Audio Fidelity and Alfred Wallenstein
Jerry
Wallenstein's six stereo
LPs done for Audio Fidelity (a small label that by my recollection was
first to market
with a Stereo LP using the Westrex 45/45 system that was to become the
standard for
decades that followed) prompts this question.
Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of these Argentinian re-issues?
My gut
instinct is that they're probably not in the same class (sonically) as
the Everest,
Mercury, or RCA Living Stereo CDs derived from tapes of comparable
vintage.
Jerry
td
Thread-Mender
William Sommerwerck
> Wallenstein's six stereo LPs done for Audio Fidelity (a small
> LP using the Westrex 45/45 system...
Correct. November, 1957. A jazz recording (Dixieland?), I think.
The 45-45 system was (surprise!) invented by Alan Dower Blumlein at EMI
about 25 years earlier.
Kalman Rubinson
<grizzle...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> The appearance on eBay of Argentinian CD reissues of Alfred
>> Wallenstein's six stereo LPs done for Audio Fidelity (a small
>> label that by my recollection was first to market with a etereo
>> LP using the Westrex 45/45 system...
>
>Correct. November, 1957. A jazz recording (Dixieland?), I think.
AF (run by Sidney Frey, if memory serves) recorded "The Dukes of
Dixieland" but I am not sure what, exactly, was their first stereo
recording. As for Wallenstein, the only really memorable LP I recall
was a Symphonie Fantastique which I loved.
Kal
Richard S. Sandmeyer
Kalman Rubinson <k...@earthlink.net> wrote:
I never owned any of the Alfred Wallenstein releases on that label, but
i do remember having a few LPs of another AW, Arthur Winograd,
conducting the Virtuoso Symphony of London on Audio Fidelity. I may
still have one or two of them if they haven't been culled (something I
used to do back in the LP era).
I've never seen them reissued on CD, but then I've never seriously
looked for them. My recollection was that they were competently played
in decent sound (even good sound for their time), but most of the
repertoire was pieces that have been recorded and re-recorded since by
many other conductors and orchestras. They might still have nostalgia
value to some collectors, but unless there are some pieces that have not
been recorded elsewhere, I doubt that they would interest me much now.
--
Rich Sandmeyer
rich dot sand at verizon dot net
Kerrison
<rich.s...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
> In article <kha8f5dd7r5j3626d1j8b07lurs9vlb...@4ax.com>,
>
> - Show quoted text -
Is there a link to eBay where one could find more details of these
Wallenstein CDs?
david gideon
<72f9149b-911c-4809...@15g2000yqy.googlegroups.com>,
Jerry <GPGe...@aol.com> wrote:
> My gut
> instinct is that they're probably not in the same class (sonically) as
> the Everest,
> Mercury, or RCA Living Stereo CDs derived from tapes of comparable
> vintage.
They are basic transfers, without much if any restoration work done. In
several cases the channels are reversed. However, they do sound better
than the LPs did, and the Symphonie Fantastique sounds better than both
the AF LP and the somewhat overmodulated AF reel tape. But you aren't
going to confuse any of these with Living Stereo CDs.
I think there was some connection between Sidney Frey (AF founder) and
Argentina which may explain why the releases are coming out there. The
Argentina cd series has all of the canonical AF classical releases, and
a fair number of the things the latter-day AF licensed from Concert
Hall, ARS, and other sources.
dg
--
CD issues of long-unavailable classic performances from Scherchen, Stokowski,
Paray, Steinberg, and more, exclusively from: http://www.rediscovery.us
ReDiscovery radio internet stream: http://www.rediscovery.us/Listen.html
Jerry
>
> - Show quoted text -
Try
http://stores.ebay.com/MUSIC-FROM-ARGENTINA
This is a link to the seller and there is a search function. I was
able to find 5 of the 6 CDs using the Composer Name, but
titles are in Spanish.
To be clear about this, in no way do I endorse these items and
(at $10 a pop plus postage) can easily do without. I agree that
by the time these were issued on Stereo Disc in the late '50s,
there was already substantial competition from the major labels.
Checking a 1959 catalog, I could easily find
alternatives from London, RCA, and Columbia that
were then better choices.
Still, seeing these items piqued my interest and challenged
my memory.
Why, for example, would AF (a predominantly jazz-oriented
label) emabark on such a project when there was already so
much competition? [Same could be said of United Artists,
who did several Stokowski/SOA sessions plus a Villa-Lobos
disc before giving up on classical repertoire].
Who owns the AF library and do the original tapes still exist?
Who were the "Virtuoso Symphony of London?" A contracted
orchestra, presumably, but can we even be sure they were
recorded in London? [Likewise, A.W. did a Britten/Prokofiev
disc for Music Appreciation Records, but was the unidentified
orchestra the Los Angeles Philharmonic?]
Jerry
Richard S. Sandmeyer
<bdc3cd94-d759-44ad...@t18g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
Jerry <GPGe...@aol.com> wrote:
Well, I did flip through my remaining LP collection and found only one
Audio Fidelity album 'Marches from Opera' by the Virtuoso Symphony of
London conducted by Arthur Winograd. Looking on the back, it has a very
short blurb about Winograd (member of Juilliard Qt. etc.) and not a word
about the VSL.
Googling on 'Virtuoso Symphony of london' turns up some hits, but most
of them seem to be for copies of records for sale, lists of records,
etc. None of the first few (I didn't look at more than the first four
or five links) explained whether they were one of the major London
orchestras recording under another name for contractual reasons or a
pick-up orchestra for the recording sessions (or anything else about
them).
Kerrison
<rich.s...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
> In article
> <bdc3cd94-d759-44ad-87f4-6b02abd19...@t18g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>,
The 'Gramophone' archive reveals a May 1961 review of the Berlioz
'Fantastique' under Wallenstein which states that the "Virtouso
Symphony of London was a collection of very fine orchestral and
chamber-music players who met together specially in the summer of 1958
to make a number of classical records for the Audio Fidelity
catalogue. They have never been heard of since." The review provides a
few names ("eminent wind soloists such as Richard Adeney, Reginald
Kell, Roger Lord, and Cecil James") and adds that "the interpretation
outdoes all others in dynamic range and (I fear) price. Generally
speaking, the performance is first class and full-bloodied."
It seems that about a dozen LPs were made in Walthamstow Town Hall,
London, under Wallenstein and Winograd (both ex-cellists) during those
few summer weeks, though not all of them were issued in the UK (or at
any rate were not reviewed in the 'Gramophone'). They were produced in
very expensive gate-fold sleeves and cost about 30% more than other
LPs of the day (thus the critic's reference to the price) which may
have been the cause of the label's eventual demise.
Since no more recordings were made after that summer 1958 stint it
looks as if the whole project was a financial disaster. At any rate,
the Audio Fidelity company that produced them soon gave up the ghost.
I see from Googling that other more recent labels have used the same
name, though they're nothing to do with the firm that made those 1958
classical LPs.
Incidentally, the VS of London was clearly a forerunner of the
National Philharmonic. This was another no-longer-extant recording-
only orchestra of top London players which made LPs in the 1960s and
1970s under the batons of Charles Gerhardt, Leopold Stokowski, Bernard
Herrmann, Richard Bonynge and many others.
So are these Argentinian 'Audio Fidelity' CDs produced from the
original master-tapes or copied from the LPs?
wagnerfan
news:1177f38c-0d22-4010...@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com...
I find this subject really fascinating - would love to have this material
reissued Wagner Fan
Matthew�B.�Tepper
following letters to be typed in news:1177f38c-0d22-4010-ad58-35aa1dcec2e4
@g23g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:
> The 'Gramophone' archive reveals a May 1961 review of the Berlioz
> 'Fantastique' under Wallenstein which states that the "Virtouso Symphony
> of London was a collection of very fine orchestral and chamber-music
> players who met together specially in the summer of 1958 to make a number
> of classical records for the Audio Fidelity catalogue. They have never
> been heard of since." The review provides a few names ("eminent wind
> soloists such as Richard Adeney, Reginald Kell, Roger Lord, and Cecil
> James") and adds that "the interpretation outdoes all others in dynamic
> range and (I fear) price. Generally speaking, the performance is first
> class and full-bloodied."
So pretty much a forerunner of the National Philharmonic Orchestra?
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
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