The Story Behind the Recording

[astrotoy]

Over the weekend, I stumbled on a treasure trove of information about the famous Decca Recording Studios, based in London, responsible for two of the initial 10 TP titles (the ones whose licenses run out in a couple of weeks.)  It is in the form of an over 1500 page long essay completed in 2009, documenting almost all of the classical music recording sessions from the late 1920's to 2008. This includes the golden era of Decca stereo analogue recordings from the mid 1950's until about 1980. The website which is from Imperial College in London http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/index.html (thanks Steve) gives a link to the downloadable files - the complete Decca file is the one I downloaded. You can also see other files including the recorded history of the Academy of St. Martins in the Field and the London Symphony as well as other documents. The Decca file is quite large, over 5 MB. The core of the analogue LP era is in the file called Decca3 (part of the total file) and is still some 504 pages long and 2 MB. 

In my comments on the TP issue, I noted that I thought the Hindemith recording was the better than the Bruch sonically. Now I know why they sound different. Note that in the file notes, that the two were recorded in two different venues, with different engineers, and different conductors. Hindemith himself conducted his concerto, while Jasha Horenstein was brought in to conduct the Bruch and that originally there was to be a different coupling with the Hindemith - the famous Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola.  It looks like that sometimes things happen during a recording session and it isn't always magic.  Maybe Paul, Romo or Dan can comment on recording sessions they have done.   

Here is the file on the Oistrakh-Hindemith recording:

Pr: Erik Smith Eng: [ab] Arthur Lilley / [c] Alan Reeve
[ab] 13,14 Sep 1962 West Hampstead Studio 3
[c] 24 Sep 1962 Walthamstow Assembly Hall
David Oistrakh (violin); Paul Hindemith (viola); London Symphony
Orchestra, [ab] Paul Hindemith / [c] Jascha Horenstein
[a] HINDEMITH Violin Concerto
(b) MOZART Sinfonia Concertante in E flat K364 (K320d)
[c] BRUCH Scottish Fantasy Op.46
 (b) Unpublished: on hearing a playback Hindemith expressed disgust at
his own playing and [c] was hastily arranged as a replacement coupling.
[ac] (Feb63) LXT6035 = SXL6035; (Mar63) CM9337 = CS6337,

Larry

[ironbut]

Great stuff Larry! I know how much you love the Decca catalog so you must've been stoked when you found this.
I can't promise that I'll get it all read this year, but eventually.

I'd heard of CHARM a few times before and now I know what they've been working on. Once again, you gotta hand it to those mad-cap librarians.
For anyone interested,.. here's a link to the home page;

http://www.charm.rhul.ac.uk/index.html

[astrotoy]

Thanks, Steve.  The link you gave is better than mine. It explains more of CHARM and the basis for this project.  Larry

[MylesAstor]

Over the weekend, I stumbled on a treasure trove of information about the famous Decca Recording Studios, based in London, responsible for two of the initial 10 TP titles (the ones whose licenses run out in a couple of weeks.)  It is in the form of an over 1500 page long essay completed in 2009, documenting almost all of the classical music recording sessions from the late 1920's to 2008. This includes the golden era of Decca stereo analogue recordings from the mid 1950's until about 1980. The website which is from Imperial College in London http://images.cch.kcl.ac.uk/charm/liv/pubs gives a directory of downloadable files - the complete Decca file is the one I downloaded. You can also see other files including the recorded history of the Academy of St. Martins in the Field and the London Symphony as well as other documents. The Decca file is quite large, over 5 MB. The core of the analogue LP era is in the file called Decca3 (part of the total file) and is still some 504 pages long and 2 MB. 

In my comments on the TP issue, I noted that I thought the Hindemith recording was the better than the Bruch sonically. Now I know why they sound different. Note that in the file notes, that the two were recorded in two different venues, with different engineers, and different conductors. Hindemith himself conducted his concerto, while Jasha Horenstein was brought in to conduct the Bruch and that originally there was to be a different coupling with the Hindemith - the famous Mozart Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola.  It looks like that sometimes things happen during a recording session and it isn't always magic.  Maybe Paul, Romo or Dan can comment on recording sessions they have done.   

Here is the file on the Oistrakh-Hindemith recording:

Pr: Erik Smith Eng: [ab] Arthur Lilley / [c] Alan Reeve
[ab] 13,14 Sep 1962 West Hampstead Studio 3
[c] 24 Sep 1962 Walthamstow Assembly Hall
David Oistrakh (violin); Paul Hindemith (viola); London Symphony
Orchestra, [ab] Paul Hindemith / [c] Jascha Horenstein
[a] HINDEMITH Violin Concerto
MOZART Sinfonia Concertante in E flat K364 (K320d)
[c] BRUCH Scottish Fantasy Op.46
Unpublished: on hearing a playback Hindemith expressed disgust at
his own playing and [c] was hastily arranged as a replacement coupling.
[ac] (Feb63) LXT6035 = SXL6035; (Mar63) CM9337 = CS6337,

Larry

Thanks Larry for the info....quite a bit to digest there. Am still searching for the info on the Spanish Deccas.

Best,

Myles

[astrotoy]

I just noticed that on my posting a crucial piece of information is missing. It doesn't say explicitly that the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante was the unpublished piece that Hindemith was disgusted at his playing. Also, I replaced my link, with Steve's - which is better. I've just edited the posting to show those.   Larry

[astrotoy]

[/quote]

Thanks Larry for the info....quite a bit to digest there. Am still searching for the info on the Spanish Deccas.

Best,

Myles
[/quote]

Miles, thanks. Somewhere in the Decca file, Philip Stuart talks about the Spanish Deccas and says that he is not covering them. I have a few that made it to the Decca SXL series - like SXL2091 the Rodrigo Con Aranjuez with Yepes and Argenta and some of Fruhbeck de Burgos orchestral music with Spanish orchestras (in the early mid SXL6000's and also some Londons that never were issued as Deccas) and Caballe recital albums toward the end of the analogue era (SXL6800 or so). They all have the Spanish mastering code ESS in the deadwax, as opposed to the standard ZAL.  Of course, all of the Spanish artists also hopped over to England (more successfully than the Armada) to record with British orchestras - like TP's Suite Espagnole (SXL6355) which has the standard ZAL code. In the later years, the records of non British origin had a code letter like R or P appended to the SXL.

Larry