Some more adventures in collecting Deutsche Grammophon memorabilia: A few weeks ago I got my first volume of the BEETHOVEN EDITION 1970, the Piano Trios with Kempff, Fournier & Szeryng. It's a nice set, but it doesn't feature much in the way of liner notes — it's basically just one page of text. But I did saw in some contemporary ads I have that the complete Beethoven edition of 1970 also contained a book. Fortunately, that book was also sold separately at that time, so it's pretty easy to get it through the used book market. And pretty cheap, too. So here it is. Full-colour illustrated, 275 pages, LP-sized. The portrait of Beethoven on the cover is actually printed on the transparent dust cover, the book itself is plain beige with just the text “Ludwig van Beethoven” on it. Around the same time, I also found this promo LP album which came out around Christmastime 1970. It's part of a series of LPs pressed in small quantities (probably mostly for press people, but I don't know exactly). They are always called “Den Freunden unseres Hauses, zum Jahreswechsel” — to our company's friends, for New Year's. They usually contain recordings of rehearsals, or reissues of historical recordings. This one contains a 1928 recording of Beethoven's Fifth conducted by Richard Strauss, and on the B-side the 4th movement of Beethoven's Ninth in the then-brand-new Böhm recording. The LP is in a lavish gatefold with several pages of text in-between, and gold lettering on the cover:
Then there was this one: I bought 4 volumes of this J.S. BACH EDITION on Archiv a few weeks ago, but these have even less liner notes. It's just a track listing and recording details — since these boxes already contain about 11 LPs each, that probably didn't have much space for a booklet. But I figured there had to have existed some kind of accompanying book. However, it wasn't easy to find out. Nowhere on these boxes do they mention them being part of an edition of some kind. My pressings are from 1981 going by the date on the inner sleeves, but Discogs does not mention a date at all for any of these... My first Google searches were a bit in vain, but then finally I was able to find out (from an ebay listing) that these were part of the 1975 BACH COMPLETE EDITION. But adding the term “book” to the above did not yield any good search results. So it was only after a few days that I came across a picture of one of these by accident — it was through Google Image Search. Finally, the book had been found: It's called “Zeit, Leben, Wirken” — the times, life and works. No wonder it was hard to find. Anyway, this was part of that edition, as one can see by the design, but it only came out a year later, in 1976. The introductory text reads (I am translating this from German): This published anthology gathers 11 essays by 9 well-known Bach researchers, which were initially written for the Archiv Produktion Bach LP edition of 1974/75 — here published for the first time in the form of a book. So maybe the 1974/75 boxes did contain liner notes? Anyway, for anyone in the future looking for this book, this is how it looks like. If they also published an English version, that I don't know.
What beauties! Reminds me of the Artur Schnabel Beethoven cycle that came out on 78 or the first vinyl transfers of them, they had these beautifully detailed liner notes that someone was kind enough to scan. Those notes never made their way to any CD version.
Listening to "Codex Las Huelgas" performed by Discantus led by Brigitte Lesne on Opus 111. XIIIth century Spanish sacred vocal music
First listen to "Charpentier - Les Plaisirs De Versailles" performed by Les Arts Florissants led by William Christie on Erato. Soprano Vocals – Monique Zanetti (tracks: 1 to 14) Soprano Vocals [Eurilla] – Sophie Daneman (tracks: 18 to 26) Soprano Vocals, Soprano Vocals [Filli] – Patricia Petibon (tracks: 1 to 14, 18 to 26) Tenor Vocals [Sylvio] – François Piolino (tracks: 18 to 26) Tenor Vocals, Tenor Vocals [Linco] – Paul Agnew (2) (tracks: 15 to 17, 18 to 26) Baritone Vocals – Fernand Bernadi (tracks: 1 to 14), Olivier Lallouette (tracks: 18 to 26) Producer – Martin Sauer Engineer [Sound Engineer] – Jean Chatauret
Listening to CD 39 from "Leonard Bernstein - The Symphony Edition" on Sony. Mozart - Symphony No. 36 "Linz" / Symphony No. 40 Roussel - Symphony No. 3
Listening to some lively Handel this afternoon... the 1st LP (Concertos 1-4, Op.4) from this 4-LP box Argo (Decca) box set. Made in England; issued in 1976. Fine recording and terrific lineup of George Malcolm (soloist), Neville Marriner (conductor) and Christopher Hogwood (continuo). The album title uses the generic term "keyboard," since the solo part is sometimes performed on organ and other times on harpsichord.
Great find! You probably know this, but the U.S. edition had a slightly different cover: It's a handsome book-- beautifully illustrated.
My grandmother bought it new and gave it to me. She "subscribed" to the DG series back in the day and the book was included upon completion of buying all (or most?) of the volumes. One small note: Looking at mine, I see a page 276... Is yours actually 275? I also see the same painting of Beethoven (c. 1804) on page 203 -- same as yours-- so I would think your book has a page 276.
BEETHOVEN · Sonatas · Paul Lewis ...still one of my go-to sets of Beethoven sonatas, and my favourite of recent years.
I found an ad for the series (below) and see that my assumption was incorrect. After buying the first volume (the first six Symphonies), they threw in the book for free. It's also interesting to note that the original ten volume set (shown here) was later expanded to seventeen before the series ended. Obviously, this wasn't a cheap series. At $15 per volume, it would have cost $255 to buy the entire seventeen volumes back in the '70s... and that's without considering the "shipping and handling" charges, which I'm sure would add at least another $100 to the total. (Always love that ubiquitous "handling charge"... ) Compare that to the new DG "Complete Beethoven" set coming next year on CD which I think lists for $300...? And if I'm correct about that--and considering inflation--DG's new CD set is a relative bargain.
Looks like the previous owner of this box was like me - played the LP box once then filed it away ...
Switching gears now... playing this 1968 RCA LP of British contemporary music. Fine performances, though RCA's "Dynagroove" sonics are nothing special. Somehow I doubt it was a coincidence that all the composers and the conductor on this album have last names starting with a "B." Anyway, it works.
@crispi, Here is one of my Bach Cantatas boxes from the same era as yours. Does it look familiar to you? Here is another one ...
According to Inflation Calculator $255 in 1970 equals around $ 1,677 today. I had a friend who bought some of the volumes. I later taped them & may still have some of the cassettes, which may or may not be playable.
