Use your gramophone every morning and Slenderise

Elisabeth Ann Loring [& W.T Best piano]

How to Slenderise

Columbia DB 1327 

(CA14236-1 & CA14327-1)

(recorded 5th January. 1934)

 1 Flac , Here at Mediafire. [about 18Mb]

Well it is the time of year for a bit of exercise. We ‘Gramophonists’ are apt to sit about all day listening to 'stuff' and looking at blogs so flab is a certain unwelcome byproduct. Thankfully a number of helpful records were issued to combat this problem. Our record comes with a nice card showing the delectable 'Elisabeth Ann' showing you idlers the way to fitness through her movements whilst you listen to her firm instructions.

Miss Elisabeth Ann Loring was the ‘Woman's Page’ editor for the Sunday Dispatch, and Modern Weekly, using her first names as her pen name. She was born in London in 1908, although I have not been able to confirm this, and her accent is redolent of a cross between Miss Jean Brodie and Margaret Thatcher, maybe it is just the result of some elocution lessons or my imagination. She appears to have started out as a novelist with Ladies' paradise. The story of a fashion in marriage of 1933 the earliest work I have been able to trace. She studied diet and became the beauty editor for a number of women's monthly magazine and was the creator, Bread and Butter Diet for Slenderising. Further contributions under her pen name found their way into the likes of Good Housekeeping, Woman's Journal, Modern Home, Miss Modern, Woman and Beauty, etc. together with a number of books with such titles as Beauty adorned, the cultivation of personal loveliness 1935. 

She made a special study of physical culture and hormone therapy, but was still turning out the odd novel with titles that included Night After Bond Street, 1936; Designs by Jo 1936; and Bronze Angel 1937. During the war she turned out the unlikely title Hutchinson's knitted comforts for the forces 1940 and later in a similar practical work A Book for Women 1946. Later ‘Elisabeth Ann’ became the editor of Portland Publications and a director of Medistat until her death in 1978.

The unnamed pianist, accompanying with strict tempo versions of well known classics, is one W.T. Best. He  is something of a  mystery and  although he worked for Columbia throughout the 1920s & 30s & 40s with various singers and instrumental groups I  have been unable to trace anything about him. His equivalent on HMV was the ubiquitus Madame Adami who is just as mysterious, does anyone even now know what her full name was by the way? W.T. Best disappears from the recording rooms during the mid 1940s when Gerald Moore generally takes over his role in the 'better class of material'.

For some reason recordings of the voice, where the record has enormous amounts crackle as here, seem to start gurgling. I assume this is due to the smoothing of the ticks and pops which in turn create some sort of distortion in itself. In these UK pre-war recordings the noise is about 7-10% of the recorded time so some sort of distortion is apt to take place with this sort of intervention. Anyway it sounds none too bad for all that.

'Dwarfish, sharp-tounged, conservative, and not a little paranoide...'

Robert Schumann

Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 140

1. Andante con moto - Allegro di molto (D minor)

2. Romanza: Andante (A minor)

4. Largo - Finale: Allegro vivace (D major)

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

conducted by Hans Pfitzner

Polydor 69625, 69627 &  69627 

(1406as, 1407as, 1408as, 234az, 232az & 233az)

(recorded October-December 1923)

1 Flac , Here at Mediafire. [about 62Mb]

or

1 Flac , Here at Mediafire. [about 115Mb] - with Spatial Enhancer [see below]

Being a bit tardy in stuffing things on my blog, will try and be a bit more 'proactive'

Anyway my quote continues '... Hans Pfitzner was perhaps his own worst enemy. But his pronouncements have been misread and his intentions misconstrued, and certain aspects of his life have been held against him, so that thirty-five years after his death he remains an unjustly neglected figure.' Greene's Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers 1985.

As a conductor Pfitzner made a good number of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon in the 1920s and '30s and as he was responsible for dragging Schumann out of oblivion, into which he was falling at that time, it is not surprising and appropriate that he was chosen to conduct the only acoustic recordings of any Schumann Symphonies. Nos. 1 & 2 where recorded in 1925 and 1926 with the Berlin State Opera Orchestra however No. 4 was the first to be recorded at the end of 1923 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Unfortunately the Scherzo was not issued with the set and I have some reason to believe it was recorded for matrix 1409as is otherwise unallocated to any other recording. Issuing a 7 sided set (plus a filler for the 8th side) of an unpopular symphony in the middle of an epic hyper inflationary period may have been thought as too risky for DG/Polydor so the Scherzo may have thus dropped.   Compton Mackenzie review in The Gramophone for October 1925 of the first Polydor recordings to be available in Britain gives a quick notice 'The Fourth Symphony of Schumann is the only Schumann symphony on the gramophone, and the Polydor version of it may be recommended as a good workmanlike production. Unfortunately, the scherzo has been omitted, so that the symphony is not complete.' The fact that the recording was issued once electrical recordings had already got underway may have stifled sales under the Polydor label. At any rate it seems uncommon and I have never seen it issued anywhere.

Anyway rather than me gassing on about the relative merits of this or that performance I defer to Peter Guttman who has reviewed a great number of recordings of this symphony at his website Classical Notes including the electrically recorded remake by Pfitzner issued in 1928.

As with the majority of acoustic orchestral recordings several things are immediately noticeable, firstly the reduced number of players, maybe only six first and second violins,  brass substituting for the lower strings, also placement of various instruments near to the horn for particular passages all don't help with the balance. The Danish violinist Henry Holst (1899-1991) is very likely the leader of the orchestra in this performance and he can be best heard playing in the trio section of the Romanza. It would be nice to know who the other players are in these recordings and also something of their careers.

I have joined the movements into one track to give some idea of a continuum as Schumann intended, this means that we jump from the second to the fourth movements which might give you a bit of a jolt.

*Spacial Enhancer - The blurb say that  'SHEPPi (Stereo Haas Effect Ping Pong Inverter) is a stereo image enhancement tool modeled after the K-Stereo Ambience Processor by Algorithmix. SHEPPi imparts a subtle, natural sense of space thanks to a combination of EQ'able synthetic early reflections, M-S widening and inverted stereo delay feedback. This plug-in has been enhanced for both track insert as well as aux send applications, making it an excellent tool for both mastering and stereoizing purposes.' 

Oooh it all sounds a bit technical and mucking about with recordings in this way is not seen by some to completely ethical - Still it is worth playing around with as it does indeed help with the separation of the instruments and gives space for the sound.

My little contribution to the Verdi bicentenary

Verdi: Giovanna D'Arco - Overture

The Philharmonia Orchestra 
conducted by Igor Markevitch

HMV C3965
(2EA 14031-1A & 2EA14032-2)
(Thursday, 30th June 1949)

Link to FLAC files (about 37Mb)

As this is Verdi’s 200th birthday year I thought I had better add my little bit to the piles of stuff already put out. Also being a lazy I have filled the the page out with photos.

Verdi

This was Igor Markevitch’s first London recording for HMV and his first with the Philharmonia. Made in the wonderful acoustic of the Kingsway Hall (alas no more) the recording has not only great verve but also the attraction of a trio section played by flautist Gareth Morris (1920-2007) Oboist, Sidney "Jock" Sutcliffe, (1918-2001) and Clarinetist, Frederick “Jack”Thurston (1901-1953).

Igor Markevitch

I do not believe that Markevitch’s early recordings have been re-released, or if they have I can’t see them anywhere! Although he was in London during the last week of June and first week or so of July 1949 it appears he did not conduct any concerts. Possibly he was in the UK to have his memoir Made in Italy translated and published, negotiate a contract for recordings and plan a concert series for the following year. His first concert was held on the Sunday the 14th of February with the Philharmonia Orchestra, but I'm unsure where this took place.  His first London Concert, again with the Philharmonia was not until Thursday 25th May 1950 at the Royal Albert Hall.

Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor’s in their The Record Guide of 1951 gave the disc two stars ‘A long and attractive andante pastorale section is one of several features in this brilliant overture which recall Rossini’s William Tell. The performance has a splendid vitality (and were required, a delicacy) which make the hearer wish that Igor Markevitch could be engaged to conduct some of the Italian repertory at Covent Garden.’ 

Sydney Sutcliffe

The Gramophone for April 1950 was a bit more grudging about the music. ‘As far as I can judge, having never heard this music before or seen the score, this is a keen and cordially reproduced performance. It is an early Verdi, containing one or two ingratiating tunes. Most of the overture is gentle; there is a march, and a bit of characteristic blood-and-thunder. A pretty bit of solo and duet work is very tasty (side 1), and a touch of pathos is sweetly limned. 

Gareth Morris

Part of side 2 shows the conventional weaknesses only too well. Gaps fill slowly. Foreign recordings of this overture are listed, but I remember no British one. The opera, loosely (and mostly, un-historically) based on Schiller's Maid of Orleans, came out in 1845 at Milan. Love reared its inevitable head, the supernatural was a flop, and the work, which, one reads in Hussey, has a touch of William Tell-ish "grand" quality and size, had "an ephemeral success and soon disappeared.'' Toye finds " something to admire in every act," though much to mourn. These were early days for Verdi, who was writing from 1839 to 1893. Titles before this, that we can recall, are Nabucco, I Lombardi, and Ernani. Two years later came Macbeth (more supernatural trouble, but also more imagination, to help us to forget those weak witcheries). The bite and blare come out well. Nothing, then, to demand preservation in Verdian archives, but a useful testing-sample of the early style.  W.R.Anderson.

Frederick Thurston on the right

The substance they used to press records in during the post war period is a nightmare to restore - the crackle is extreme – I’ve tempered it a lot but even so some distortion is evident in the final result. Maybe this is the reason the records have not been reissued for I doubt if the original metals survive at Hayes and as no vinyl pressing for dubbing are available to process into CDs. The record cost me all of 10 pence ($0.16 cents or €0.12), so how can I complain. 

Title page of the original edition