78s

[semloh]

I expect some members will be familiar with this, but I thought I should draw attention to the
CHARM (= Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music) website of King's College, London, at:  http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/index.html

The focus is 78s, but don't be put off! In addition to stuff about gramophones and recordings, it holds a number of attractions!

Firstly, there's hundreds of downloads (all classical).    I don't know what interest members may have in 78s, but sometimes  they are the only way of hearing obscure material. Admittedly, it's mostly Bach, Brahms, Beethoven, et al., but there's some nice Bridge and Bax, some unusual bits of Britten, and recordings in which some of the unsungs are performers (such as York Bowen playing Brahms). There's a lot of songs and chamber works, and short pieces, often featuring famous names, and there's a 1948 performance of Parry's Blest Pair of Sirens. Among the less familiar, I found:

• COLERIDGE-TAYLOR: Christmas Overture (BBC Wireless Symphony Orchestra!)
  FOULDS: A Keltic Lament
  FLOTOW: Stradella Overture (BerlinOperaOrch)
  GRÉTRY: La Rosiere Republicaine - Suite de Ballet
  IRELAND: Chamber music and songs
  JUON: Chamber Symphony, Op.27 (recent version already on site)
  KEEL: Two orchestral songs
  LIPATTI: Sonatina for Left-hand
  LORTZING: Der Waffenschmied – Overture
  MALIPIERO: String Quartet
  QUILTER: Songs
  ROSSE: Merchant of Venice Suite
  RAWSTHORNE: Street Corner – Overture; Theme & Variations
  RUBBRA: Violin Sonata No.2
  SIEBER: Fantasy for Cello & Piano
  STANFORD & PARRY – various religious works
  TATE, Phyllis: Nocturne for Four Voices
  THOMAS: Raymond – Overture
  THOMAS, AG: Orchestral Aria – Oh, my Heart is Weary
  THOMPSON, Randall: Alleluia
  WALLACE, WV: Maritana
  VAUGHAN THOMAS: Saith O Ganeuon Ar Gywyddau

Of course, many are rather fizzy old 78s, but some are post-war and not too bad at all. Looking through the available recordings makes me realize how limiting 78s were because of their duration. The LP must have transformed the listening experience of classical music lovers, once it finally 'caught on'!

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, there's a classical discography page, which spans 78s, LPs and CDs! 
You can download :

• The Complete Decca Classical Discography 1929-2009
  The Academy of St Martin in the Fields Discography 1961-2009
  The London Symphony Orchestra Discography 1913-2009

And, if you really need it and have the patience for the big downloads, you can also have
The World's Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music (at 357 MB) with two very substantial supplements, amounting to another 350 MB!

I hope there's something to interest members!

[britishcomposer]

Thank you for that!
May I add a few more discoveries?

Frédéric d'Erlanger - Toccata in D for piano

Alexander Mackenzie - The Little Minister-Overture

Tobias Matthay - Piano Pieces

Morfydd Owen - Songs

Richard Walthew - Viola Sonata in D

[Latvian]

semloh, thank you so much for sharing this information. Indeed, lots of fascinating things to be found on 78s that still have not reappeared in more current formats. Sound quality not a problem for me, most of the time!

[Latvian]

Here's another useful resource along the same lines: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone/index-e.html

Again, mostly standard repertoire, but some interesting things like Sir Ernest MacMillan's recording of Holst's The Planets with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and some Boyd Neel recordings, including Asger Hamerik's 6th Symphony.

[jerfilm]

Well, since I was 13 when the first Columbia Lps showed up, can I fill you in on some things about the 78 era.   Discs were extremely fragile - bet my mom replaced my favorite record, In a Clock Store, at least three times - "tone arms" weighed several ounces and along with "needles" (not called that everywhere in the world) were made of various materials that also wore down and between the two things, your record grooves were soon driven to distortion and white noise.  You could crack a record without breaking it and the crack would either cause "skips" or a repeat of the same track over and over again.  Seldom would a cracked record be useable.

As semloh pointed out, of course, playing time was about 3-3 1/2 minutes for a 10 inch and a max of about 5+ for a 12 inch.  Many early discs were only recorded on one side.  But anyway, lets say a Bruckner symphony running 70 minutes likely would take 7 12" records on both sides.  Here in the colonies, the 10s sold (as least in the early 40s) for about 79 cents and the 12s (if they were the RCA Red Seals, which virtually all classical music was) sold for about $1.29.   Thus, this Bruckner symphony would have retailed for around $8 or more.  Sound like a real bargain?  Remember that the US average annual salary in 1942 was $2400!   So buying any large scale symphonic record "album" as they were called, was a major financial outlay!  Bread was 9 cents a loaf, gas was 19 cents a gallon and postage stamps were 3 cents!   Do you see why there were very limited numbers of large scale symphonic pieces offered for sale before the advent of the Lp?  Things were done as excerpts- Victor liked to call such records "Gems from........". 

Of course there was another huge disadvantage.   You couldn't put on a Beethoven symphony and then sit back with a book and read for an hour.   Every 5 minutes you had to get up and change the record.   Before the advent of the "record changer", most classical records were recorded with the first side, then the flip side would be the next in order, then the next record, etc.   This kind of order made it easier to go on since at least every other time you only had to flip the current disc over and start it up.  (unless of course, you still had a "wind up" phonograph in which case you also had to wind it again).  The record changer changed all that - now you had merely to stack up your 7 discs and except for about a 30 second break every 5 minutes, you were good to go - at least half way through the symphony.  Symphonic pieces were now recorded from side 1 of each record thru the 7 discs and then you had merely to flip the stack over in the changer and you could sit back for another half hour.  Of course, all of your older albums were rendered useless for this t process since a record changer did NOT flip discs over........

The beginning of the end of that era came in 1949.  RCA celebrated their billionth record by releasing a 12 inch 78 on red vinyl which was I think the very first commercially released "High Fidelity" record.  It was a stunning performance by the Boston Symphony of Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.   The same year Columbia brought out the first "long playing" Lp record on vinyl and the era of the 78 was about to come to a screeching halt.

OK, so I rambled again.  I hope you found this little history lesson of some interest.

[Lionel Harrsion]

I hope you found this little history lesson of some interest.

Thanks Jerry; for some of us, though, not so much a history lesson as a trip down memory lane!

[jerfilm]

AMEN!

[Amphissa]

A second hand shop opened locally not long ago. I usually avoid them, but saw in the newspaper write up that they had 5,000 LPs from a music teacher's collection. Decided to go for a look.

The collection also included a sizable collection of 78s. I've got enough trouble keeping up with my LPs. I certainly don't need 78s.

The owner said that she had a customer who stopped in frequently to plow through the 78s. He had bought dozens of them and was so delighted that he could buy "new" 78s to listen to.

Turns out he's in his 80s. I think there are not so many people these days with record players that can play 78s adequately.

But let's not forget the interim step. There was a lot of classical music released on 45s. I had some of those small box sets of Rachmaninoff, Chopin, etc. And they were often quite good audio quality. Certainly better than most of the 78s my dad played.