BaL 15.06.24 - Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra

[Roger Webb]

The 1962 LP has RCA Living Stereo on its sleeve so no reason not to use that branding on the CD??

Very hard to get to the bottom of this.

It seems RCA released both '54 and '62. Recordings as 'Living Stereos'.

Below Discogs has a separate page for '54 and '62 releases, and it's not until the 1960 release of the '54 recording that it's a Living Stereo with the familiar sleeve showing Fritz Reiner in an alpine landscape.

On the '62 page on Discogs most/all(?) of the sleeves are the plain green, even the re-releases.

It's often difficult to date these releases as mostly RCA didn't print the recording date on the actual record as most companies do. Look at the photos on Discogs closely.

I think it's clear that the '54 recording wasn't first released as a 'Living Stereo' as such, but on re-release from 1960 it had the distinct cover as above.

So was 'Living Stereo' just a marketing ploy by RCA......

https://www.discogs.com/master/41552...ch-Zarathustra

[HighlandDougie]

See: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/rca...20reproduction.

Branding from 1958 - like Decca going from FFRR to FFSS.

[Roger Webb]

See: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/rca...20reproduction.

Branding from 1958 - like Decca going from FFRR to FFSS.

Decca 'SOUNDSTAGE' too!!

[Barbirollians]

I assume nobody else has heard the Norman del Mar version ?

[Roger Webb]

I assume nobody else has heard the Norman del Mar version ?

Del Mar is often overlooked these days in a lot of repertoire - I mention his 'Enigma' on last Sunday's BaL Français thread, and yesterday on the What classical music are you listening to now thread in connection with his Lyrita Bax 6.

Particularly, he was author of the massive survey of Strauss's works in three volumes on Faber, this is my reference for anything Richard Strauss...along with Michael Kennedy (Grove '92).

[smittims]

I haven't heard Norman del Mar do Zarathustra, but from what I have heard him do I expect it would be very good. I remember him most for his indefatigable advocacy of living British composers, often when no-one else would conduct them. Time and time again when it was Gerhard, Maw, Lutyens , Goehr, etc. he'd be
listed as conductor.

First Hand Records issued a CD of a very early (1954 I think) EMI stereo Till Eulenspiegel which is excellent.

Going back to RCA, they were of course stereo pioneers, John Pfeiffer proudly unveiling his binaural system, following the late Alan Blumlein's ideas, in 1953. CBS had been ahead with LPs in 1948 so RCA naturally made the most of their 'living stereo' in adverts. Previously their mono LPs were styled 'New Orthophonic', which as any classical scholar knows means 'the right sound', something no other record company had discovered, presumably!

In the 1930s and '40s Victor recordings coiuld be very inferior to EMI ('the opening chords sound like revolver shots passing through a petrol tin' said The Record Guide of the Toscanini Eroica)). 'Dynagroove' and 'Miracle Surface' were among their other slogans .

[oliver sudden]

I assume nobody else has heard the Norman del Mar version ?

I haven’t but would jolly well like to!

Oh look, here’s a live one:

https://youtu.be/vDPcBz2g5Mc?feature=shared

I would also very much like to hear his Mahler 6, which I presume is lurking in a vault somewhere…

[Roger Webb]

I haven’t but would jolly well like to!

Oh look, here’s a live one:



I would also very much like to hear his Mahler 6, which I presume is lurking in a vault somewhere…

I heard Del Mar live several times, somewhere above I mention a Bax 6 in Bristol, I also remember his Mahler 6 in the same venue (Colston Hall)...in connexion with this it's worth getting his Eulenburg study on the Mahler.

But mostly I'm grateful to his contribution to the Delius Festival at Bradford which I attended in '85.....I met him there and he kindly signed my programme.....as luck would have it on the page for the concert incl. The Enigma Variations.

[smittims]

That's marvellous , Roger. One of the many interesting things I heard him say in a radio interview was his view on listening to recordings. He solved the problem of 'what to listen to today?' by simply playing the next disc on the shelf, whatever it was. I tried that for a while, but it's not really for me.

[Roger Webb]

That's marvellous , Roger. One of the many interesting things I heard him say in a radio interview was his view on listening to recordings. He solved the problem of 'what to listen to today?' by simply playing the next disc on the shelf, whatever it was. I tried that for a while, but it's not really for me.

I've often toyed with the idea of playing all my LPs and CDs in alphabetical order.

One of my longest standing customers in my various LP and CD shops spent his life collecting the complete classical canon, but starting with the 'A's and then going on....did he really think he was going to reach the 'Z's?

He died having just started on the 'B's..he got past Milton Babitt, but then the whole Bach family stretched before him.....god bless you Mr Williams!

Edit. Searching through my cassettes I find I still have my 'private' (the BBC recorded it) recording of that Delius Fest. concert, incl. the Enigma.

[Barbirollians]

The del Mar is still available as a download - currently £8.52 as a FLAC from Presto. There is an expensive second hand CD available on Amazon.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Decca 'SOUNDSTAGE' too!!

Don’t you mean SonicStage? John Culshaw later admitted it was a complete con, and that nothing fundamental had changed in the recording/production process.

[Roger Webb]

Don’t you mean SonicStage? John Culshaw later admitted it was a complete con, and that nothing fundamental had changed in the recording/production process.

Yes, how stupid! Although it proves that far from being a 'complete' con, the slogan didn't stick in this mind....despite being able to see in my minds eye the garish cover of Solti's 'Salome'.

[smittims]

I think it was simply that the promotional name 'Sonicstage' was introduced some years after the practice of strategic microphone positioning and moving the singers round a set of numbered squares to acheive an aural perspective . Culshaw began this I think in 1957 with the Walkure Act 3, but the 1962 Salome was the first recording marketed with the slogan.

[Roger Webb]

I think it was simply that the promotional name 'Sonicstage' was introduced some years after the practice of strategic microphone positioning and moving the singers round a set of numbered squares to acheive an aural perspective . Culshaw began this I think in 1957 with the Walkure Act 3, but the 1962 Salome was the first recording marketed with the slogan.

I think you're right, a bit like Living Stereo, it was thought up after the recording method had been used for a while. Both Culshaw's books, Ring Resounding and Putting the Record Straight are fascinating reads, and from an analytical point of view his Reflections on Wagner's Ring.