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| Toscanini by David Levine |
It wasn't very long ago that our friend 8H Haggis was packing the comments section of this blog with limited-time uploads from his vast storeroom of fine musical goods. I am pleased that he has returned tonight with a splendid concert for us all - Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony with a program of American music, as heard on February 7, 1943 from NBC's Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center.
As perhaps you have inferred from the dual "8H" appellations in the preceding paragraph, 8H Haggis has adopted his name from the studio that Toscanini used for most of his famous broadcasts. (The "Haggis" is a play on the name of critic B.H. Haggin - another Toscanini admirer.) And so one of 8H's principal interests is in rescuing the Toscanini legacy from the sludge pit of awful sound in which it is often mired.
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| Griffes by Levine |
The concert for today is one that should interest all who fancy 20th century American music. It starts with Henry Gilbert's anachronistic "Comedy Overture on Negro Themes" (1910), then picks up considerably with two superb works - Kent Kennan's "Night Soliloquy" (1936), which has appeared on
this blog before, and Charles Tomlinson Griffes' "White Peacock" (1915). As 8H says in his characteristically pungent and informative notes (included in the download), the Griffes and Kennan receive "magical, rapt interpretations."
The program concludes with a remarkable performance of Ferde Grofé's technicolor masterpiece, the "Grand Canyon" Suite. 8H tells us that this 1943 line-check recording of the work is not only "a far better and more expressive performance than Toscanini's famous (and quite popular) commercial RCA Victor records of 1945," but that it "presents vastly more realistic fidelity than the RCA Victor RECORD engineers were willing to give Toscanini!" I concur, and can only add that the concluding "Cloudburst" section is more vivid than the real thing!
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| Grofé |
This is one of Toscanini's most memorable achievements in the American repertoire - and I say that even though I am not much of an admirer of the Maestro, who has only appeared on this blog once before, and that as an accompanist.
Thanks, 8H, for this new favor.
Link courtesy of 8H Haggis:
ReplyDeletehttps://www61.zippyshare.com/v/vwODZO6T/file.html
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DeleteNo longer available, sorry.
DeleteThank you Buster for posting a wonderful 8H Haggis share.
ReplyDeleteOne question I've never asked here, and perhaps someone would prefer to answer it via email rather than in this comments section, and maybe even refer to some documentation. As a musician who has never bothered to dabble in the recording arts, I've always puzzled over the sound of the RCA recordings of Toscanini. Were the RCA engineers doing the best with what they had, the hall included, or could they have employed better habits and techniques in 8H than they did?
Hi Don - I am no engineer (8H is, but not sure he will be able to weigh in here), but I think there are a number of factors at play:
Delete- Studio 8H was (and is) a wide and shallow room, meaning that there wasn't much natural reverberation.
- As a practical matter, AM radio didn't go much above 5hz, so not many high overtones.
- Engineers tended to flatten out peaks, limiting the dynamic range.
- The microphone was relatively close to the orchestra.
All this lent itself to producing a relentless quality in the sound. I should add that this effect is not invariable, and the sound of this broadcast is vivid without being oppressive.
Thanks, Buster, for your splendid summary of issues, which is the best and most succinct one I can ever remember reading.
DeletePermit me to add a few nuances:
1. Rehearsal recordings made in 8H with Toscanini conducting reveal that, according to my careful measurements with a very accurate digital stopwatch, reverb time was typically 1.5 to 2 seconds. With the hall filled (~1500 persons) it naturally damped down considerably. The RCA 44 ribbon mikes used in the forties were "figure of 8" pattern; but -- and again, this is not hearsay because *I owned one*! -- the rear pickup was partially obstructed by the magnet assembly, resulting in a considerable loss of highs from the BACK. Nor was the rear lobe as sensitive. This cut down on some of the reverb.
Furthermore, over the years NBC radio engineers experimented with enhancement of the acoustic--with extra mikes, and "stairwell" echo. You can actually hear in this broadcast a cross-fade at the end of some of the musical selections, with a very obvious change in perspective. In the mid-forties, there was a typical point-source pickup with three 44 mikes well above the conductor's head, back a few feet from the podium; the mikes were pointed left, center, and right. These were mixed for the broadcast; some people have experimentally determined that either these mikes (or others) were used independently for S. American SW broadcasting, and "accidental stereo" compilations have been done (1942's Copland El Salon Mexico apparently being one of the most successful; unfortunately I no longer have a tape of that, but only have the mono broadcast material.) I was also informed by the business partner of a former NBC engineer who worked on 8H broadcasts, one Herb Florence, that some binaural experiments were done (and Toscanini objected, saying, "I've only got ONE head!" and in effect, what's the point?)
8H Haggis
2. Typically the NBC network line transmissions were all recorded onto 16" 33.3 rpm 'hi fi' transcription acetates by gear that had response up to at least 10 kHz, and a *theoretical* dynamic range of more than 40 dB. BUT...
DeleteIn line was at least *one* RCA limiter, used with ultra-fast release time and 'action' of perhaps 10-15 dB compression. That gadget causes the infamous "congestion" and adds to the "relentless" tension and sense of intensity of the louder parts of the music--affecting not only Toscanini's interpretations, but also ANYBODY who recorded for RCA Victor or who broadcast on NBC. It's not so bad on the Red Seal 78 rpm records, but the *broadcasts* are not always heard in those original NBC transcriptions, but are often archived in cross-country 5 kHz limited phone line transmissions, with even more audio limiters in the complicated circuits. And any old radio transcription made ANYWHERE between Rockefeller Center and some AM station was not necessarily transcribed on state-of-the-art cutters by really skilled operators. So we have Los Angeles based recordings from KFI, or from Armed Forces Radio; pickups from the NBC stations in Washington, D. C., or Chicago (etc.); or even disks made by amateurs (such as the radio engineer Paneyko of Long Island, who cut disks from early FM transmissions by NBC and CBS, including the New York Philharmonic, the Met, and Toscanini's orchestra; these have made their way into innumerable old LP's of the fifties and sixties, and ultimately onto CD.)
The more "stuff" between Studio 8H and the end artifact one plays on one's CD machine at home, the worse the sound gets and the more distortions and artificialities are added.
Ultimately we arrive at incompetent modern amateurs like the unfortunate, late, "Abbedd": an Internet gadfly who was a Toscanini fanatic but an inept one, with NO PROPER IDEA how to reprocess an old record. He typically cut the frenquency range around 900 Hertz by as much as 20-30 decibels; ugh!
Many Toscanini, gag, 'restorations' on YouTube are based on Abbedd's grotesquely false modifications. I argued with the poor fellow for some years before giving up the cause; he rewarded me for that by naming me "a pseudo-scientific BS artist" on forums and usenet. Sadly, it was HE who was that person, in extremis! I have taken his tape of the first three parts of this concert and "reverse engineered" it to get *somewhere* back to normality.
8H Haggis
3. As B. H. Haggin once observed, somewhere in his voluminous reviews and books, when one heard NBC Symphony recordings in authentic balance, with full bass and *relatively* unaltered dynamic range, the sound wasn't really bad, dry, and harsh. But, after the flattening-out of compression and cuts of the top and bottom of the spectrum, you are left with a rather ugly opaque, fatiguing sound quality. After hearing thousands of old radio airchecks, I have tentatively concluded that NBC tended to use even more audio compression than CBS; but this is scarcely absolute dogma. I've heard, for instance, New York Philharmonic broadcast airchecks, thru the 5 kHz phone lines, that had something resembling REAL dynamics--soft parts, loud parts, most everything in between. But, on NBC? Not so much. I believe that there was a consistent difference in their engineering practices: after all, RCA *designed, made, and sold audio limiters*! Those were, in the forties and early fifties, the 'industry standards'; and -- again -- I write not mere received wisdom, BUT OWNED ONE and tested it thoroughly. In later years, these NBC/RCA limiters were sought after by rock producers to create "stress affects" on voices! The increase in apparent 'intensity' is amazing; the RCA limiter parameters were unique and had FASTER, more inexorable 'squashing' of audio amplitude than other competing brands. You can in fact hear this in certain late forties/early fifties San Francisco Symphony RCA Victor records by Monteux (acknowledged as a rather mild-mannered, respectful, gentlemanly conductor compared to the demonic, tyrannical Toscanini!) Yet some of the Monteux records (such as the Chausson Symphony, Beethoven Second, etc.) from c.1949-51, have the SAME kind of "bursting apart at the seams" sense of tension and constriction of the NBC Symphony performances in full cry: *at least partially A SONIC ARTIFACT* created (or exaggerated) by the audio compression process!
DeleteIf you listen to some of Seth Winner's superb restorations of BBC performances by Toscanini, you will hear a FAR wider dynamic range and more natural sense of real 'coutours' and nuances in dynamics than in 95% of the RCA-derived broadcastsd & recordings (compare Winner's restoration of a Toscanini-BBC Mozart Haffner with the *awful* RCA Victor 78s with the NBC Sym, taken down in an even SMALLER radio studio, 3A, at Rockefeller Center.)
8H haggis
4. To hear the ultimate POTENTIALITY of NBC Sym.-in-Studio 8H, be sure to get Seth Winner's restorations. He is the most "honest" engineer, and conforms to a sort of audio Hippocratic Oath: "do no harm". His restorations of the Shostakovich First from 1944, or the Stravinsky Petrushka Suite of 1940, are moral examples for the rest of us. I've actually measured instrumentally REAL musical overtones on the latter up at about 14 kHz (not just noise or harmonic distortion components!) However, Seth's friend Don Drewecki has posted on usenet that, allegedly, modern RCA records producers seldom 'left alone' the sound of Seth's careful restorations when preparing modern CD issues. I can assert that, in fact, the famous Gold Seal Toscanini set of the 1990s has rather eviscerated bass with not much energy below 100 Hz: perhaps a final attempt to remove ALL POSSIBLE AUDIBLE TRACES of LF noise. And, even some of the Gold Seal CD set (such as the 1952 broadcast of Death and Transfiguration; the 1947 Kodaly Hary Janos, and the 1953 Dvorak New World) have added "artificial stereo" frequency rebalances between left and right channels: TOTALLY UNNECESSARY and damaging to the solid body of sound. I would in fact assert that Columbia/CBS/Sony has done a far less "intrusive" job of restoring the old Bruno Walter records, than RCA typically has done for Toscanini. When you collect that latter conductor's art, you end up with what the British refer to as 'the dog's dinner': a hodge-podge melange of the really good, really HORRIBLE, and everything in between...
Delete8H Haggis
5. I personally have the most confidence in the aural quality and accuracy of the Toscanini RCA Victor records engineered by Lewis Layton (later to be the presiding technical genius behind the vaunted RCA Victor "Living Stereo" US orchestra classical releases.) Mike Gray has sent me Lewis's hand-written notes and layout drawings of his miking of some sessions in Chicago and Boston; Layton was NOT a big fan of using limiting, to say the least! His job on the Beethoven Septet record by Toscanini, from 1952, is truly superbly high-fidelity. But, the CD issues are *not always* the best issues; one must pick-and-choose and, sometimes, revert to certain Red Seal LP releases.
DeleteThose, too, were often substantially changed from the master tapes. You can sometimes tell from the LABELS and the date released. By the time RCA was producing the 'shaded dog' releases, most of the old crew conforming to the incompetent, unmusical ideas of RCA's old timey recording director Albert W. Pulley were GONE; men like Layton were children of the hi-fi era and did not conceive of their records to require processing and alteration to make them 'effective' only on a 1-tube $29 RCA Victor 45 rpm reproducer!
In the broadcast aircheck domain, I like the sound quality achieved by NBC radio engineer George Mathis (or Mathes?) in Carnegie Hall, post-1951. The CBS network used the same venue for the NYP broadcasts, but their mike position was TOO FAR AWAY and picked up a lot of audience noise and some unnatural standing-wave reflections; whereas the NBC mike position was just SLIGHTLY TOO CLOSE, but not as 'microscopically focused' as the Studio 8H pickup. Getting an absolutely optimal balance seems to be, in fact, much more difficult and challenging in MONO than it is in STEREO: to wit, the geniuses of the time were C. Robert Fine of Mercury and the London-Decca European crew; even the best Victor engineers (with the exception, IMO, of Layton) weren't quite as adept. However, Fine would spend hours and hours experimenting and fine-tuning; this wasn't permissable at NBC, with union operators and contractual limits in who could do what, or move what, or adjust what! I find it rather amazing that NBC radio managed to do the consistently good job that they did on the post-1950 Toscanini NBC Carnegie Hall broadcasts. And, again, these are best heard in Seth Winner restorations (such as the ones he did for the soundtracks of the Toscanini television concerts.)
(That being said, Seth Winner seems to DESPISE ME, and once called me "a liar and manure spreader" on rec.music.classical.recordings. I don't feel that way about HIM. He's "da man" for sure, and only Ward Marston and my friend Mark Obert-Thorn have performed comparably and adequately honest and professional Toscanini restorations for independent labels. These admirable gentlemen were ALL slandered and ridiculed by the odious "Abbedd"--no good deed goes unpunished, indeed! So the final suggestion and observation I'd like to make is TO IGNORE JP/ABBEDD and AVOID his repulsive desecrations of Toscanini, Ansermet, and other fine musical artists.)
Sadly, Andrew Rose of Pristine in France/Europe, has the skills and gear to do a really remarkable job on these old Toscanini broadcasts but his inclinations seem always to GO TOO FAR and to try to 'make a silk purse out of a sow's ear' by adding spurious acoustical enhancements and frequency alterations; but to non-specialists they MAY sometimes be quite tolerable, even pleasing. To me, however, they're somewhat frustrating...
8H Haggis
Aplogies for my typos ('coutours' not contours; 'frenquency' not frequency); the only way I have the nerve to post AT ALL is to charge ahead, press SEND, and not go back and edit and re-think; or the resulting post will be so cautious, overly politically correct and bowdlerized by me that it will be pointless! - 8HH
DeleteFascinating discussion! Thanks for all the information.
Delete6. Addendum to my remarks on Pristine Audio/Andrew Rose Toscanini issues. A Russian blog I frequently peruse has just posted the Pristine "XR" version of the 1953 Toscanini Missa Solemnis (which IS in print on current RCA-BMG commercial CDs.) Years ago, when the XR process was first introduced, Andrew Rose posted the first movement of this commercial Victor LP record of Missa on the RMCR newsgroup; and I listened on 'phones. I was *appalled* to discern that the process--and his electronic stereotizing--had created a rather horrible effect on the chorus. The original tapes SEEM to be overloaded in the mike channel used for the choir, though the orchestra sounds clean. In Andrew's experimental revision, the 'distortion products' seemed to STAND OUT as a 'stereo entity' all by themselves, acoustically 'separate' from everything else! This is not as strange as it may seem, and his process is very frequency-selective; and the frequencies where the distortion was most evident were isolated into this "position" in the soundstage. I commented very unfavorably on the ng. at the time, stating that I felt he'd made the ONE defect of the recording now seem considerably WORSE and more noticeable.
DeleteI had two different commercial copies of this Missa in my collection and was not anxious to pay for another one (let alone the offering by Rose); but I *confess* that I DL'ed the Pristine version from this nefarious Russian blog out of mere curiosity. And, how does it now seem to sound?
Well, to my great surprise, the "disembodied distortion" was now virtually gone. (Did Andrew take my criticism to heart, and rebalance? Is this an entirely NEW job? Have software processing programs advanced?)
I think many people who generally are skeptics of AT records might tend more to LIKE this result than the BMG-RCA cd versions. Yes: Rose has added a considerable amount of stereo echo, making the performance sound more like Bernstein's Columbia records done in Manhattan Center, than "authentic Carnegie Hall" sound quality. BUT...it's not bad at all. It's "glamorized" and "inauthentic" and not what Toscanini and his producers AUTHORIZED...but more than a half-century of time has elapsed; must we ALWAYS be locked inexorably into the paradigm of 1953, when nobody had stereo?
So, I think the way to better evaluate Rose would be "let the auditor beware"; EVALUATE, depending on your own tastes in the moment, and do not take in mere received wisdom and 'decide' (based on somebody else's opinion) if you like -- or do not like -- anybody's Toscanini approach. Indeed: Rose has put out some things that have LITTLE intervention; some that have A LOT of same. (And, so has RCA Victor and its ultimate corporate heirs.)
8HH
I don't have much experience with his transfers, but the ones I have heard tend to have an artificial sound that is hard to describe. I have occasionally used ambience processing, but I have to say that it isn't too effective, and can create anomalies, as you mention.
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DeleteI appreciate your input and wealth of information. I have enough knowledge of acoustics and basic recording lingo to grasp most of what you're sharing.
DeleteI know I have played in a variety of halls, from ancient school gymnasiums and auditoriums to premier halls in the US and overseas, and know firsthand how either wonderful acoustics can be or how really poor. I regret not educating myself more on recording when I was younger.
Knowing that there are some recordings out there that give a better semblance of the original sound of recorded groups of the past is a place to start, I've put off buying anything the past ten years or so until I was at a point in life to have time to listen and enjoy more. I appreciate your time in giving some elaboration and understanding of of what I asked.
Well, suppose primitive pre-electric recording technology had been invented more than three centuries earlier, and we could listen to the first performance of Hamlet, though the records were horribly scratchy and poorly balanced. Would we complain and wring our hands; or would we be fascinated by the experience? This is the way I, for one, approach old records. We cannot change history; all we can do is alter the WAY we perceive it, not really adding improvements but merely trying to reduce the objectionable things. So Toscanini's records are not, in this way, really *worse* and less useful than those of other artists of the 1920s-1950s. We may *still* nevertheless perceive the majority of his artistic ideas, and appreciate how close he managed to realize them in the hands of 92 musicians.
Delete8HH
Thanks for some direction, Buster. I knew 8H was a peculiar and not-too-pleasing hall for recording as our college choir director was fortunate as a member of the Westminster Choir to perform there and talked of its acoustics. (He was a member when that group recorded the Mozart Requiem with Walter and the NY Philharmonic in 1956). I guess I need to do a little research, which is normally part of my job but which I don't have time enough to do for my personal interests some days.
ReplyDeleteReaders might be interested in some of my comments that are highly critical of Toscanini, and discuss certain shortcomings. I have written a long commentary about my hobby of trying to remove some of the obnoxious defects in the Toscanini broadcast artifacts, which was posted on my astronomy website. The comments meander about, and started out to try to explain what I do when I am tired of astronomical observing and need a diversion; but I added various addenda that dealt with "Abbedd" and his peculiar travesties of the Toscanini recordings, and his vicious attacks on others; then, in the latter section with the sub-heading "Followup" (below the photo a friend took of his own 'Toscanini Edition' derived from copies I sent him of my edits) I have specifically objected to certain affectations in Toscanini's conducting that I consider objectionable at times. (Dmitry Shostakovich is alleged to have been very irritated that the United States' Toscanini Society "elected" him a board member without his permission or knowledge, merely because of Toscanini's radio premiere of DS's Sym No. 7; the composer is quoted by Volkov as accusing the conductor of applying an affected "sauce" to every piece of music, ruining it.) If YOU happen to LIKE the 'sauce' (or are old enough, like me, to have been imprinted by exposure to many AT records when they were relatively new) then it's "good"; to everyone else today, it seems to be "bad". I will NOT make a moral judgment on this issue; it's an artistic one and there is absolutely no scientific, objective FACT one way or another.
ReplyDeletehttps://filedn.com/lgyQ0Uu5laX4REarxi2Tv9B/8-h-haggis/jottings12.htm#BURNOUT
8HH
Thanks, 8H(H) - I am sure this will be fascinating, as always.
DeleteDear 8HH,
DeleteJust want you to know that I finally made it through all the downloads of your listings from last year. I believe the number of individual postings that I downloaded was approximately 400. I dutifully listened to each recording multiple times until this past month, when I decided to listen to each of the remaining 40 just once to make it to the end. It has been a great experience to be exposed to so many great recordings. I was quite impressed by the sound quality of most of the listings, especially ones you repaired from original poor quality transfers. Specific mention to the “Abbedd” repairs, such as the Toscanini Sibelius recordings. Special mention to recordings by performers that I was either only vaguely familiar with or had given little attention to such as Carl-August Bünte (including an outstanding Beethoven Eroica), Beethoven symphonies with Jonel Perlea, a Schubert ‘Unfinished’ with Fritz Lehmann. One of the recordings that I was most taken with was the Grieg Lyric Suite by Landon Ronald from 1925, which had incredible sound for a recording of that early vintage. I could go on and on, but the music you provided was a treasure trove for which I am very appreciative. Thank you.
Purcell - such a thoughtful comment. Many thanks!
DeleteWhen I try to download this I get a message '403 Forbidden'. Is there anything I can do? Thanks
ReplyDeleteArrieu - Are you in the UK? Zippyshare's service has been a problem there recently, I've read:
ReplyDeletehttps://betanews.com/2019/03/15/zippyshare-uk-block/
There isn't anything I can do about this; it's not my file.
Yes, I am in the UK. I contacted a friend in the US who kindly downloaded the broadcast and sent it to me. Thanks to you and 8H H.
ReplyDeleteIn the notes the flute-player is given as possibly Coppola or Renzi. Coppola was the principal player from 1942 till 1948; Renzi did not hold the post until 1952. Furthermore, in 1943 Renzi was aged only 17; though, remarkably, he did take the principal post in San Francisco the following year.
Hi Buster! Forgive me if I am out of context, but the sad new of Jorg Demus about his pass, makes me think if you have Westminster recordings in order to remind his craft. My best regards... HIRAM
ReplyDeleteHiram - Demus was a fine artist, but if I have any of his recordings, it would probably be in a chamber context. I'll see if I can find any.
DeleteGlad to read that, Buster and thanks for your inmediate post. Best thoughts!
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