suite from Thomson's opera "The Mother of Us All", premiered in 1947; no doubt this was the first recording of any of its music; see --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_of_Us_All
The transfer here was from the later Columbia Special Products reissue; it was posted as a link on RMCR at least a dozen years ago and thus is NOT a rip-off of the version distributed by Naxos, and transferred by the oboist and record collector L. S.
{End of Pt. 1}
{Part 2 of 2, plus links}
I might add that having once had the privilege to meet and interview Thomson (arranged by my former college prof., his friend and colleague Lou Harrison) the composer would, in my opinion, be only too happy to have his historic records widely distributed to the FEW enthusiasts of his remarkable works. At the time I knew him, Thomson's recordings were very few and far between, the mono LPs then being almost entirely out of print, with very few modern ones available. After his death in 1989 there has been a small resurgence of interest in his works; Naxos has even produced a modern stereo recording of the Cello Concerto, and performances of the complete opera have been released on *two* different CD labels.
I should add that while the Janssen recording of the Cello Concerto has good sound, the earlier masters of the Mother of Us All suite *probably* date from the late 78 rpm era, no doubt having been recorded by Hollywood film-studio audio engineers (at Radio Recorders?) who were used to employing HEAVY audio peak limiting. So the opera suite has severe compression effects, plus very obvious 78-side edits: these have bothered me ever since first getting the LP back around 1965! Unfortunately, I deem these deficiencies virtually unrepairable, without access to the earlier-generation unedited masters.
https://www86.zippyshare.com/d/sz6KI5FW/33407/WernerJanssenSB-VT.zip
-or-
https://www86.zippyshare.com/v/sz6KI5FW/file.html
8H Haggis
Oh, yes: in addition, the zipped folder is 47 MB, consisting of mp3s plus the original Columbia cover and Discogs info.
8HH
Another 8H Haggis Offering...
Here is an item that was actually in the same folder on my hard drive as the Virgil Thomson and Samuel Barber works, conducted by Werner Janssen, in the previous post.
It is the world premiere phonograph recording of Charles Ives' Symphony No. 3, with the Baltimore Little Symphony Orchestra conducted by Reginald Stewart; see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Stewart_(conductor)
...taken from a long deleted mono-only Vanguard LP (VRS-468) that also contained on s. 2 the Richard Donovan Suite for Oboe and Orchestra. I had this record in my library for at least three decades, and while I enjoyed the performance of the Ives *many* times, I think I heard the Donovan only *once* (and apparently did not particularly care for it.) I no longer have it but many years ago found a transfer of just the Ives tracks in a post on the newsgroup RMCR. The sound is pretty decent though the turntable has been bumped a couple of times; all I've done to it is to smooth out the very rough starts and ends of the tracks.
{17 MB, zipped, mp3s; original LP cover image NOWHERE to be found on the net; info about original LP with date, number, contents. LIMITED TIME upload; ZS *may* delete this file about 30 days after original upload on 11/3/18.}
https://www101.zippyshare.com/d/tFFVndxy/2700/Ives3RSBLSO468.zip
-or-
https://www101.zippyshare.com/v/tFFVndxy/file.html
8H Haggis
Hi 8H,
I am a Virgil Thomson enthusiast and have that Cello Concerto/Mother of Us All LP in a six-eye pressing. I've had it on the list to transfer for a long time.
Also, the Baltimore Little Symphony Ives LP actually has appeared on this blog, along with the first recording of the third symphony, led by Richard Bales:
https://mega.co.nz/#!SZkR2YRL!nfB9pBL6otdNmK4oV5F6qmNXrXsS6BvntCl1gp7wZpQ
{Part 1 of 2}
Another 8H Haggis Offering...the OTHER Jansons, Arvid:
Today's music world is familiar with a very distinguished conductor named MARISS Jansons, who was born in Latvia in 1943, and who studied as a violinist but became so skilled as a conductor that none other than Herbert von Karajan wanted him to be his assistant in Berlin (but the Soviet authorities prevented it.) After the fall of the USSR, Mariss has had a remarkable European and American career as the music director of many of the world's greatest orchestras, and conductor of numerous acclaimed records of opera and symphonic repertoire. But...
The "nobody" 8H Haggis disagrees with the world's musical authorities and critics about the alleged "genius" of Mariss, finding the majority of his recordings rather stale, perfunctory, and mundane: over-edited to sterile digital perfection but lacking in personality and passion. Haggis, true to his role as a gadfly, prefers his FATHER, *Arvid* Jansons (1914-1984), the very learned conductor of the Riga Opera, Latvian Radio Orchestra, Leningrad Philharmonic, and Halle Orchestra. He taught his son Mariss very well--but to hear the SOURCE, go to the father.
Unfortunately, his records have largely disappeared into the ether, with but one or two odd items available in mediocre, obsolete sound (though a few items were recorded in stereo, with rather primitive results thanks to the backward Soviet technology of the sixties and seventies.)
Russian blogs have quite a few of his live performances of obscure, "safe" official Soviet modernists (music which one can barely manage to sit through one time); the Melodiya company did manage to record a few live performances and studio sessions in stereo--though often the amateur LP transfers on Russian blogs are so substandard that we felt virtually NOTHING could be done to improve them substantially; please put aside all strivings for perfection, and concentrate on the expression and conviction!
{End of Pt 1 of 2}
{Part 2 of 2, with links}
Here are a few Arvid Jansons performances (live and session productions) we've harvested:
Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique; Leningrad, live (a Westminster Gold issue);
Tchaikovsy - Suite No. 1; Leningrad PO (the virtually DEFINITIVE recording of all time!);
Liszt - Tasso; Leningrad (in a field of many superb performances, this holds its own);
Danil Shafran, cellist: in the Schumann concerto (live, Russian TV) and Boccherini-Gruetzmacher Cello Concerto in Bb (Melodiya) (words fail me!);
Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with Ruben Aragonyan (playing for their very lives!)
{264 MB, zipped folder of mp3s, with several original covers and what track info could be obtained; LIMITED TIME AVAILABILITY, as ZS service may delete it some time after a 30 day period after upload on 11/3/18}
https://www101.zippyshare.com/d/BJxtknRX/9145/The%20OTHER%20Jansons%2c%20Arvid.zip
-or-
https://www101.zippyshare.com/v/BJxtknRX/file.html
8H Haggis
{Part 1 of 4}
Another 8H Haggis Compilation: Finest Sounding Records of Carl August Bünte
The German conductor C. A. Bünte (1925-2018) had a career that was contemporary with the more celebrated Herbert von Karajan, and during the major part of his career also worked in Berlin (with second- and third-rate orchestras, though audience and critical response suggest that he, too, would have been a worthy director of the Berlin Philharmonic.)
A translated biography from the German wikipedia page for the conductor is found in English here:
https://www.abruckner.com/editorsnote/news/carl-august-buente-1925-2018/
Like Von Karajan, Bünte's performances of Anton Bruckner's music were critically acclaimed (though, unfortunately, existing recordings are sub-standard, or grossly flawed.) Unlike Von Karajan, Bünte explored a wider repertoire, including American composers (Barber, Gershwin, Harris) and gave successful and idiomatic performances. And also unlike Von Karajan, Bünte was seldom heard in opera.
The Russian and Euro blogs are replete with dozens of *extremely poor* recordings (probably airchecks) of powerful, communicative Bünte performances. I have obtained dozens of them, salvaging only a small fraction that were competently preserved (without excessive tape hiss and overloads, or sound that could be either extremely dim and indistinct, or wincingly shrill and offensive--beyond fixing!)
I have prepared three folders of Bünte performances that are both artistically first-rate AND in decent, tolerable fidelity--and sometimes even in good stereo.
From a repertoire point of view, American collectors will surely be most fascinated by the powerful, insightful readings of symphonies of Samuel Barber and Roy Harris! These live 1952 performances were recorded in the "American Sector" of occupied Berlin; at the same time, Sergiu Celibidache was the principle conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and was also playing American and western European composers over the "Radio In The American Sector" (RIAS) Broadcasting Services--a situation that would have been *inconceivable* just a few years previously, when Furtwaengler conducted the orchestra during the Nazi Reich.
{End of Part 1}
{Part 2 of 4}
If the files are in mp3 mode, this means I have not edited them (other than normalizing the peak levels); if they are in FLAC, that signifies that I've done extensive editing and -- I hope -- have made improvements. Most of the performances are by the Berlin Symphony; a few others were done in Japan.
Bünte Folder No. 1: [* indicates stereo]
Barber Symphony No. 1 (1952)
Beethoven, Schubert German Dances (1966*)
Beethoven Consecration of the House Overture
Beethoven Early Piano Concerto in E-flat (with Martin Galling, p.) (live, 1965)
Beethoven Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" (live, 1959*)
Brahms Serenade No. 1 (1960*)
Bünte Folder No. 2: [* indicates stereo]
Busoni Konzertstueck (Glazer, p.); Rondo Arlecchinesco (Moser, t.) (1960s*)
Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue (Sondra Bionca, p.) (1957)
Glinka Ruslan und Ludmilla - Overture (1965*)
Roy Harris Symphony No. 3 (1952)
Mozart Cosi fan Tutte Overture
Rachmaninoff Piano Cto 2 (Miyamoto, p.)*
Smetana Triumphal Symphony
Bünte Folder No. 3: [* indicates stereo]
Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 (1983*)
Strauss Ein Heldenleben
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2 (*)
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 (1962)
There are MANY others I've omitted...some are so technically flawed that -- though being of historic bent, and tolerant of old technology -- I just cannot BEAR to suffer through them. When, for instance, every note of music above mp is hideously distored and clipped, with all being completely inundated in hiss, I'll turn to something else (despite the excellence of the reading.)
{End of Part 2 of 4}
{Part 3 of 4 - link #1}
C. A. Buente Folder 1 {484 MB}
https://www104.zippyshare.com/d/jTFBRi8k/44514/CABuente1.zip
--or--
https://www104.zippyshare.com/v/jTFBRi8k/file.html
File MAY be deleted by Zippyshare after 12/3/18, if there are no further regular download requests.
More links follow.
8H Haggis
{Part 4 of 4 - links #2, 3}
C. A. Buente Folder 2 {373 MB}
https://www99.zippyshare.com/d/XO1zBJ9g/24375/CABuente2.zip
--or--
https://www99.zippyshare.com/v/XO1zBJ9g/file.html
=======================================
C. A. Buente Folder 3 {470 MB}
https://www99.zippyshare.com/d/OAawG1Pe/49671/CABuente3.zip
--or--
https://www99.zippyshare.com/v/OAawG1Pe/file.html
File MAY be deleted by Zippyshare after 12/3/18, if there are no further regular download requests.
8H Haggis
Buster, I missed that! YOUR transfer sounds better, with much more extended top end. Please feel free to delete this entire discussion as nobody need bother with the one I found on the net, years ago!
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Now I can give the proper attention to the Donovan again.
8H Haggis
{Part 1 of 3}
An 8H Haggis Compilation: Favorite Performances of Artur Rodzinski, 1938-1942
The late-career records by Rodzinski (a particularly strange, self-defeating, and paranoid individual, as recounted in numerous biographies) are now in-print in official modern CD restorations from EMI and Westminster/DGG, and need not be touched upon here (except to recommend all of them enthusiastically!) However, here are some earlier ones that followed the period when Rodzinski left the Philadelphia Orchestra (as Stokowski's assistant conductor) and -- with an established reputation as a solid, professional orchestra trainer -- struck out in an independent career. He seldom lasted with any organization, being by nature a "disturber" who faught what he considered to be corrupt, Philistine interests. As a "literalist" (the opposite, artistically, of Stokowski) he tended to present unexaggerated interpretations, a style that was then in the ascendant, thanks to Toscanini's wide influence. As such, Rodzinski was hired by NBC to assemble and train their new orchestra for the Italian maestro, and one of his early broadcasts is included here.
First, a live excerpt from the NBC Symphony broadcast of the end of December, 1938, of the complete Scriabin Symphony No. 3, "The Divine Poem". Having heard virtually every subsequent recording, I still hold this one as equal -- or better -- than the very best of later efforts. Sonically, however, it suffers from the close miking in a dry hall; but is heard in "my" version not as it was presented on a long deleted issue, re-engineered by a person working outside of the USA whom I've considered for decades to be one of the WORST of such operatives. I once read an interview with him, admitting that the equipment he used was -- 20 years ago -- even then a generation out of date; and he seems to have attempted to make nearly EVERY such 'restoration' (I shudder at the term) seem to sound alike: as though they emanated from a lousy antique console phono of the 1940s: with indistinct, muddy, boosted mid-bass and very colored treble. I was so dismayed by this that I had to work in analogue mode with a very flexible full parametric equalizer, to "un-tune" the horrid sounding resonant peaks and "ringing" that he introduced, TRYING futilely to 'create' his preferred sound. I think I succeeded; but one can appreciate this ONLY in comparison to the AWFUL original.
(End of Part 1}
{Part 2 of 3}
Second, the newest AR recorded example, from 1952. Rodzinski was in a slump, having lost his jobs in New York and Chicago. Trying to resurrect his faultering career in Europe, he was engaged by the very mediocre "cheaptone" company Remington (which did not even use the proper vinyl plastic for their LPs, but rather a horrendous, scratchy compound that was closer to the obsolete shellac of 78s!) Artur recorded some Beethoven (Sym. 1 and Leonore Ov. 3) with a Viennese pickup group, and had intended to make four more albums; but a dispute with the American musicians' union (of which he was still a member) resulted in the company not being able to release it UNDER HIS REAL NAME! Thus, it came out as being by "Conductor X" which, at the time, engendered great objection and ridicule; when the truth of AR's involvement came out, it certainly did him no favors! The performances are characteristically serious and intense; but the sound is gritty and sub-standard for 1952. (Note: this was posted as an amateur transfer/PD upload on RMCR about eight years ago, before any subsequent commercial issue had been released.)
Third: perhaps my favorites of AR's career as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. The Columbia company had attempted to compete vigorously against the industry leader, RCA Victor, in part by trying out vastly innovative, modern techniques (and in selecting music that Victor would NEVER have attempted, such as Schoenberg!) In 1939, when this record was begun, Columbia started using 33.3 rpm lacquer high fidelity transcription recorders, with high frequency response up to 10,000 cycles per second. These very quiet masters were then dubbed to 78 rpm wax disks and processed as conventional 78s. But when they were eventually released on early Columbia LPs, the original high quality lacquer masters were transferred, sounding a DECADE beter than their actual recording dates, compared to Victors.
Here is one of my favorite performances of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben (1939 and 1940), plus the excerpt "Salome's Dance" from the opera Salome (1942); in addition, the pioneering 78rpm records of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 (my own introduction to the work, way back around 1960 from the shellacs.) These transfers were uploaded on the net many years ago as anonymous PD files; I don't think they are around any more. The sound has been filtered a bit more than I think necessary, but I can still enjoy them.
{End of Part 2}
{Part 3 of 3, & links}
Next, RCA Victor's attempt at "high fidelity" from 1947. Back in 1935 they had actually begun to use that phrase in their advertising, their 1935 version of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Koussevitzky being accepted as a breakthrough in quality. Their postwar "remake" from 1947 featured the Chicago Symphony under Rodzinski (another one of his very short employments) and a performance that even betters the older Russian conductor. I had these 78s in my library, and can assert that this transfer DOES resemble what they sounded like--a bit harsh and over-bright (treble cut may help) but quite reasonably clear and clean for the period.
If you are not familiar with this great conductor, let me suggest that next you investigate commercially available transfers of Rodzinsky's superlative EMI early stereo records of Strauss's Death & Transfiguration, Salome's Dance, and Dance Suite after Couperin; and the Westminster-DGG reissues of the Royal Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky's Symphonies 4-6. Numerous other standard-rep pieces were also recorded for Westminster in true modern hi fi (albeit mono) up to 1956; there is an exciting Nutcracker in early stereo; and the Big 10 Inch blog has posted his excellent Viennese performances of Franck. Opera fans my be interested in a number of live performances that have appeared on minor labels (though the sound quality is often inferior even to THESE old chestnuts in my present post.)
I have ALWAYS longed to hear the very FIRST actual NBC Symphony broadcast concert program, from 1937, done even before Toscanini began conducting the orchestra, with Rodzinski leading the Schoenberg transcription of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1--can you imagine?! I've never turned it up; does a recording even EXIST?
{125 MB, zipped mp3s, plus covers and other images, and some discographical info; FOLDER HAS LIMITED AVAILABILITY, as Zippyshare MAY deleted it after 12/4/18, unless there are regular continuing requests for DL. This file will NOT be re-uploaded; sorry.}
https://www31.zippyshare.com/d/XhLpTcHR/18376/Favorites%20of%20Artur%20Rodzinski-1938%20to%201952.zip
--or--
https://www31.zippyshare.com/v/XhLpTcHR/file.html
8H Haggis
Missing Mercurys - Szigeti performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto, with Dorati (stereo)
The official Philips/Mercury series of Living Presence CD reissues has NOT put out the Mercury recordings by Joseph Szigeti, a once-great artist who was a prolific recordist from the 1920s nearly to the end of his career; but by the mid-fifties, technical deficiencies appeared in his playing that troubled even the most dedicated of his followers and fans. Intonation slips; split or missed notes; and clumsy execution marred this most formidably intellectual of players (whose recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto had often been considered the "most spiritual of all".)
According to Tom Deacon, who worked at Philips and was involved in the production of the Living Presence CD series, Wilma Cozart Fine was upset that Japanese Mercury HAD issued the Mercury stereo records of Szigeti, to her "extreme annoyance"; but she resolved NOT to put them out in restorations from the session master tapes.
I recall that the most frequently encountered issues were the Stravinsky, Beethoven, and Brahms concerti. Personally, though I *adored* Szigeti's 1932 and 1947 records of the Beethoven, his 1960s remake with Antal Dorati was UNLISTENABLE: 'how the great have fallen', I mused, after hearing it over FM radio when it was new.
Then I was even more shocked by the Brahms Concerto, in a Mercury Living Presence sampler I bought around 1961.
I had not heard it since then; but on the newsgroup Rec.Music.Classical.Recordings, a fellow collector enthusiast with the moniker GP49 (real name: Gene Poon, if I recall correctly) posted a good tranfer in lossless FLACs. I was about to upload here a link to my own copy of these, obtained back in 2010; but I discovered that the Mediafire links are STILL operative!
Here they are --
http://tinyurl.com/24kjact
A copy of the cover is included, but it's rather degraded by JPEG compression; I've cleaned it up a bit --
https://www31.zippyshare.com/v/x8CMH6kx/file.html
The original discussion thread has been preserved by Google Groups, here --
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.music.classical.recordings/6BB8Qd8vqPA
Incidentally, years ago I had an argument with a VERY pedantic classical music announcer acquaintance of mine in California. He INSISTED, with intense derision, that I was mispronouncing the violinist's last name, to rhyme with "spaghetti".
"It is *ZIGuty*, Dear Boy", he sniffed, rather in the manner of Clifton Webb.
He felt that like all Hungarian names (he'd read), it should be pronounced with a heavy accent ONLY on the first syllable; ergo, it must rhyme with "DIGgety"...as in "hot diggety dog".
Not the way I had "vulgarly and ignorantly Anglicized it!"
Well...I'll go with Jack Benny, friend of Joseph Szigeti. In the movie "Hollywood Canteen", Benny introduces his friend Joseph Szigeti...and he pronounced the last name to rhyme with "spaghetti". Now, think what you may of Jack Benny's musicianship; but when he played it straight, eschewing split notes and off-key rendering, he DID perform in private string quartets with none other than Isaac Stern who (I believe) said Benny actually KNEW how to play, though he hadn't the skill to be a fine musician.
So, "szaGETTY". That's my opinion, and I'm stickin' to it.
8H Haggis
{Rodzinski - II: Three Concerto Albums; Part 1 of 2}
In only the past couple of years, a large quantity of Artur Rodzinski's splendid performances recorded for Westminster up through about 1955 (in mono) and later in stereo (in 1957-8) have reappeared after a delay of some decades since they were fitfully on Lp (often in poor transfers.) As I understand it, at least part of this boon to collectors is due to the fine work of an acquaintance and friend of mine: the remarkably skilled discographer and phonographic historian, Mike Gray (formerly of the Library of Congress.) Mike has also contributed his advice to Testament for some notable 'definitive' reissues of rare recordings of Toscanini and Cantelli. As he has FINALLY unearthed the absolute *best* source tapes, I shall not rip-off the wonderful results, but will endeavor to present only the former technical mediocrities that are now deleted: so, in effect, "you get what you pay for".
Here are three albums of piano-and-orchestra concert pieces that, to the best of my knowledge, are not now on CD in such "Mike Gray-quality" source restorations. One I managed to salvage after enormous reconstructive effort; the other two were scrounged by me from Russian blogs.
1. Schumann Concert Works for Piano, Orchestra. Piano Concerto in A-Minor, Op. 54; Concert Piece Op. 92; Concert Piece Op. 132. Joerg Demus, Vienna State Opera Orchestra, Rodzinski - Westminster WL 5310 (released 1954). The enthusiastic amateur collector (initials FF) has uploaded at least 95% of his huge life-long collection of old records (78s, Lp, deleted CD) and tapes to Filefactory, and monthly promotes these with posts to the newsgroup RMCR. I began looking into them at was stunned at the monumentality of his effort; but immediately became utterly *dismayed* by the confusion and gaffes. One thinks of the British record collectors' joke about the company EMI standing for "Every Mistake Imaginable"! So I realized I had to be VERY selective: to look for only items that were unique, utterly unavailable, and therefore probably very obscure. Such an item was this excellent Westminster album, with three wonderful performances: why have they been overlooked? But, as usual, FF has botched it: by providing a TOTALLY WRECKED COPY, uploaded in very low-res format. I mentioned earlier that I have developed a special technique to try to reduce the artifacts of inadequate data sampling and consequent sonic artifacts in heavily compressed mp3s: for, if they're stereo (2 channel) mode, it's often possible to cancel out the 'gargling' & strange IM distorted effects *as they are seldom IDENTICAL in both channels*. That done, I had to cope with just about the most TRASHED SURFACES imaginable. The end result is not even close to ideal; but it may whet your appetite for a TRUE professional restoration of this gem, if one ever appears.
{End of Pt 1 - by 8H Haggis}
{Part 2 of 2, and links}
2. Grieg Piano Concerto. Yuri Boukoff, piano; "Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of London" (very likely the Royal Philharmonic), Rodzinski. Westminster XWN 18231 (released 1957.) More information about pianist Boukoff ('the Rubinstein of Bulgaria') here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Boukoff
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Boukoff-Youri.htm
The overside of this long LP consisted of the two suites from Peer Gynt; these have been faithfully restored on recent Westminster-Universal CDs (and earlier, on Millenium in mild fake stereo.) But I don't believe I've seen this Piano Concerto performance anywere recently. A Russian blog supplied an upload that I managed to nab (carefully skirting their malware and PC-corrupting efforts.)
3. Paul Badura-Skoda Plays Three Concert Pieces; Vienna Symphony & PSOL, Rodzinski & Henry Swoboda. Westminster XWN 18231 (rel. 1957.) This was a compilation and re-issue of two earlier records dating as far back as c.1950. The Scriabin Concerto featured Henry Swoboda conducting the VSO: on my old copy of this same LP, it sounded dreadful: murky, indistinct. It's much better on this release, so one assumes it is from some modern restoration--but I don't believe it's currently in print; the Russian blog supplied it, and they're typically sloppy and evasive with respect to provenance. The other two recordings possibly date from around 1953 or so, and feature Rodzinski and the London orchestra that Westminster used: usually the Royal Philharmonic, name changed to avoid conflict with their currently existing contractual obligations. As usual for AR, his accompaniments are veritable models of competence and artistic integrity.
{244 MB, zipped folder of FLACs and mp3s; covers & track info. LIMITED TIME availability; we can't guarantee that Zippyshare won't delete these after 12/6/18 unless their are regular requests for DL. We won't re-up.}
https://www11.zippyshare.com/d/6kj0Aabw/25591/Rodzinski-II.zip
-or-
https://www11.zippyshare.com/v/6kj0Aabw/file.html
8H Haggis
Hi 8H Haggis.
Many thanks for all these uploads - so kind of you to share all these nuggets of information together with the covers and music files.
http://tinyurl.com/24kjact
This file does not seem to be active anymore.
I cannot get it to work.
The following I have posted elsewhere on Buster's blogspot, but I think that it might be worthwhile posting here as well, as you might not see in the other location:
coppinsuk06 November, 2018 21:07
Many thanks Buster for supplying the updated link - there are so many interesting and expansive messages from 8H Haggis that I feared that I missed the C A Bunte correspondence and links, especially that zippyshare files are time limited.
So many fascinating bits of information about recordings that I often pondered about, never thinking that I would get all this elucidation from 8H Haggis and yourself.
I'm heaven from all your beneficence in relaying this information from 8H Haggis - together with your own insights and links.
There is no-one else (locally) who seems to share my interests in these seminal recordings of the 1950s, 1960s and to some extent into the 1970s (mostly on bargain labels, which is all my budget would allow). Amplified with the recent releases of the excellent transcriptions that David Gideon (ReDiscovery), and to a lesser degree by Curt Timmons (Klassic Haus) have produced (which I have only encountered in recent years). Not really fully checked out Haydn House yet, but looks interesting.
I feel very isolated with my crazy/idiosyncratic interests.
This morning on my local railway station, this morning, I encountered a "fiddle player" who turned out to the leader of the Halle Orchestra - got talking to her, naturally, about my early days in the Liverpool Philharmonic and my association with Simon Rattle - didn't seem to want to engage in communicating. Have found this with many professional musicians, who apparently can communicate in music and with fellow musicians, but cannot engage with the general public - such a shame I want so desperately to talk with them - there is so much to learn from them.
So sorry for this rant.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
So much interesting music that I can download into my music player - to be surprised, at some point when it comes up randomly in the playlist.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
Apologies for the very poor articulation and some spelling errors - do hope that you can understand what I am attempting to say?
Would love to see some comments, a dialogue/thread about the West Coast "scratch bands?" "studio session bands" of the Hollywood Bowl (LAPO??) and Concert Arts orchestras - grew up with many of these recordings on the UK budget label of MFP (Music for Pleasure) and some 2nd hand Capitol labels.
Always fascinated by the names Carmen Dragon and Felix Slatkin.
Also many of my early purchases of Vaughan Williams and Mahler (on Philips Classical Favourites label in the UK) of the Vanguard recordings of the Utah SO (where I understand that you now reside).
Many many thanks.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
Douglas - That link you supplied does seem to work. Is it from here? Doesn't look familiar, but I can't keep up with things around here, and I am supposedly the blogmaster.
Felix Slatkin (Leonard's father) was both active in the studio orchestras and a member of the Hollywood Quartet, which made many records for Capitol. I believe both the Hollywood Bowl and "Concert Arts" orchestras were composed primarily of film studio musicians. Carmen Dragon was another musician who worked in films and on radio, and made light-classical recordings for Capitol.
I have some recordings coming up conducted by Franz Waxman, also from LA and on Capitol.
Thanking you for your reply Buster.
Do not worry about the link - it was somewhere in one 8H Haggis's contributions.
I will look forward to seeing your Waxman uploads on your blogspot.
Yes your blogspot has become a tad manic of recent. Not sure how you cope with it.
Do hope that I have discovered all of your uploads.
Many thanks for all your genoriity in sharing.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
GENEROSITY!!!!!
I actually knew (slightly) Carmen Dragon. I met him in the early 70s when he came to conduct a local chorus. The director of that ensemble was a friend, and made the arrangement for me to meet and interview Carmen. I had been under the impression that he was essentially a "pop musician" but was soon impressed by him as a very well educated, articulate, artistic gentleman of great dignity and suavity: you might even think of him as a veritable *model* of a distinguished artistic figure. He could NOT have been more courteous, cooperative, and enthusiastic to help promote the choral group and other local classical music activities on the SF peninsula. Recently I saw a film he scored, and his background music was very powerful and accomplished (of course, Hollywood movies of that era always used a battery of scribes to pep up scores and make them really impressive, rather like having Rimsky-Korsakov revise your little scribbings! So all film music tends to sound a bit bombastic, flashy--and empty.)
Dragon would probably have been one of the celebrated figures, like Korngold, who would insist on their OWN scoring, or at least intense supervision and collaboration.
That being said, I'm still a bit scornful of a lot of his Hollywood Bowl type Capitol records, Felix Slatkin's being more to my taste.
8H Haggis
Avoiding Malware & Trouble when using Zippyshare and other such file-delivery sites.
There have been some comments and complaints about this since I started contributing links here. As I explained, I use what I described as "white hat hacker" techniques to avoid getting the Windows OS clobbered by these shysters. They monetize their free services by allowing disreputable advertisers to pile on with links, pages, and pictures you DON'T want to see!
I use a very old Firefox (v. 3.6) plus some out of date addons that block certain types of scripting and Active-X garbage. When *I* use Z-share on that browser, I get NOTHING except the file I wand to download. In fact, I wasn't even AWARE of the problems until I tested it with modern browsers in Win 7 thru 10. Bah!
So, try an OLD browser. There are many sites that provide old, out of date programs.
You may also use the handy Windows system file called HOSTS (with no extension.) It's beyond the space limits of the available comments here to go into the procedure; but there are some handy webpages with instructions:
http://www.malwarehelp.org/how-to-effectively-prevent-malware-hosts-file.html
https://www.howtogeek.com/319700/how-to-use-your-computers-hosts-file-to-block-tons-of-malware-porn-and-other-types-of-websites/
Here is part of MY file with the addresses I've recently blocked:
https://www82.zippyshare.com/v/4r4ynGTe/file.html
Kinda ironic to use ZS to send this, eh? When you unzip it, you will see the HUGE list of URLs that I block this way. What happens is this: the file sharing site invokes an ad from a spammer; that then redirects to the pages of their subscribers...and, voila: you get web pages from nasty services, Viagra and Cialis retailers, online gamers, etc etc. If you get the MAIN guy into the hosts file, then THEIR subscribers NEVER get invoked. So you have to possess a little background experience and skill to be able to figure this out. Beyond the scope of this commentary to elucidate...
The other thing to avoid is watching the EXTENSION. One service always FIRST downloads an exe file that has the same name as the thing you WANT. Just erase it (carefully); do not actually left-click on it, but RIGHT-click and send to the trash. Do not EVERY invoke (start, activate) an exe file you have NOT downloaded. Anybody worth his salt would send out an exe as a zip to avoid this problem; but they WANT you to do this to put malware or a keystroke logger on your machine. (Zippyshare does NOT send out such files, but other services that the Russian blogs typically use, DO so.)
Of course, I am a programmer and know various languages like C--so this is not stuff for "civilians".
Just use AN OLD COMPUTER you don't care about, preserving and protecting your GOOD modern one!
8H Haggis
Much obliged for your comments about Carmen Dragon.
Cheers,
Douglas (UK)
After I went to a great deal of trouble to clean up the cover image of the Remington record of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 by "Conductor X" (Artur Rodzinski) I unaccountably failed to put it into the folder of the recording.
If you would like to have it, and previously downloaded my album of "Favorites of Artur Rodzinski, 1838-1952" with that Remington record, here is the link JUST to the cover image:
https://www13.zippyshare.com/d/c2C64oUX/2776/remington-conductorX-cover.jpg
-or-
https://www13.zippyshare.com/v/c2C64oUX/file.html
Apologies, 8H Haggis
After I went to a great deal of trouble to clean up the cover image of the Remington record of Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 by "Conductor X" (Artur Rodzinski) I unaccountably failed to put it into the folder of the recording.
If you would like to have it, and previously downloaded my album of "Favorites of Artur Rodzinski, 1838-1952" with that Remington record, here is the link JUST to the cover image:
https://www13.zippyshare.com/d/c2C64oUX/2776/remington-conductorX-cover.jpg
-or-
https://www13.zippyshare.com/v/c2C64oUX/file.html
Apologies, 8H Haggis
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