Overview/Analysis of Gold Seal TOSCANINI COLLECTION: Pt 1
A. F. T.
Collection" on RCA/BMG. There has also been a small amount of praise,
much of it here stemming from my reaction to what I have perceived as
nitpickey, unfair, and unwarranted complaints from "fundamentalists"
who can NEVER be satisfied, and ALWAYS express frustration with any
attempt to issue a Toscanini recording. These types of collectors
always call attention to some limited-edition version, or some
archival collection, or some unavailable, unreleased, unobtainable
Holy Grail artifact that fulfills their dreams of "perfect" Toscanini
recording quality.
Some of the commentators will deride any commercial recording of the
RCA sessions, no matter when it was released, on whatever medium, in
favor of the broadcasts. Some will aver that "Toscanini was too fast
during his NBC years; one has to hear the Philharmonic performances to
understand his greatness"; some will criticize each and every transfer
done by any recording engineer, from the earliest original 78 sessions
down to the latest edition in the Naxos "Toscanini Concert Series",
informing us that there is an elusive "test pressing" or a
winnowed-away private dub that has the "really good sound". Some will
assure us that each and every person who ever worked for RCA Victor
and NBC Radio was a charlatan, a fraud, a butcher, and a Philistine.
Some will insist that only a "re-mastered" edition is acceptable;
others decry anything available except a sound transfer at the NY
Public Library collection, or in the Gardner collection, or in the
remnants of the Paneyko aircheck acetates, or in the Library of
Congress, or in the possession of old-time tapists who took down
programs at 15 ips on old Concertone recorders in the vicinity of New
York City.
But the rest of us must be content with the material we can obtain
when we visit our local record dealers, or order from Internet music
websites. Is it POSSIBLE to obtain at least some kind of musical and
technical satisfaction from commercial or private CD issues of
Toscanini performances? Can one derive at least SOME musical
enrichment and pleasure without feeling the pangs of neurotic
idealism? Can ANYTHING be accepted by the general record collector as
a valid commemoration and reminiscence of a Toscanini reading?
I hope to try to put the Gold Seal edition in perspective by
summarizing its virtues and defects, so that purchasers can make
informed acquisitions. If you have read the thousands of lines I have
spilled here in the ng over the past two years about the Toscanini
recordings, you know 'where I come from': I am, in general, a "purist"
who believes that an honest representation of the original recording
quality is always the best choice.
Technology continually evolves; at no one point in history is it fixed
and completely perfect. But at any given moment a sound recording can
reflect the potential qualities of the state of the art of the medium.
It requires some historical perspective, knowledge of a large body of
ancient recordings over a wide period of time, and personal
acquaintance with archival restoration techniques (not to mention an
understanding of microphones and mike techniques, sound mixing, audio
processing -- including equalizing and compression and noise reduction
-- and editing) to properly evaluate the success of an historic
transfer.
In addition, one should have a musical knowledge that it adequate to
perceive at the very least some gross alteration of the musical
character of the performance: is the pitch right? Are the musical
dynamics well represented? Are instrumental lines clearly and
reliably reproducing musical timbre, or have they been falsified,
confused, or obscured? Is orchestral tone honest, accurate, and
believable, or has it been distorted in some way? Has the hall sound
been modified with additional reverberation? While I do not claim to
have the ear of a Mark Obert-Thorn, Ward Marston, Mike Gray, a Don
Drewecki, or a Seth Winner, I believe that (as a former recordist and
broadcast audio consultant) I have some qualifications to be able to
offer valid comparative descriptions, as well as a long-time
familiarity, dating over several decades, with the commercial
Toscanini recordings (dating from the period of the conductor's own
lifetime, when I first heard his radio concerts as a child, and
purchased the Nutcracker Suite recording, spanning many years as a
radio station program director when I collected and broadcast the
Toscanini commercial albums, and culminating in my current interest in
purchasing the modern CD editions to replace my old 78s, tapes, and LP
copies.)
In summary, I insist that the BMG Gold Seal edition is the BEST and
MOST COMPLETE attempt to document the Toscanini commercial recordings,
to this date. All earlier efforts, from the first piecemeal releases
during the conductor's lifetime, through the incomplete RCA Victrola
series of the sixties, the occasional dribbles of eagerly-desired
broadcasts (like the famed 1967 5-LP set of historical radio
performances), the earliest Japanese and US compact disk issues of the
early '80's (some in fake stereo), as well as the latest aborted issue
on Red Seal CD of the poor transfers of the Beethoven Symphonies and
Missa Solemnis, with strange EQ and crude phony stereophonic ambience,
are inadequate or inferior (with certain FEW exceptions) to the Gold
Seal editions. When the issues are inferior to prior versions, I will
note the reasons and the degree of degradation present.
- - - - - - -
LA SCALA Recordings (1920-1)
There are no other acoustical recordings available of standard
repertoire classical orchestral pieces quite like these unique disks!
Toscanini and his La Scala Orchestra worked like fiends before a large
recording horn in Camden, New Jersey, in 1921 to accomplish these Red
Seal sides, which were "state of the art" in the period before the
microphone and electronics were wedded to the phonograph. But to
today's ears, the results are peculiar and uningratiating: the
balances strange, the instrumental timbres odd, the pickup close and
claustrophobic. Yet the intensity and precision of these propulsive
readings contrast dramatically with the cranky, clumsy, and
affected recordings made by other maestros during the acoustical
period that ended around 1925.
Violin and piano solos, and the singing voice, were taken down well by
the acoustical process: we can still enjoy Caruso, Kreisler, Heifetz,
or Rachmaninoff's old Red Seals. But most if not nearly all collectors
"cut off" their interest in orchestral recordings made before about
1926 or '27, when the early electrical engineers learned how to record
a fairly wide and natural dynamic range, and to pick up the acoustical
ambience of a real recording hall.
Toscanini displays his severe precision, and is fully the man you
would expect from his broadcasts of the thirties and forties: once,
during the old NBC radio show "Toscanini - The Man Behind the Legend"
in the sixties, a composite was made of the 1921 Beethoven 5th
excerpts herein and the famous broadcast recording from 1952. Heard
over transcontinental network AM radio, there wasn't too much audible
difference in style, balance, and interpretation (not to mention
sound); but audited today, from digitized transfers, there seem to be
several orders of magnitude of difference. The old acoustic is merely
a funky-sounding oddity, while the 1952 audiotape of the radio/TV
simulcast has exceptionally realistic, crisp high fidelity and
accuracy (not significantly inferior in detail to any number of modern
stereo all-digital recordings!)
At least this set provides the opportunity of hearing some unusual
pieces under the Maestro's direction: the pleasant excerpt "Le quai du
porte de Famagouste" from the "Pisanella" Suite by Pizzetti (recorded
in stereo in the sixties by Gardelli on a superb Decca / London LP);
the "Gagliarda" from one of Respighi's "Ancient Dances and Airs"
suites; and the "Fete Boheme" from Massenet's "Scenes Pittoresques"
Suite. I once owned a mint-condition copy of the last item on a
single-sided Victor Red Seal 78 rpm disk, and I can testify
that one cannot really do much to enhance the sound of an acoustical
recording!
At least this issue is much better than the very highly compressed
copy issued on a private LP by the Clyde Key / Toscanini Society in
the sixties: so much audio limiting was done to squeeze all the
recordings onto two sides of one LP that the transfers were vastly
inferior to the relatively vital sound of the actual shellac disks;
this "purist" authorized edition by RCA is much to be preferred.
BEETHOVEN Symphony recordings.
1936 Seventh, Vol. 64
At last, an even finer musical experience than can be obtained by
auditioning a mint copy of the 78s, which I once owned and used for my
earliest broadcasts of Toscanini recordings, c.1964, in preference to
the mediocre early LP transfers, such as the tinny and mechanical-
sounding Camden release of the late fifties.
This incandescent 1936 reading comes from a recording session at
Carnegie Hall during the Maestro's last season with the Philharmonic-
Symphony Orchestra of New York. Robert C. Marsh, in his admirable book
of reviews of the Toscanini repertoire, remarked that this may have
been the greatest classical music recording event of all time! Such
hyperbole aside, the performance preserved here is of such
unassailable classical honesty, and has such incomparable polish and
sense of musical truth, that -- as one might assume -- all further
attempts by the Maestro would never measure up (he did
the work nearly a dozen times after this waxing, and recorded it again
onto magnetic tape in a poor, overdriven 1951 account.)
Only the Franklin Mint LP transfer had the body and clarity of this
present CD release, rivalling the original 78s. Made with a special
technique using two cutting machines in long, extended takes, the
shellac disks featured many seconds of silent grooves while the
engineer synchronized his "switch over" to preserve a complete
performance (of course, these disk pauses are edited out.) Thus, there
is no hint of the "start and stop" effect present on many old 78
rpm recordings, where certain conductors endulged in ritards at the
ends of sides, or had difficulty in resuming a movement at a disk
break. One simply experiences here a continuous performance with
Toscanini's incomparable sense of musical line and architecture.
During the conductor's lifetime, his tempo for the second movement was
controversial, as many of his predecessors had adopted an almost
funereal pace. The "walking tempo" chosen by Toscanini is now
considered entirely appropriate, and has influenced most interpreters
to this present day. The pacing for the remaining movements blends
energy with a sense of natural flow, so that one never experiences any
feelings of strain or contrivance (it might be noted that Leopold
Stokowski directing an almost equally- convincing account
of the Seventh with his Philadelphia Orchestra in 1927, now available
in an excellent transfer on Biddulph. Not until the appearance of the
superb 1950 performance by Furtwaengler and the VPO was there a
Beethoven A-Major symphony reading to rival these two Victor
phonographic classics.)
No attempts at fancy noise reduction have been made by the wise
engineers who produced this superb issue (Ward Marston is credited
with the disk-to-tape transfer in the booklet's notes.) The
equalization is correct, and there is full body and sheen to the sound
of the orchestra, though highs above about 5 to 6 kHz were not
engraved. The low frequency response is rich and deep, so that
the growl of the double basses in the finale is dramatic and
impressive. I measured a true electrical dynamic range (using a
special metering system) at nearly 40 dB: this is about the absolute
limit of a good 78 mastering. If any "monitoring" of audio peak levels
was done during the recording session, it was accomplished by careful
manual adjustments: there is no "squashing" sound of
electronic limiters, and the sforzandi and climaxes are aggressive and
powerful.
RCA now redresses past sins: the old Camden LP issue of the late
fifties was nasty and thin, with a filtered lack of realism. I am
delighted to report that here on this new CD transfer the producers
eschewed fake stereo, added ambience, or rechannelling.
The companion works are not nearly as well recorded: the 1929 Haydn
and Mendelssohn are very dim in comparison, but have a natural
acoustical balance from the Carnegie Hall mike pickup that is better
than the typical Studio 8H claustrophobia of the later Toscanini
broadcasts. The Haydn "Clock" symphony is more relaxed and sunny than
the 1946 revisitation by the Maestro (though the constant shellac hiss
is a bit fatiguing); the Mendelssohn Scherzo is a tour de force of
virtuosity at an ideal tempo, compared to the slower 1926
PSNY recording, or the slightly faster 1947 NBC version.
Truly a Great Recording of All Time, worthy of the finest rating. BE
CERTAIN you purchase this and NOT any of the "rip off" unauthorized
dubbings, which cannot possibly equal this honest transfer of
recordings that were arguably the finest versions up to the
microgroove era.
Sym #1 (1951) and Sym #3 (1949); Vol. 1
This particular Toscanini interpretation of the Beethoven First was
taken down in recording sessions in Carnegie Hall on 21 December 1951,
using current "state of the art" magnetic taping equipment at 30 ips:
the sound is faultless. Truly a high fidelity recording, it sounds
virtually as satisfying as a fine modern stereo edition played back in
mono. The balances in Carnegie Hall are nearly perfect; every note is
heard in perfect clarity, surrounded by a bloom of hall acoustic that
has not been tampered with, to judge from the earliest LP issues in
comparison to this transfer. Frequency response is rich, and extends
up to the highest audible range, with very little background noise
from the tape media used to transfer the recording. If this is NOT
from the 30 ips "Tinkertoy" tape masters, as implied by Jack Pfeiffer
(who explained in an AUDIO Magazine interview that most of the Gold
Seal collection was derived from 15 ips analogue dubs that were
provided to Walter Toscanini by Victor in the fifties), it is
nevertheless nearly without flaw or drawback as a model recording of
the monaural era.
The interpretation is somewhat more spacious than the otherwise
charming and bumptious 1937 BBC Symphony account (best heard in the
purist Biddulph transfer by Mark Obert-Thorn, incredibly superior to
ANY other edition, and seemingly better than my own copy of the
shellac set!) I prefer this '51 reading to any of the other live or
recorded Toscanini editions of the score, with a nod of approval also
to the 1939 live account.
The Eroica, from recording sessions of November and December of '49,
is of a lower order of inspiration and commitment. One of the more
strict readings by the Maestro (though still more expressive than his
1945 account on Music & Arts) this Third was done piecemeal for 45-rpm
release: perhaps the starts and stops for the segments of the
recording affected Maestro's concentration; at any rate, the outlines
of a good performance are present, but not the inner life and fire.
The audio quality is marginally inferior (and much hissier) than the
1951 edition of the First.
However, this BMG transfer is much more transparent, with more
richness and body of tone, than the dessicated and dull version on an
early Victor LP in the "1950 Toscanini Tour" commemorative albums. If
memory serves, it is also cleaner, with more presence and realism,
than the issue in the famous Red Seal LP set of the Nine Symphonies
dating from the late fifties (which I no longer have for immediate
comparison, but which I heard many times over the course of two
decades.)
Lovers of the Eroica MUST, however, be sure to obtain the RCA / BMG CD
release, in spectacularly realistic sound, of the incomparable 1939
broadcast (Volume 23 of the Toscanini Collection) for one of the
arguably finest versions by the Maestro, which is discussed below.
BEETHOVEN Sym 3 (1939); Sym 8 (1939); Vol. 23
This release may be the "reference recording" of the Eroica for all
Toscanini fanciers.
The dedicated young members of the NBC ensemble, who had worked
together for only about two years, rose to match the Maestro's
brilliant vision with playing of flawless cohesion and intensity.
Yet the Maestro continued to revise his opinions about the tempi and
phrasing of the piece throughout nearly twenty future performances up
to the culmination, the patrician December 1953 NBC broadcast. Soon
the measured, deeply inflected, and gravely tragic Greek drama that
unfolds in many passages of the 1939 broadcast was to become
streamlined and de-personalized, and played with a stricter adherence
to a single tempo for each movement.
But in 1939, Maestro employs the "tempo rubato" style of conducting
that was the norm for the early part of the century: yet his
variations around a single tempo marking are always less extreme than
self- indulgent "subjective"conductors like Mengelberg or
Furtwaengler. The phrasing in this nonpareil NBC broadcast is
consistently plastic and natural, with an almost theatrical rhetoric
which is nevertheless constrained by Toscanini's
essentially classical approach.
To the Maestro, the work was 'not Napoleon, not Hitler, but Allegro
con brio!' This, however, does not imply an impersonal and faceless
lack of emotional involvement: one hearing of the shattering slow
movement of this broadcast will crystalize one's view of the
expressive possibilities inherent in the music, and most other
conductors' renderings will seem somewhat flat, or overly histrionic,
by comparison.
The original 78 rpm set, which I owned, was a nightmare to play for
enjoyment. Not only was the sound only slightly better than the
tinniness of a telephone, but also one of the repeated horn call
passages in the Scherzo movement was actually cut not during the
"playing grooves" of a disk side, but on the spiral lead in! One had
to "drop" the needle at the very edge of the disk several times to get
it to 'catch' and play all of the musical notes! I gave up trying to
enjoy the set directly from the shellac disks, and dubbed it to tape:
it took several attempts to get the Scherzo copied correctly in order
to edit a continual presentation, but there was a very noticeable, bad
join that was destructive to the flow of the music (also present on
the inferior ATS/Olympic LP issue of the late sixties or early
seventies, which had extremely poor sound, re-equalizing the 78s with
excessive boost of bass, resulting in a muddy mess.) This crucial
transition point in the scherzo has been totally eliminated in this
transfer, since a set of acetate lacquers, made by direct connection
with Studio 8H, was used as the source: the "joins" in this set of
33.3 rpm disks are at different places, and were probably overlapped:
the result is seamless sound of consistently high quality, nearly "hi
fi" in frequency response and lack of distortion.
Cut at 33.3 rpm with wide-band equipment, the lacquers captured highs
up to about 8.5 to 9 kHz, and feature wider dynamic range, full bass,
and less filtered coloration than the best copy of the commercial 78s.
I understand that Seth Winner of the Toscanini archive provided the
equipment and access to the disks, and the needle-drop, for Ward
Marston to accomplish the reprocessing and editing. The technical
result is that one almost imagines for extended passages of the
broadcast that a magnetic tape source and NOT a mechanical disk has
provided the superb, rich, highly- present sound (an impossibility,
for tape technology was limited to experiments in Britain and Germany
in the year 1939.) Yet the sound approaches the quality of early-
fifties LPs! Only the slightest occasional small ticks and pops about
35 to 40 dB below the loudest peaks are audible, and Marston and the
RCA producers have wisely decided not to use crude computer software
to eliminate them.
If I had to select ONE Toscanini record for posterity out of the huge
and astonishing legacy of the conductor, it would be this very
performance and transfer! Only the lack of the first movement
exposition repeat reminds one that we continue to inhabit the Earthly
domain of humanity and not the Heavenly realms.
According the Richard Caniell (of the Immortal Performances Recorded
Music Society, that has preserved the Richard Gardner Toscanini
collection) the Music & Arts CD transfer of this performance is also
in excellent sound; I have not heard the Swiss-made Relief CD, nor the
Naxos Toscanini Concert Edition release. I cannot imagine that any of
these three will be superior to the superb clarity and perfection of
the Marston job preserved on this "official" issue, though I suppose
that they are all, in their unique ways, valid transfers, lacking in
the phoniness of the cheap Italian bootleg recordings. And the Naxos
issue includes ALL the applause, as well as the announcements of the
broadcast and the other works in the program, not present in the BMG
Gold Seal release; the Music & Arts truncates the applause.
The Eighth symphony commercial 78 rpm recording from 17 April 1939
is the disk-mate, and one's elevated mood is soon punctured by the
wiry, noisy, and distorted sound of the original shellac disks, among
the very worst of the 78 sets from Studio 8-H. Not only is the sound
aggressively hard and tight, but also there is a fuzzy intermodulation
distortion and "suck out" of detail caused, I would assume, by some
cutting disorder (I have heard such evidence of what is known as
"audio crossover distortion" in many other RCA shellacs produced from
the late thirties through the mid-forties.)
I can assure you that this is EXACTLY like my own copy of the original
shellacs, which contained the same audible defects. In fact, my own
efforts to transfer that set of the original 78's was no better, and
was -- in fact -- not as satisfactory or clean as this modern transfer
(though I personally boosted the bass a bit more in my own tape.)
The first movement repeat is employed here, investing the work with a
more imposing architecture than the usual traversal. Yet Maestro is
quite unyielding, and presses on urgently throughout the reading. The
more expansive broadcast performance of 8 Nov 1952 (unreleased as yet
on any medium save for an obscure and out-of-print bootleg CD)
preserves a more sunny and genial Toscanini interpretation, though it
is slightly marred by an instrumental "clam" in the finale. Otherwise,
one prefers the tighter but effective commercial 1952
recording session released in Vol. 4 of the RCA / BMG Toscanini CD
Collection.
BEETHOVEN Second Sym (1949-51); Seventh (1951); Vol. 2
Vol. 2 of the "official" RCA / BMG Toscanini collection contains the
very familiar fifties' performances from commercial recording sessions
of these two great works; yet for their virtues, these are NOT the
best Toscanini readings, though the technical processing is perfectly
satisfactory.
The archival disks (once well-transferred to LP by Music & Arts) of
the Toscanini broadcast of Nov. 4, 1939 containing the Symphony No. 2
must surely represent the conductor's finest available reading on
disks (sadly, the Grammophono 2000 edition on CD has added phony
stereo and heavy echo, so one must look for the imported UK edition on
Naxos 8.110815-16 -- the entire concert program with announcements and
the Symphony No. 4 -- or for the very hard-to-find and costly Relief
CD on CR-1871.)
On the present RCA / BMG CD, one finds a composite of recording
sessions from Nov. 7, 1949 and Oct. 5, 1951, held in the excellent
acoustics of Carnegie Hall. However, the mike placement was
about as close as the typical Studio 8H broadcasts, diminishing the
spaciousness and enhancing the intensity (which is further boosted by
the audio compression used for the master tapes, which -- at 30 ips
original speed -- at least had full and clear highs and rich bass
response, though lots of hiss.) Had this recording been taken down
with a more conservative, single-point miking from a more distant
perspective, with a true dynamic range, the performance might seem
more natural and unforced; in the rather 'glamorized' typical RCA
engineering showcasing, it has acquired something of the
aggressiveness and punchiness that is also shared by many
late-forties, early-fifties recordings by Munch, Monteux,
Koussevitzky, and Reiner (equally affected by RCA's
technical decisions and the producers' engineering tastes.) By
contrast, the 1953 "Eroica" contained in Vol. 29 of the series is a
model of naturalness, aided not only by engineering but by the
electricity generated at a live concert event.
Here, in this Second, we have the "canned" Toscanini enthusiasm, but
it is nevertheless a classic recording that has been heard by millions
of music lovers, and deserves inclusion in any comprehensive list of
historic Beethoven performances. In my opinion, the present transfer
is nevertheless much more full-bodied and clean than ANY prior LP
issue on Victor or Victrola, and is certainly the superior means of
enjoying the performance.
The incomparable 1936 recording session of the Beethoven Seventh is
brilliantly reproduced in Vol. 64 of the RCA / BMG series: the New
York Philharmonic performance is a marvel of controlled intensity yet
spacious expression, while in this rather dreadfully forced Nov. 9,
1951 recording session with the NBC ensemble (corrected with bits from
the live broadcast of Nov. 10) we have one of the most hectic and
overstressful performance of all time. The claustrophobic,
overamplified engineering (which makes the music sometimes sound as
though it will burst apart at climaxes) completes the job, rendering
this recording the worst choice of any Toscanini reading of the work.
The same basic approach was attempted by the Maestro for the broadcast
of Nov. 18, 1939, and there it worked, and reached the very edge of
allowable intensity while not going "over the top": in '39, the
opening movement lasted 11:20; in '51, it clocked in at a blistering
11:04: those extra seconds were shaved off by means of a stricter
approach to scansion, a more precise attention to the values of rests,
and less plastic phrasing. For example: the main subject of the
opening movement, commencing about four minutes elapsed time, is
played in '51 with almost no inflection or nuance of phrasing, at
about the fastest practical pacing just short of breakdown: a pity,
for the pregnant introduction promises a toweringly powerful
performance, not the rapid-fire run-through that actually
materialises. In 1936 and 1939, we have joyous extroversion and
ecstacy, which -- in 1951 -- are replaced by a grim desparation and
brutal harshness.
Try the Naxos Toscanini Concert Edition for the complete 1939
broadcast, with the Egmont Overturen and Septet and all the applause
and announcments, or the edited version on Relief CR-1885, for "in
house" sound of the archival source, or the Grammophono CD release for
a much inferior, echoey, phony stereo reconstruction: even the latter
is preferable to the "authentic" original RCA commercial session of
1951.
However, be warned that this original single-channel RCA series will
be replaced with a "refurbished" one containing added stereophonic
ambience not present in the original recordings. If you love truthful
mono, be sure to get the present CD edition in the Gold Seal set, and
NOT the newer Red Seal that may be made, according to claims, with
20-bit sampling: if that is indeed the case, the overall result is
nevertheless inferior, because the producers have added specious
stereo echo to confuse the low end solidity and to "distance" the
listener from the clarity of the original tape.
- - -
A FANATICAL TOSCANINIPHILE
"Ignorance is bliss: use a killfile & add to it every day!"
-- Corno di Bassetto
Alan S. Lesitsky
(Rtsina) wrote:
> >all further
> >attempts by the Maestro would never measure up (he did
> >the work nearly a dozen times after this waxing, and recorded it again
> >onto magnetic tape in a poor, overdriven 1951 account.)
>
> AFT
>
> In reference to the 1951 Beethoven 7th, I'd have to disagree. I don't find it
> either "poor" or "overdriven." I'm fortunate to have a pretty fair sounding
> cassette of the broadcast from which much of this performance is derived. It
> sounds even better there! Most notable is a strange little
ornamentation that
> Toscanini places on an oboe phrase both in the broadcast and on the
recording.
> I never heard that on any other performance. Tinkering, but pleasant
> tinkering.
>
> Now come clean, wouldn't you line up for a chance to hear a seventh of
the 1951
> caliber at any concert in the SF area? When was the last time you did?
>
> Cheers,
>
> DT
Actually, I heard a very fine performance of the 7th that reminded me of
the 1951 Toscanini performance. It was a few years ago, with Eschenbach
guest conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. While I remember the first
movement as being a bit labored, the performance grew more incandescant as
it progressed, and the last movement was outstanding. Since the concert
was not broadcast, I've been hoping for a recording from him ever since
that night. A great evening spent in the company of great music and great
friends.
Curtis Croulet
the
>last movement coda in the '51 Beethoven 7th.
And I thought I was the only one who preferred this to 1936.
Rtsina
>attempts by the Maestro would never measure up (he did
>the work nearly a dozen times after this waxing, and recorded it again
>onto magnetic tape in a poor, overdriven 1951 account.)
AFT
A. F. T.
>In reference to the 1951 Beethoven 7th, I'd have to disagree. I don't find it
>either "poor" or "overdriven."
The very first time I heard the 1951performance was about 1960...I had
dropped into a late-night program on KFAC-Los Angeles, heard on
wavery, static-y AM radio via skip signal from the SF bay area. I
tuned in to the middle of the first movement, which -- due to the AM
transmission and the compression -- was even more monochromatic and
stressed than the CD transfer sounds now. At the time, I had heard
the symphony and knew it, and recognized the work at once, but was
struck by the almost hysterical and anxious quality of the
performance. I did not care for it then, and I STILL fail to
appreciate it, in comparison to the 1936 commercial shellac set, an
almost unassailable classic.
I recently obtained Relief CR-1885, which offers the complete concert
of Nov. 18, 1938, containing the Egmont Overture, the Septet, and the
Seventh. The last reading is similar to the '51, and is much more
emphatic and rugged than the more "classical" '36 Victor 78's, but has
better sense of proportion and control than the commercial session of
'51. I recall that in the live broadcast, the basic sound pickup and
tempi were remarkably similar to the commercial tapes made in Carnegie
Hall on November 9 (while the broadcast was done on Nov. 10 and was a
very typical Toscanini assemblage: the Prokofiev Classical Symphony,
the Berlioz Queen Mab Scherzo, and the Seventh.) It seemed to me, the
last time I listened to the aircheck tape (c.1989 or '90), that there
was little interpretative difference between the live and canned
readings of the symphony: both were "streamlined" in the
late-Toscanini style, with hyper-tenseness replacing the magisterial
authority of the Philharmonic A-Major performance. Similarly, the '51
live and recorded versions of the Brahms E-Minor were cut from the
same cloth, and were less expansive and expressive than ones from
1948, and especially the Feb. 11, 1939 NBC broadcast, or the June,
1935 BBC production. I would suggest that during much of the 1951
season, Toscanini's performances were slightly substandard: could this
have been due to his hip injury, or to worry about his wife's health?
In '52 and '53, as well as in some of the '54 season, he seemed to
open up and release the straightjacket that had confined his emotions.
Perhaps the Beethoven Seventh can stand this kind of propulsive,
over-dramatic interpretation; but I would prefer more of the sunny
warmth of central Europe that I hear in, say, the Toscanini
Philharmonic reading, or the Walter, or the Stokowski of the late
twenties.
>Now come clean, wouldn't you line up for a chance to hear a seventh of the 1951
>caliber at any concert in the SF area? When was the last time you did?
As a matter of fact, George Cleve gave some Beethoven performances not
too dissimilar from the '51 Toscanini recording during his first
seasons with the San Jose Symphony, and I recall a bracing Eroica and
Seventh, with tempi like Toscanini's, but afflicted with slapdash,
jumbled playing by the underdeveloped orchestra. Later, after his
burn accident, and when the musicians had settled down into a smoother
ensemble, Cleve gave performances of the symphonies that were more
accomplished, but lacked the electricity and fire. So, I too would
agree with DT that the Seventh, as played here in this commercial 1951
recording, would be a tonic: from time to time, I hear a trace of the
kinetic excitement of Toscanini in one or another period-instrument
performance by a Gardiner or a Hogwood, but seldom from a "standard"
modern orchestra and a jet-setting conductor.
A. F. T.
BEETHOVEN: Sym 4 (1951); Sym 6 (1952); Vol. 3
The sound quality of this live broadcast from Carnegie Hall of
February 3, 1951, is marginally substandard, compared to some better
line check recordings on commercial RCA labels of fifties' Toscanini
programs (such as the Eroica of '53 in Vol. 29, or the Gluck Orfeo
Second Act in Vol. 46.)
The first 30 to 31 seconds of the transfer come, unmistakably, from a
lacquer disk, possibly from an alternate source, or even perhaps from
the dress rehearsal; there is evidence of mechanical noise, scrape,
and faint ticks and pops (but not more than one would hear if playing
a well-preserved old LP); at 31 seconds, a transition is made to a
tape recording that was taken down, I surmise, at some distance from
Carnegie Hall, and may even be the actual NBC radio network line
program feed that left New York: one can hear dial pulses from a
telephone company Strohger switch at several points during the first
movement, and these are crisp and clear, with sharp transients, so the
RECORDING medium, per se, was good or the high frequency clicks would
have been muted. The high frequencies of the orchestral pickup,
however, are somewhat dull, and have little -- if any -- energy above
about 10 kHz, with a recessive top end with little bloom and life, and
almost no trace of Carnegie Hall room tone.
That being said, the recording is not bad, but is not as well defined
as a technical leap forward over the mechanical disk era as, say, the
taped Beethoven Ninth of '52 is, when compared to the transcription
disks of the live 1948 Beethoven Ninth that sourced the BMG video of
the Toscanini telecast.
The performance surely has never sounded as fine as other commercial
Toscanini releases of the early fifties: even the first edition of the
Marsh book notes "I have listened to a copy of the original tape and
can report that the disk reproduces the sound of the source recording
well, though it is not less cramped and dry for that...the refurbished
master...is still faulty, with excessive treble and phony-sounding
resonance and insufficient bass." I recall that my old copy of
LM-1723, which was a bright red label Victor pressing that I purchased
in the early sixties before the Victrola set was issued, had those
defects, and surely did not sound as accurate as this CD transfer.
That side of the B-Flat symphony was inferior to the live '52 Fifth on
the opposite side of the disk; the CD of that version of the Fifth
(Vol. 4 in the BMG set) is so far the best transfer yet, and surpasses
the more recent Red Seal (with added ambience, a throwback to the
hated and derided "enhancement" inflicted by Victor in the fifties.)
The 1951 performance of the Fourth is not as 'interesting' as the
earlier 1939 reading by the BBC Symphony, taken down on 78 rpm masters
by a continuous recording process with multiple lathes, by HMV
engineers in Queen's Hall in London, and best heard in the spectacular
transfer by Mark Obert-THorn on Biddulph WHL 008-9 (in fidelity so
striking that it scarcely sounds a dozen years older.) In addition,
the live broadcast of the Fourth symphony from the NBC concert of 4
November 1939 is available in the Naxos Toscanini Concert Edition
(UK/European import, 8.110815-16), with the Second Symphony and
Leonore Overture No. 3, and all applause and announcements. The
performance is livelier and more expressive, and in clarity and
transparency that surpass the BBC recording made half a year earlier.
Even Studio 8H sounds fine: it is not appreciably "drier" or duller
sounding than the Carnegie Hall pickup of the 1951 Fourth. I recall
listening to the '51 performance also in the complete Red Seal set of
the Beethoven symphonies (LM 6900) and in the Victrola reissue, and
found the sound in those editions not appreciably better in any way.
So the CD will do as the best possible transfer we are likely to get.
The earlier tracks on Vol. 3 are the Carnegie Hall recording session
of January 14, 1952 in Carnegie Hall, of the Beethoven Pastorale, a
touchstone of Maestro's repertoire. Only the '39 live version
disappoints me: he is too tense and 'hair-triggered' in this high
voltage reading from the famed 1939 Beethoven Symphony cycle; in the
1937 BBC reading (Biddulph, as listed above) and especially in the
final performance from March 7, 1954 (a slow, lingering, and
valedictory reading) we hear the full range of expressive
possibilities in the Maestro's approach to the score. Perhaps if I
had to move to a desert island, I would need only the live broadcast
of Dec. 6, 1941, which rises to a level of recreative incandescence
that is lacking in all the others; but this commercial recording of
1952 is by no means the least of the Toscanini artifacts of this
popular work. It has a sense of spontaneity and expression that are
sometimes lacking in his "canned" recordings, and has all the warmth
of the 1941 performance, if not the uncanny perfection of proportion
and execution. By contrast, the 1937 edition is scrappy and coarsely
recorded; the '39 NBC version is cramped and tense; and the '54
broadcast perhaps a bit too languorous and even a bit slack.
The recording quality of this Sixth is an order of magnitude more
transparent and exciting than the accompanying Fourth. The highs
extend up as far as the tape technology permitted (surely to 14 or 15
kHz) and the bass is rich; the presence range is strong and uncolored;
only the dynamic range is lacking: for there is unmistakable evidence
of the awful, clangorous fast-release RCA peak limiter in loud
passages in the Scherzo and the Storm (where the tympani break
through, sucking down the body of the ensemble, which you can perceive
at Tr 4, 00:27 seconds elapsed time, and at other points in loud
passages of the fourth movement.) This same thing happens in the live
1939 broadcast though I recall that there was less of this compression
in an amateur aircheck from NY FM transmission of the 1954 broadcast.
No matter; the compression has been evident in ALL previous LP issues.
Furthermore, the Victor Red Seal copies that I had on vinyl suffered
from other defects NOT present in this excellent CD transfer: for
example, my copy of a bright red label pressing of LM-1755 had vastly
boosted, rumbly, over-ripe bass, dulled highs, and a vague
intermodulation distortion that made it sound distant, fuzzy, and
unpleasant. None of this is present in the exceptionally clear,
clean, and honest monaural transfer on this BMG Toscanini Collection
compact disk version.
- - - -
To follow shortly will be my comments on Vol. 4 (Fifth and Eighth
Symphonies); Vol. 5 (Ninth); Vol. 25 ('39 Beethoven Fifth, '52
Septet); Vol. 29 ('53 Eroica); Vol. 41 (Beethoven Violin Concerto with
Heifetz); Vol 45 (Beethoven Overtures); Vol. 42 (Beethoven Piano
Concerti with Serkin and Dorfmann); and the 2-disk set of the '53
Missa Solemnis and the '49 Cherubini Requiem (as soon as I retrieve it
from a friend, who borrowed it to compare it with his new Red Seal
transfer of the Solemn Mass.)
Then, time permitting, I will TRY over the next few months or weeks to
go through the rest of the Gold Seal Toscanini series.
A. F. T.
had I finished, closed Windows, and sat down to my dinner that I
recalled my mistake.
On Sat, 19 Dec 1998 03:55:55 GMT, NoE...@AnyOldPlace.Arg (A. F. T.)
wrote:
>I recall that my old copy of LM-1723, which was a bright red label
>Victor pressing that I purchased in the early sixties before the Victrola
>set was issued, had those defects, and surely did not sound as accurate as this CD transfer.
>That side of the B-Flat symphony was inferior to the live '52 Fifth on
>the opposite side of the disk;
My error of recollection is that the old Red Seal coupled the Fourth
and Fifth; of course, it paired the '51 Fourth with the '49-'51
composite of the SECOND, reviewed above in Pt. 1 of my overview.
>the CD of that version of the Fifth
>(Vol. 4 in the BMG set) is so far the best transfer yet, and surpasses
>the more recent Red Seal (with added ambience, a throwback to the
>hated and derided "enhancement" inflicted by Victor in the fifties.)
That much is certainly true; but the '52 Fifth was coupled with the
'52 commercial Eighth on LM-1757. My edition had a spectacular color
reproduction of a closeup head shot of Toscanini (who looked very
cross-eyed!), a picture that was also used on certain pressings of the
Camden transfer of the 1936 Philharmonic Beethoven Seventh.
That issue of the Fifth/Eighth (in a late Red Seal pressing, c. 1962)
had boosted highs and lows: the Eighth, in particular, was quite
shrill. The broadcast recording of the Fifth, perhaps, COULD do with
a bit of "enhancement" since it was a somewhat dry tape after the
fashion of the '51 live Beethoven Fourth. For years, I preferred this
particular processing and transfer of the Fifth; now that I have the
CD (Vol. 4 in the Gold Seal set) I would never return to it, for the
latter is clear, clean, and honest, and sounds suitably powerful in
climactic passages.
Rtsina
>season, Toscanini's performances were slightly substandard: could this
>have been due to his hip injury, or to worry about his wife's health?
>In '52 and '53, as well as in some of the '54 season, he seemed to
>open up and release the straightjacket that had confined his emotions.
>
>
>Perhaps the Beethoven Seventh can stand this kind of propulsive,
>over-dramatic interpretation; but I would prefer more of the sunny
>warmth of central Europe that I hear in, say, the Toscanini
>Philharmonic reading, or the Walter, or the Stokowski of the late
>twenties.
I tend to enjoy the style. For example, his February 1951 Beethoven Fourth is
marvellous. Of course that's the '50-51 season. Ditto the stunning Brahms
Second from early '51. I might add that my tape of the concert containing the
Beethoven 4th, Prometheus Ovt. and something else has a quality of sound
somewhat different from the commercial release on BMG cd. The winds are warmer
and the perspective a little closer.
What remains of my hair continues to stand on end as we come to the end of the
last movement coda in the '51 Beethoven 7th. If hypertension affected
Toscanini, it was probably during the 1943-47 period when he really had it, so
I've heard.
Anyhow, chacun a son gout.
Cheers
DT
Rtsina
>From: "Curtis Croulet" <curt...@pe.net>
>Date: 12/19/98 2:26 AM EST
>Message-id: <75fn4n$28u$1...@nntp.pe.net>
>
>>What remains of my hair continues to stand on end as we come to the end of
>the
>
I have always preferred the 51 performance; and I tend to agree with B.H.
Haggin that the NBC SO was a much greater orchestra after the 1950 tour. For
me, the performances from around 1950 to early 1954 are the high points.
Again, a matter of personal preference. I do acknowledge the power and
enthusiasm of those 1938-1943 performances, and enjoy them. But I keep
returning to the later ones. Maybe it's the sound, too.
Cheers,
DT
Simon Roberts
: >What remains of my hair continues to stand on end as we come to the end of
: the
: >last movement coda in the '51 Beethoven 7th.
: And I thought I was the only one who preferred this to 1936.
I'm another.
Simon
A. F. T.
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D, Heifetz (1940); Piano Concerto No. 3,
Rubinstein (1944); Vol. 41
The original 78 rpm set of the Violin Concerto, which was in my own
library of shellac recordings of the pre-microgroove era, had -- as
Marsh pointed out -- a striking cover painting of a diamond: "Those
who remember the cover...may well think of this as t
There was no broadcast performance, as determined by John Wilson's
research in the NBC and RCA archives: the rehearsals and recorded
performance were done without prior public readings by the artists,
whose only extant prior collaborations were the 1933 an
in different transfer edition for members of the private Immortal
Performances Recorded Music Society of Richard Caniell, and in a
horribly falsified, grotesquely filtered, and unlistenable "bootleg"
on a recent CD that I would rather not publicize.)
We know that alternative takes of at least the second movement of the
Beethoven concerto, with slower tempi, have turned up as recently as 2
years ago in the RCA archives, according to a post here by Mark
Obert-Thorn. These are presently in the Rodgers &
Mortimer Frank advises us in his notes for the current edition that
Toscanini collaborated with Ysa˙e as long ago as 1897 in a performance
of this work; after these 1940 recording sessions, he never again
conducted it. In contrast, there are numerous Furt
Heifetz, on the other hand, is a unique interpreter, and his stereo
version with Munch -- though similar in its brusque and detached style
-- lacks the classicism, restraint, and sobriety of the earlier
Toscanini production; in addition, the earlier mono 1
The transfer in the Gold Seal set is attributed to John Pfeiffer and
Edwin Begley. I am certain that it differs from earlier efforts that
were released on Victor microgroove in the Vault Treasures series of
the early fifties, and in a 2-disk "Dynagroove"
However, there is a second and later transfer, done by Jon Samuels, in
the BMG "Heifetz Collection", in Vol. 5 ("1939-1946"), specifying the
matrices of the 78 rpm masters utilized. My first reaction to this
was that it was probably identical in sound to
The opening of the work, in the Gold Seal, bears a noticeable level of
surface noise, clicks, and disk-swishing sound: obviously this
transfer was made in analogue form before any type of automatic
de-clicking software was available (in those days, removin
By contrast, the opening passages in the Heifetz Edition version are
extremely quiet, with a slightly "warmer" tonal equalization. One has
no idea WHEN the Samuels transfer was made, but it was probably
accomplished with a different set of physical materi
However, one is sad to report that this second version is burdened
with a slight mixture of stereophonic echo that is NOT present,
obviously, in the original monaural sound source. On headphones, the
echo is an obvious intrusion, spread out in a "platform
So, you have your choice: here what appears to be the somewhat closer-
to-the-original mono on the Gold Seal, and the clean but altered phony
stereo with echo on the Heifetz set. Perhaps the Gold Seal may
contain some extra ambience, too, but it is folded
The equalization of the earlier transfer, used in the present Vol. 41,
emphasizes the winds and inner voices, and may indeed be more "honest"
and accurate, reflecting the original source material; in switching
quickly between this transfer and the Samuels
However, the Gold Seal contains more of the disk background defects,
as well as a very slight 120-Hz hum (only a tiny fraction of the
blatant low frequency howl on the last RCA vinyl set), both of which
are almost totally absent from the Heifetz Collection
Either transfer is MILES ahead of the original 78's for listening
satisfaction, and -- I suspect, though cannot immediately corroborate
it -- are much more smooth and pleasing than the old LCT-1010
microgroove copy; perhaps Dick Tsina has it and can commen
I also note, in comparing the solo violin passages, that the Gold Seal
has a more distant quality than the immediate and intimate sounding
balance on the Heifetz Collection version: this could be due to added
monaural echo, or from alternative disks made w
Placing my preamp mode switch in L+R mono, I audited the two CD
transfers on headphones, and noted the differences even more
dramatically than on speakers. The Samuels transfer, with echo folded
down to mono, is more consistent and smooth, is warmer and r
Both versions have similar "side joins": for example, at 08:09 seconds
elapsed time in the first movement, there is a very distinct change of
pace, sound quality, and presence at the orchestral tutti, though the
transition is more obvious on the Gold Seal
Some months ago, I listened to the entirety of the Gold Seal in the
music room where my wife teaches her piano lessons. We have a large
studio with a high, peaked ceiling and an irregular shape, and the
sound quality of the venue is spacious and pleasing,
Interestingly enough, the last movement transfer in the Gold Seal
edition is peaked about 7 or 8 dB LOWER than the first movement: the
effect is that the finale of the work does not have the dramatic
impact in sheer sonic terms as the opening movement, unl
The peak levels of the Heifetz Collection V. 5 transfer seem identical
in movement one; but in movement three they are in proper balance and
relationship, being some 7 or 8 dB LOUDER than the deficient and
incorrectly-low-amplitude transfer in the Gold Sea
So my final recommendation is to obtain the Heifetz Collection, V. 5,
and to listen to it in L+R mono mode, in slight preference to the Gold
Seal version. We have here a case of comparing two slightly "impure"
editions, versus the pure but sonicallly-tryi
_ _ _
The Rubinstein performance of the Piano Concerto No. 3 has a slightly
more indulgent and inflected accompaniment than the 1946 performance
with Hess on the Naxos Toscanini Concert Edition (UK/European import,
not released in the US, on 8.110804); the latte
The presence and tonal balance in this Studio 8H broadcast are
remarkably fine, everything considered. Like most "authentic" and
undoctored original "in-house" linecheck disks, made with a minimum of
antique electronics in the chain from mike to cutter, ra
The piano is, like almost all 8H concerto performances, rather thin
sounding, and is very close-miked. I made an effort, in transferring
the original 78 shellac set in the seventies, to enrich it with a bass
boost, but that falsified the orchestra. So on
There are scratchy moments, ticks, and occasional background swishes
in the masters, but these are unobjectionable and are compensated for
by the realism and transparency of the spectrum, which extends up to
about 9 kHz at the top end, and perhaps well bel
The Gold Seal transfer, however, has NO trace of this speed defect,
and one can hear the eloquence and intensity of the reading without
being constantly reminded of the technical defects of the recording,
using one's brain to ignore minuscule, momentary su
As in the case of the Gold Seal transfer of the Beethoven Violin
Concerto, the sonic platform is single-channel mono, immediately
perceived on headphones as a proper and solid centering with no trace
of modern stereophonic ambience spreading out to the sid
One must note that, despite the unidiomatic rendering, the Concerto
here is propulsive, exciting, and convincing on a moment-to-moment
basis, with passion and enthusiasm radiating from every measure. If a
German artist, like a Backhaus, has made the work
The addition of much of the enthusiastic applause, gently faded before
the radio announcements, enhances the liveness and documentary quality
of the event.
A. F. T.
the Beethoven Violin Concerto, my newsreader crashed at the instant of
transmission, wrecking my hard drive FAT, and dumping me off line! I
had to reboot, do some quick disk fixes, and retrieve the shards of my
comments, piecing them together. Unaccountably, my first paragraph
was truncated. I SHOULD have written:
>The original 78 rpm set of the Violin Concerto, which was in my own
>library of shellac recordings of the pre-microgroove era, had -- as
>Marsh pointed out -- a striking cover painting of a diamond: "Those
>who remember the cover...may well think of this as the old diamond in the rough."
I lost another sentence or two, essentially inconsequential as the
body of my following remarks covered the ground as I intended.
A. F. T.
unfortunately it appeared online in a highly truncated version, in
clumps of data that cut off each paragraph prematurely. I have TRIED
to cancel and repost; many of you will NOT get the cancel message on
your server, and will have 2 versions: the bad one, and this corrected
one, in which I attempt to piece it together again. I believe I have
lost about 20% of the original version, but -- judging from the
following recomposition -- perhaps it is the better for the necessary
shortening and editing!
Continuation of Gold Seal set of Toscanini Beethoven transfers:
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D, Heifetz (1940); Piano Concerto No. 3,
Rubinstein (1944); Vol. 41
The original 78 rpm set of the Violin Concerto, which was in my own
library of shellac recordings of the pre-microgroove era, had -- as
Marsh pointed out -- a striking cover painting of a diamond: "Those
who remember the cover...may well think of this as the old diamond in
the rough"; and rough indeed was the tinny, shrill, and uningratiating
sound of this deficient set of disks. The Gold Seal, and the somewhat
superior and rather different Heifetz Collection CD transfer, are to
be preferred to the original, and enable one to enjoy the performance
while not unduly suffering from the antique reproduction.
There was no broadcast performance, as determined by John Wilson's
research in the NBC and RCA archives: the rehearsals and recorded
performance were done without prior public readings by the artists,
whose only prior collaborations were the 1933 and 1935 public
performances with the Philharmonic-Symphony of the Brahms Concerto
(the latter available in a Seth Winner reconstruction from the NY
Philharmonic, as well as in a different transfer edition for members
of the private Immortal Performances Recorded Music Society of Richard
Caniell, and in a horribly falsified, grotesquely filtered, and
unlistenable "bootleg" on a recent CD that I would rather not
publicize.)
We know that alternative takes of at least the second movement of the
Beethoven concerto, with slower tempi, have turned up as recently as 2
years ago in the RCA archives, according to a post here by Mark
Obert-Thorn. These are presently in the Rodgers & Hammerstein
Toscanini collection, and one hopes that eventually they may turn up
in an "authorized" commercial version we can all investigate (or
perhaps at least in a release on Pearl or Biddulph.)
Mortimer Frank advises us in his notes for the current edition that
Toscanini collaborated with Ysa˙e as long ago as 1897 in a performance
of this work; after these 1940 recording sessions, he never again
conducted it. In contrast, there are numerous Furtwaengler
performances of the concerto (3 with Menuhin, and one each with Roehn
and Schneiderhan, the last in exceptional high-fidelity sound
quality); and Bruno Walter led the work in the famous 1932
collaboration with Szigeti, and the American remake in '47, as well as
in a remarkably elegant broadcast rendition with Camilla Wicks and the
Philharmonic in the fifties, and the late stereo version, expressively
played, with Zino Francescatti and the Columbia Symphony. These
German conductors bring more idiomatic authority to the performance
than Toscanini, who directs a chaste and austere reading, not lacking
in drama, but somewhat deficient in inner life and sustained pulse.
Heifetz, on the other hand, is a unique interpreter, and his stereo
version with Munch -- though similar in its brusque and detached style
-- lacks the classicism, restraint, and sobriety of the earlier
Toscanini production; in addition, the earlier mono recording by the
violinist captures him at a respectful distance rather than in the
over-close miking of the stereo recordings, picking up finger scrapes
and squeaks (little wonder that Heifetz regarded "high fidelity" as
"high fooey"!)
The transfer in the Gold Seal set is attributed to John Pfeiffer and
Edwin Begley. I am certain that it differs from earlier efforts that
were released on Victor microgroove in the Vault Treasures series of
the early fifties, and in a 2-disk "Dynagroove" LP album of Heifetz
Beethoven performances. This latter vinyl issue had a very irritating
low-frequency mains hum all throughout the first movement, defacing
the otherwise acceptable balances of the recording.
However, there is a second and later transfer, done by Jon Samuels, in
the BMG "Heifetz Collection", in Vol. 5 ("1939-1946"), specifying the
matrices of the 78 rpm masters utilized. My first reaction to this
was that it was probably identical in sound to the Gold Seal; however,
this morning I did an extensive comparison that revealed the unique
character of each, and the considerable differences.
The opening of the work, in the Gold Seal, bears a noticeable level of
surface noise, clicks, and disk-swishing sound: obviously this
transfer was made in analogue form before any type of automatic
de-clicking software was available (in those days, removing ticks
involved cumbersome manual tape editing and cutting, so not every tiny
pop was excised.)
By contrast, the opening passages in the Heifetz Edition version are
extremely quiet, with a slightly "warmer" tonal equalization. One has
no idea precisely when the Samuels transfer was made, but it was
probably accomplished with a different set of physical materials
corresponding in musical content to the 78-rpm matrices; I assume that
careful parametric equalization has eliminated the hum without
eviscerating the bass response.
However, one is sad to report that this second version is burdened
with a slight mixture of stereophonic echo that is NOT present,
obviously, in the original monaural sound source. On headphones, the
echo is an obvious intrusion, spread out in a "platform" to the left
and right of center; it is slightly perceptible on speakers though not
as obvious as a foreign element in the recording mixture.
So, you have your choice: hear what appears to be the somewhat closer-
to-the-original mono on the Gold Seal, and the clean but altered phony
stereo with echo on the Heifetz set. Perhaps the Gold Seal may
contain some extra ambience, too, but it is folded down into mono and
does not stand out in a different plane from the music. The last note
of the final movement gives this away, as I will describe below.
The equalization of the earlier transfer, used in the present Vol. 41,
emphasizes the winds and inner voices, and may indeed be more "honest"
and accurate, reflecting the original source material; in switching
quickly between this transfer and the Samuels version, the changes
were very distinct, though they may not be perceived so (or as
obviously) if the recordings are played all the way through at
different times.
However, the Gold Seal contains more of the disk background defects,
as well as a very slight 120-Hz hum (only a tiny fraction of the
blatant low frequency growl on the last RCA vinyl set), both of which
are almost totally absent from the Heifetz Collection Vol. 5 transfer
of Samuels.
Either transfer is MILES ahead of the original 78's for listening
satisfaction, and -- I suspect, though cannot immediately corroborate
it -- are much more smooth and pleasing than the old LCT-1010
microgroove copy; perhaps Dick Tsina has it and can comment about that
rendition in comparison to the shellacs and the compact disk versions.
I also note, in comparing the solo violin passages, that the Gold Seal
has a more distant quality than the immediate and intimate sounding
balance on the Heifetz Collection version: this could be due to added
monaural echo, or from alternative disks made with a more distant
perspective; but I really suspect the former, rather than the latter,
situation.
Placing my preamp mode switch in L+R mono, I audited the two CD
transfers on headphones, and noted the differences even more
dramatically than on speakers. The Samuels transfer, with echo folded
down to mono, is more consistent and smooth, is warmer and richer, and
is more consistent from side to side.
Both versions have similar "side joins": for example, at 08:09 seconds
elapsed time in the first movement, there is a very distinct change of
pace, sound quality, and presence at the orchestral tutti, though the
transition is more obvious on the Gold Seal than in the Heifetz
Collection version, where corrective equalization and level adjustment
have minimized it; however, no technical manipulation can disguise the
interpretive nature of this "cold start" on the new side at the tutti.
Some months ago, I listened to the entirety of the Gold Seal in the
music room where my wife teaches her piano lessons. We have a large
studio with a high, peaked ceiling and an irregular shape, and the
sound quality of the venue is spacious and pleasing, beneficial to the
tone of our large grand piano. Heard there, the 1940 recording was
full and satisfying, with a pleasant open sense of natural dynamics,
and a proper violin balance, more blended with the ensemble than in
the Munch stereo version, where the soloist is up-front and too
personal! With my analogue metering system, I measured an electrical
dynamic range of about 30 dB between the very quiet opening tympani
strokes and the loud notes at the end of the first movement, quite
fine for a commercial recording of 1940, and wider in variance than
many other Toscanini 78's of the immediately later era.
Interestingly enough, the last movement transfer in the Gold Seal
edition is peaked overall about 7 or 8 dB LOWER than the first
movement: the effect is that the finale of the work does not have the
dramatic impact in sheer sonic terms as the opening movement, unlike
the correct level relationships in each of the movements of the
Heifetz Collection copy, where the last movement is just as loud and
full as the end of the first. If you have the Gold Seal, I would
recommend raising your playback gain for the second and third
movements.
The peak levels of the Heifetz Collection V. 5 transfer seem identical
in movement one; but in movement three they are in proper balance and
relationship, being some 7 or 8 dB LOUDER than the deficient and
incorrectly-low-amplitude transfer in the Gold Seal copy. This is a
surprising technical gaffe on the part of Pfeiffer et al.
So my final recommendation is to obtain the Heifetz Collection, V. 5,
and to listen to it in L+R mono mode, in slight preference to the Gold
Seal version. We have here a case of comparing two slightly "impure"
editions, versus the pure but sonicallly-trying original shellac set,
which can be borne only by the ultra-patient and forgiving
non-audiophile.
_ _ _
The Rubinstein performance of the Piano Concerto No. 3 has a slightly
more indulgent and inflected accompaniment than the 1946 performance
with Hess on the Naxos Toscanini Concert Edition (UK/European import,
not released in the US, on 8.110804.)
The presence and tonal balance in this 1944 Studio 8H broadcast are
remarkably fine, everything considered. Like most "authentic" and
undoctored original "in-house" linecheck disks, made with a minimum of
antique electronics in the chain from mike to cutter, the tonal range,
room ambience, and detail are superior to the commercial shellacs
released for 78-rpm record consumers. The realism of this live 1944
broadcast, judging from the clear and accurate instrumental timbre of
the orchestral choirs and solo instruments such as the winds, is
vastly more immediate and lifelike than the accompanying 1940 Violin
Concerto recording.
The piano is, like almost all 8H concerto performances, rather thin
sounding, and is very close-miked. I made an effort, in transferring
the original 78 shellac set in the seventies, to enrich it with a bass
boost, but that falsified the orchestra. So on this transfer one
hears a somewhat tinny keyboard tone, not dissimilar from the
commercial 78's made by Rubinstein of the Chopin Second Sonata.
However, the orchestra has more body and low-end depth.
There are scratchy moments, ticks, and occasional background swishes
in the masters, but these are unobjectionable and are compensated for
by the realism and transparency of the spectrum, which extends up to
about 9 kHz at the top end, and perhaps well below 100 Hz at the low
end of the audible spectrum. Since this CD preserves a copy of the
acetates of the actual broadcast, it has no trace of the speed defect
of continual fast wow that was present in the shellac set M-1016 (this
was not a case of off-center disks; it was intrinsic in the dub to
78's, and could not be eliminated.)
The Gold Seal transfer has NO trace of this speed defect, and one can
hear the eloquence and intensity of the reading without being
constantly reminded of the technical defects of the recording, using
one's brain to ignore minuscule, momentary surface defects.
Do not be tempted by the Piano Library version of this 1944
performance: it has been over-Cedared until there is absolutely no
trace of transparency, acoustical bloom, or overtones, sounding as if
the performance took place in a clothes closet instead of the dry but
distinctly "real" Studio 8H venue. Furthermore, I suspect that the
Piano Library edition is just simply a "rip off" of the BMG
production, and should be shunned if only for that reason; surely no
prior commercial issue from Victor was used to prepare the
computerized butchery.
As in the case of the Gold Seal transfer of the Beethoven Violin
Concerto, the sonic platform is single-channel mono, immediately
perceived on headphones as a proper and solid centering with no trace
of modern stereophonic ambience spreading out to the sides. That
there was indeed some monaural echo added is evident from the very
last note: the disk source is quickly cut off, but an "overhang" from
electronic echo is clearly mixed in, to make the final chord die out
in a seemingly-natural way, instead of collapsing in a wooden clunk as
in the 78 rpm version. One hears this same technique applied by
Victor engineers to the ends of commerciallly-issued Toscanini live
broadcasts, when the decision of the producers was to remove all
vestige of applause, substituting an echo-chamber decay.
Despite the stereo echo in the Heifetz Collection V. 5 transfer, there
is none of this blowsy artifact on the last note.
One must note that, despite the unidiomatic rendering, the Concerto
here is propulsive, exciting, and convincing on a moment-to-moment
basis, with passion and enthusiasm radiating from every measure. If a
German artist, like a Backhaus, has made the work more conventionally
Beethovenian, one must put up with Germanic broad tempi and a trace of
stolidity. Here, a Pole and an Italian enliven the Beethoven work
with an appealing vigor that, one must admit, will be criticized by
those who would prefer the probity of Berliners, or the melodious
naturalness of Viennese interpreters.
The addition of much of the enthusiastic applause, gently faded before
the radio announcements, enhances the liveness and documentary quality
of the event.
Don Drewecki
AFT:
I hate to make this correction, but the alternate takes of the 1940
Beethoven concerto were discovered in the NBC Radio Collection at the
Library of Congress -- acetates made by NBC engineers in Studio 8H.
Seth Winner made the transfers of the alternate take, plus the approved
takes, for the Toscanini Archives. He discovered these takes.
I hereby urge BMG/RCA to spend some money and issue these alternate
takes legitimately, as they have the rights to them, and the royalties
have been paid long ago. Their sound is different and superior to the
familiar 78-rpm edition, to which Jack Pfeiffer added reverb for his
1970 transfer, which was recycled for the Gold Seal CD reissue.
--
Don Drewecki
<dre...@rpi.edu>
A. F. T.
Avenue, Saturday has NOT been a good day! I note that in my
"corrected" repost of the review of the Beethoven, Vol. 41, yet
ANOTHER mistake had crept into the text, which was scraped together
from the magnetic shards of a crashed hard drive:
The reconstruction of my engulfed and digested Windows-crashed post
seems to have appended remarks I made about echoes in the Beethoven
Violin Concerto to an entirely different section of the commentary,
the discussion of the Beethoven Cto #3 with Rubinstein.
So, omit the comments
>That
>there was indeed some monaural echo added is evident from the very
>last note: the disk source is quickly cut off, but an "overhang" from
>electronic echo is clearly mixed in, to make the final chord die out
>in a seemingly-natural way, instead of collapsing in a wooden clunk as
>in the 78 rpm version. One hears this same technique applied by
>Victor engineers to the ends of commerciallly-issued Toscanini live
>broadcasts, when the decision of the producers was to remove all
>vestige of applause, substituting an echo-chamber decay.
>
>Despite the stereo echo in the Heifetz Collection V. 5 transfer, there
>is none of this blowsy artifact on the last note.
from the discussion of the C-Minor Concerto, and append them to the
body of remarks about the Violin Concerto.
Sheesh! Even though I had previously "saved" the correct file to disk
before posting, the rickety Windows code had managed to garble not
only the saved version, but also the posted data; I can only apologize
and wish that I could start all over again. But, as I have learned,
in the cyber world of the newsgroups, a writer has but ONE
chance...mistakes are preserved and immortalized, never to disappear
from history until the deterioration of the final spin of the last
proton!
A. F. T.
>
>AFT:
>
>I hate to make this correction, but the alternate takes of the 1940
>Beethoven concerto were discovered in the NBC Radio Collection at the
>Library of Congress -- acetates made by NBC engineers in Studio 8H.
>Seth Winner made the transfers of the alternate take, plus the approved
>takes, for the Toscanini Archives. He discovered these takes.
The correction is duly noted, and fixes the error in my
poorly-recalled compression of several earlier posts in this ng (I
have just reexamined the original thread and comments made to me
privately by email by certain collectors and of course DD is precisely
correct and I am dead wrong about the matter.
Curtis Croulet
interesting post (Heifetz/AT Beethoven), namely everything beyond the first
four lines of each paragraph, at least as displayed on my PC. Could you
kindly repost the message?
Alan S. Lesitsky
Drewecki) wrote:
> AFT:
>
> I hate to make this correction, but the alternate takes of the 1940
> Beethoven concerto were discovered in the NBC Radio Collection at the
> Library of Congress -- acetates made by NBC engineers in Studio 8H.
> Seth Winner made the transfers of the alternate take, plus the approved
> takes, for the Toscanini Archives. He discovered these takes.
>
> I hereby urge BMG/RCA to spend some money and issue these alternate
> takes legitimately, as they have the rights to them, and the royalties
> have been paid long ago. Their sound is different and superior to the
> familiar 78-rpm edition, to which Jack Pfeiffer added reverb for his
> 1970 transfer, which was recycled for the Gold Seal CD reissue.
To hear this performance in its full glory (taken from 78 RPM sources) you
may wish to hear Seth Winner's transfer on Pearl, in a 2-CD compilation of
Heifetz Concerto recordings from the 1930's.
A. F. T.
wrote:
Please reload the thread, Curtis: glitches, courtesy of Mr. Gates and
his minions, devoured my original post and trashed the copy on my hard
drive, blasting me off the Internet and leaving a mess behind. I
attempted to reconstruct and repost, but introduced further errors,
which I have tried to explain. Depending on the response of your own
server to my frantic CANCEL messages, you MAY have my latest, best
version of the post, or also the earlier truncation. Perhaps it might
be a good idea to cut me off every paragraph after a few words...it
would spare a lot of readers.
Premise Checker
complete and correct?
Have you ever thought of doing a formal Toscanini discography? I'm
surprised the ones that exist are not very good, since he was such an
important artist. The difficulties, as Mike Gray can testify, would be
formidable and take much effort. If you (or anyone else) is game, I can
help out, as I have some old material on live performances as well as
previous discographies and misc. material.
I'd advise searching the Net for existing dg's and contacting their
authors. (Get rid of all the blasted frames and other HTML encumberances,
which makes searches so difficult! Also, they bloat the number of bytes!)
Feel free to use me as a consultant, but you'll have to do the work!
--
Edward A. Cowan
>
> Continuation of Gold Seal set of Toscanini Beethoven transfers:
>
> BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D, Heifetz (1940); Piano Concerto No. 3,
> Rubinstein (1944); Vol. 41
>
> The original 78 rpm set of the Violin Concerto, which was in my own
> library of shellac recordings of the pre-microgroove era, had -- as
> Marsh pointed out -- a striking cover painting of a diamond: "Those
> who remember the cover...may well think of this as the old diamond in
> the rough"; and rough indeed was the tinny, shrill, and uningratiating
> sound of this deficient set of disks. The Gold Seal, and the somewhat
> superior and rather different Heifetz Collection CD transfer, are to
> be preferred to the original, and enable one to enjoy the performance
> while not unduly suffering from the antique reproduction.
Last evening, I played the Heifetz Collection CD mentioned above,
setting the controls as you suggest (L+R mono, all DSP in my Yamaha
DSPE-1000 turned off), and the result was the best sound I have ever
experienced in this difficult recording. I originally got to know this
performance from the dreadful 78s, later from the equally dreadful
two-LP Heifetz set, still later from the only slightly less dreadful
Gold Seal CD in the Toscanini Edition. I had just about given up on this
recording. As you indicate, I did not "suffer unduly" from the antique
reproduction. Indeed, I suspect that BMG/RCA may have had access to
metal masters.
One point about the 1939 Beethoven 5th in the AT Gold Seal collection:
The transfer appears to have come from the originally-issued 78s, or
masters for them, as the second movement still has the odd moments of
"fuzz" around some of the music, recalled from the 78s. (It was these
78s from which I imprinted AT's performance of this symphony.) The old
LP, LCT-1010, had in the second movement a degree of clarity and freedom
from "fuzz" suggesting, as R.C. Marsh also indicates, that different
masters from the same "take" were used for that LP. I have two copies of
LCT-1010, a battered and virtually useless early gold label and a later,
better-sounding shaded dog label LP, from which I also played AT's BBCSO
recording of the Leonore Overture #1, the work which had preceded the
AT/Heifetz performance of the Violin concerto at that final 1936 NYPO
concert that marked AT's departure from the orchestra. I also played the
Biddulph edition of that overture, finding it vastly better than the LP.
(The latter has a disturbing hum.) In addition, I played AT's NBCSO
performance of the Overture from the 1939 broadcast series (on an ATS
LP) and found the performance too tense in comparison with the lyric
beauty and serenity of the BBSSO recording. Also, the NBCSO players were
not, apparently, at that time up to AT's wishes in this work, the
playing being at times quite shaky. The recording distorts the wind
playing horribly.
--E.A.C.
TransfrGuy
Collection transfers of the Heifetz/Toscanini Beethoven Violin Concerto, A.F.T.
wrote:
>Both versions have similar "side joins": for example, at 08:09 seconds
>elapsed time in the first movement, there is a very distinct change of
>pace, sound quality, and presence at the orchestral tutti, though the
>transition is more obvious on the Gold Seal than in the Heifetz
>Collection version, where corrective equalization and level adjustment
>have minimized it
The point A.F.T. is talking about here is the transition from Sides 2 to 3. If
I remember correctly, Side 2 is a dubbing on all 78 editions. The story Jon
Samuels told me is that two takes were recorded, and Heifetz wanted part of the
side to come from one take, and the rest from the other. In 1940, this could
only be done by synchronizing two pressings and re-recording them in real time
onto another disc, with the cutover from one disc to another accomplished
through a cross-fade (with a subsequent degradation to the sound).
When Jon re-transferred this set, he was able to find an undubbed master for
one of the two portions of Side Two. The other portion still had to come from
the dubbing, in order to conform to Heifetz' wishes. However, when Ward
Marston transferred this set for the Franklin Mint "Toscanini Family Archive"
series, he used the entire undubbed side, thus allowing us to hear an otherwise
unpublished take for at least a portion of this recording.
Mark Obert-Thorn