Recording Dates

[Petrushka]

While I'm glad that recording documentation now nearly always includes dates of recordings it does throw up some absurdities,

For instance, I see that Otto Klemperer's recording of the Mozart Magic Flute Overture which lasts all of 7'19'' was set down on '24-26 & 31 III and 1-4, 6-8 & 10 IV 1964'

Wonder what was wrong with it and why it needed so many takes? Can anyone come up with any similar absurdities?

[Bryn]

How about Gielen's CD of Mahler's Das Leid von der Erde, with Siegfried Jerusalem and Coenelia Kallisch? The three movements with the former were recorded in 1992, while those with the latter were recorded some 10 years later.

[gurnemanz]

The Klemperer Lied with Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich involved a gap of a mere 2½ years. As pointed out in the sleevenotes, the 1964 sessions involved the Philharmonia just before Walter Legge disbanded them. The recording was completed in 1966 with the orchestra in the guise of the New Philharmonia.

[Conchis]

While I'm glad that recording documentation now nearly always includes dates of recordings it does throw up some absurdities,

For instance, I see that Otto Klemperer's recording of the Mozart Magic Flute Overture which lasts all of 7'19'' was set down on '24-26 & 31 III and 1-4, 6-8 & 10 IV 1964'

Wonder what was wrong with it and why it needed so many takes? Can anyone come up with any similar absurdities?

I think it might have been a final 'master' created from various tape splices of complete version played through in the studio on those dates.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I see that Otto Klemperer's recording of the Mozart Magic Flute Overture which lasts all of 7'19'' was set down on '24-26 & 31 III and 1-4, 6-8 & 10 IV 1964'

Where did you see those dates, Pet - twelve days sounds more like the dates of the recording sessions for the entire opera.

[Petrushka]

Where did you see those dates, Pet - twelve days sounds more like the dates of the recording sessions for the entire opera.

I thought something similar. The dates are given as quoted for the overture alone in the Mozart Klemperer box from Warner http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Symph...zart+klemperer

Perhaps they just didn't know when the overture was recorded so give the complete possible dates. It just seems so bizarre.

[Gordon]

The Philharmonia discography by Stephen Pettit gives those dates as the ones for the whole opera, made entirely at Kingsway, not just the overture, so fhg in #5 is on the right track! Incidentally the 1-3rd April dates were shared between this Klemperer recording and Giulini recording some Rossini overtures with the Philharmonia. Probably sparing Klemperer's stamina [he was 79].

His Messiah was recorded between February and November 1964 and the issued recording did not feature Janet Baker or Peter Pears although they had taken part in some of the earlier sessions.

The Lied vd Erde is a long gestation period. Ludwig and Wunderlich were never in the studio at the same time. Also the sessions were in both Abbey Road No1 and Kingsway, which might affect the sound balance over space and time. These Lied recording sessions were where the Philharmonia last recorded as such, in November 1964.

The use of multiple venues was not unusual, some Beecham/RPO recordings were issued from different venues. I'm sure there must be others.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I guess one of the longest recording spans must be for Barbirolli's EMI NPO Mahler 5, which had a missing horn solo added well after B died, with the original player sitting in splendid isolation in the original acoustic (Kingsway Hall IIRC).

I'm sure someone here will contribute exact dates and the name of the player...

[Bryn]

I guess one of the longest recording spans must be for Barbirolli's EMI NPO Mahler 5, which had a missing horn solo added well after B died, with the original player sitting in splendid isolation in the original acoustic (Kingsway Hall IIRC).

I'm sure someone here will contribute exact dates and the name of the player...

One point of interest for collectors – on the original LP, among minor orchestral mishaps in the Scherzo, were four bars of missing horn obbligato (at nine bars before fig 20). Not any more! The original solo horn player, Nicholas Busch, has returned to the scene of this momentary aberration (Watford Town Hall) and the absent bars have been ingeniously reinstated. There’s even a timely grunt from Sir John, as if in approval. Something of a classic, then; EMI’s remastering is splendid.

from http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...&ct=clnk&gl=uk

[LeMartinPecheur]

Thanks Bryn, I was doing some Googling myself. The original recording has a 'P' date of 1969 and the restoration was for the first CD reissue in 1988, so apparently about 19 years??

It's important to get details right, however long it takes...

[jayne lee wilson]

I thought something similar. The dates are given as quoted for the overture alone in the Mozart Klemperer box from Warner http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Symph...zart+klemperer

Perhaps they just didn't know when the overture was recorded so give the complete possible dates. It just seems so bizarre.

In the 2005 Toshiba-EMI release of the Mozart Overtures it says: "24 & 26 March 1964, Kingsway Hall, London" for Entfuhrung, Magic Flute and C Minor Adagio & Fugue.
If Yoshio Okazaki did remaster them from the original tapes (which is truly how it sounds ) maybe the precise dates were copied from those...

[Gordon]

In the 2005 Toshiba-EMI release of the Mozart Overtures it says: "24 & 26 March 1964, Kingsway Hall, London" for Entfuhrung, Magic Flute and C Minor Adagio & Fugue.
If Yoshio Okazaki did remaster them from the original tapes (which is truly how it sounds ) maybe the precise dates were copied from those...

To prolong the pedantry this is from Pettitt again:

Klemperer/Philharmonia/Entfuhrung Overture: 29th September 1960 Kingsway, [no complete opera],

Ditto Cminor A&F 27th March 1956 Abbey Road [could this be confused with the Masonic Funeral Music also in Cm of November 9th&14th 1964 Abbey Road?].

Perhaps we'll never know when that MF overture was actually recorded but I'd guess it's from the very first session. And old K also did not like patching so the piece was probably one complete take.

[Gordon]

Thanks Bryn, I was doing some Googling myself. The original recording has a 'P' date of 1969 and the restoration was for the first CD reissue in 1988, so apparently about 19 years??

It's important to get details right, however long it takes...

From insert in booklet for Barbirolli Mahler 5 on EMI CDM 769 186 2, by Andrew Keener, writing in 1995 in the John Barbirolli Society Journal originally referenced at web page:

http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/journal/nov_95/mah5.html

the link is now broken and the JBS web site doesn't have an archive.

Sir John Barbirolli, Mahler 5, Watford 16-19th July 1969:

A small voice nags briefly at the record producer’s subconscious after even the most successful sessions. It says “Have we covered everything?” Those who know and love only the LPs of that ripe Mahler 5 Barbirolli made in London in 1969 [Ronald Kinloch Anderson, producer and engineers Allen Stagg and Stuart Eltham.] will have long been aware of that nasty moment in bars 541-544 of the Scherzo when all was not covered: where Mahler writes a lilting piece of 2-part counterpoint between horn and violins, Nicholas Busch (then the New Philharmonia’s principal horn) is ominously silent, leaving the violins alone and slightly tentative.

Nick and I had often referred to this error. Was there no covering take and how had Barbirolli failed to remark on the omission at tape approval stage? Was he even offered approval? Indeed, did he worry about such things after leaving the studio (quite a contrast to the prevailing attitude among today’s recording artists!) ?

It wasn’t until I was recording Mozart with the LPO at the beginning of 1987 (January 5/6th, Oboe concerto/Flute and Harp for Music for Pleasure}, however, that Nick (now LPO principal) and I decided to try and remedy the matter. After the orchestra had left, Nick pulled the obbligato horn part of Mahler 5 out of his bag, we sat him down in the empty Watford Town Hall (happily, the same venue that housed the original sessions) and played the relevant passage from the Barbirolli mastertape to him through headphones, allowing him to touch in the nine missing notes.

For the engineer Mike Clements and me, the task was harder than it might seem: we had to ensure matching stereo perspectives between 1969 and 1987, there was no Barbirolli to watch for a nice downbeat in bar 541 and – as Nick pointed out – the sound of ones playing changes in 18 years.

But, when the recording first came out on CD in 1988, there was the missing horn phrase, spanning the years as if they had never elapsed. Listen carefully, and you’ll even hear a characteristic Barbirolli groan of approbation for a well-played horn solo he couldn’t have heard at the time.
NB: the “Great Recordings of the Century” version has gone back to the original master which retains the missing horn entry.

But then the Gramophone review of the Barbirolli 5th suggests that the GROC DOES have the missing bars!! Who's right, Gramophone reviewer or Andrew Keener?! I don't have the GROC version:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/editorial/mahlers-symphony-no-5

scroll down to Alternative Versions. Bryn's quote in #9 is from that review.

[Bryn]

I don't have a score with bar numbering to hand. The IMSLP online versions have no bar numbering either. Can anyone give a guide to the time-point during the recording that the errant obbligato horn entry should be? I have the 1988 transfer on disc but can also access the mp3 stream of the GROC remastering via QOBUZ.

[Lordgeous]

Decca's CD re-release of Britten conducting (at Snape Maltings) Elgar's introd & Allegro etc is suprisingly well documented with even lists of the recording equipment used, microphones etc. As a sometime recording engineer I found that most interesting (though i appreciate I might be in a minority!). I do wish though that, as well as dates. at least the venue of a recording is noted. For example, would anyone happen to know where the fabulous Philips/Decca S. K. Bishop Diabelli Variations were recorded?