As it happens, both these recordings were issued as sets of five 12-inch 78s. Probably, the 78s of the symphony (recorded in Vienna, 1950) would have been cut direct to disc at the sessions, alongside the tape recording. I understand this to have been EMI's general practice in 1949-50. By 1951, when they recorded the concerto at Abbey Road, it may be that only tape recording was done and the 78s are mastered from tape. Details of the transition from disc to tape recording vary by company and recording location. To mention another EMI example, there are the recordings of Toscanini at La Scala, 7 & 8 August 1951 (Vespri overture and the two Traviata preludes.) Here, tape was not yet in use, but EMI judged this Toscanini project to be sufficiently important to have tape equipment sent to Milan for the purpose. The sessions were recorded on tape and disc. Toscanini rejected the results, but there's an exremely rare Brazilian Victor 78 of the Traviata Preludes that was issued by mistake. EMI finally issued the Vespri Overture and Traviata Act 3 Prelude on CD, but some of the material is quite audibly from a disc source (were the tapes missing, not usable, or just inferior to the discs?)
Now: Mahler: Symphony 10 (completed by Deryck Cooke, 3rd version) - Simon Rattle/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - EMI
Great, have you listened to it? If not, I highly recommend it. I am sure that you will enjoy it a lot!
I have the Mahler box by Haitink and now have five complete cycles. I never cared for Mahler's works much since they remind me so much of Hollywood Music and I have the most contempt for Hollywood most of my life ...
I listened to it occasionally but I have a few other CD's that sound better both sonically and performance wise ...
I have never quite warmed up to Simon Rattle over the years, though I do have a few of his recordings with the BPO ...
On the back of the CD, it says '(private collection)' but there is no acknowledgement as to which studio originally made the recording ...
A big mystery for me is, the Beatles started to record with EMI at the Abbey Road Studio, how is that most of their earlier recordings before Sgt. Pepper were all mono while EMI Classical had been recording in stereo much earlier.
Now playing: Johannes Brahms – Symphony No.3 Op.90 — Philharmonia Orchestra – Carlo Maria Giulini (EMI / Warner Classics), from:
I remember reading an article on this multi-step process. 1) Record the 78 RPM recordings first to tape (or hard drive) 2) Clean up the music (reconstruction) 3) Re-record the cleaned up music to a new tape (create the new master) 4) Press the CD from the new master. This is a very laborious process but Ward Marston and Mark Obert-Thorn did some outstanding jobs. I need to determine what else I really need to have from this series while they are still available. I now have about 40 CD's from Naxos Historical.
Vegh, Emerson, Tokyo and Smithson (early)/ABQ (mid/late). The Emerson gets the least play, but I do listen to it from time to time.
Now playing: Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No.6 in B minor Op.54 Zoltan Kodaly – Dances of Galanta — Sigurd Bockman, clarinet Leo Weiner – Divertimento No.1 for String Orchestra Op.20 "On Old Hungarian Dances" Bela Bartok – Hungarian Sketches (Magyar Kepek), Sz.97 - Nos.II & IV Dmitri Kabalevsky – Colas Breugnon Overture Op.24 Mikhail Glinka – Kamarinskaya "Wedding Song and Dance Song" — Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra – Fritz Reiner (Masterworks Heritage—Columbia / Sony Classical)
Yeah, my Emerson set of the late quartets gathers a lot of dust, as does my Schubert set by the same group.
I found the QI on Tidal, but it occurs to me I should really check out the Takacs, which I have never heard.
Now listening to "Plain-Chant - Cathedrale D'Auxerre, XVIII Siecle"" performed by Ensemble Organum on Harmonia Mundi.
Nice to see another friend of Der Alte (or "Old Fox", as it was renamed here). Especially the early years, when Siegfried Lowitz was the head of the murder squad: his cunning schemes to catch the criminals are legendary. It actually was a genius move to utilize a scheming figure from picaresque novels in the character of old & experienced police.
Now listening to CD 4 from "Musicke Of Sundrie Kindes - An Introduction to Renaissance Secular Music 1480-1620" performed by The Consort Of Musicke directed by Anthony Rooley on Decca Eloquence. Featuring: (the lovely and talented) Emma Kirkby - soprano John York Skinner - countertenor Kevin Smith - countertenor Martyn Hill - tenor Paul Elliot - tenor David Thomas - bass
