The Victor Orchestra recording in Building no 15, Camden, New Jersey
in this 1925 photograph showing the new Western Electric
recording process. Note the single
microphone on a stand. This would be a Westrex condenser
microphone in the Western Electric 1B or 1C housing with amplification
and impedance matching electronics in the box at the base of the
microphone housing. The Westrex 394 condenser transmitter head
was introduced in late 1926 2, so this 1925 photo would
likely show an earlier model condenser microphone transmitter, perhaps
the Western Electric Type 361.
1925 - The Growth of Electrical Recording by Stokowski and
the Philadelphia Orchestra
Following the first Philadelphia Orchestra electrical recording
on April 29, 1925 performing the
Danse macabre
, the
orchestra went on to record three Russian works. The same
day as the Danse macabre, they recorded music by Alexander Borodin.
Then, two weeks later in early May, they recorded one side of Ippolitov-Ivanov,
which would be issued with the Borodin, and also a superb
recording of the Tchaikovsky Marche Slave.
With these recordings of early May, Stokowski and the Victor engineers
began to take note of the Westrex electrical system's ability to cope
with percussion, to register the bass strings, and to
accommodate a full orchestra. Gradually, the began to
abandon the acoustic arrangements and reinforcement of bass
sound and to introduce percussion and timpani. For this reason, the May
1925 recordings represented further progress in recorded sound.
1925 - Borodin's ‘Polovetzki Dances’ from Prince Igor
On April 29, 1925, Stokowski and the
Philadelphia Orchestra recorded their second electrical
recording, the same day as the Danse macabre. This disk was labeled
as being Borodin's 'Polovetzki Dance'. This is a Stokowski abridgement
of sections of Borodin's Polovtsian Dances from his opera Prince Igor,
presumably arranged by Stokowski, with the music reduced to fit on one
Victor Red Seal 12 inch side.
Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra had several times tried, unsuccessfully to
record this music from Borodin's Polovtsian Dances. Recordings were cut on October
18 and 19, 1920, and February 13, 1922, none of them approved by Stokowski.
As in the Danse macabre, recorded at that same April 29 session, only
40 musicians were used, as in acoustic recordings. There
were only 7 first violins and 3 second violins, 3 violas, and 2
celli, even though the electrical recording microphone did
restrict the space and pickup as did the acoustic horn.
Also, again, no string basses were used, and instead, a bass
saxophone, now part of the Philadelphia Orchestra's listed
complement replaced the string basses, as in an acoustic
recording. The Victor engineers in this first electrical
recording session were cautiously using the same
re-orchestration techniques necessary with acoustic recording.
They gradually restored the bass strings and percussion and
augmented the number of musicians in later recordings, as they
determined what would work best, through experience.
Onr interesting aspect of this recording of the Polovetzki Dance
is that it was like the acoustic discs previously in technique:
greatly reduced orchestra, with the music re-orchestrated to avoid
bass strings and percussion (a double bassoon replaced the timpani).
Therefore, we can now hear, with the improved clarity of the
electrical recording process what the performance arranged for the
acoustic process would have sounded like 'live'.
This Borodin recording was issued the following September as Victor 12 inch
Red Seal 6514, matrix CVE 32550-1 (and later CVE 32550-2), with the
selection 'In the Village' from the
Ippolitov-Ivanov Caucasian Sketches
on the other side.
Two weeks after Stokowski made the first electrical recordings of
symphonic music in the United States, with the Danse macabre and the
Borodin selection, Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra returned
to Victor Building no 15 to record the Tchaikovsky Marche Slav.
Having learned from the results of the April, 1925 electrical recording
sessions, Stokowski now used a full orchestral complement. Percussion
and double bass strings seem to be used (listen to the first minutes of
the recording), although there seems to be some bass wind reinforcement of
bass stings at about 3:00 into the recording.
This was the first time since the early Philadelphia Orchestra recordings of
1917 that the full Philadelphia Orchestra was in the recording studio.
The arrangements and changes previously required by acoustic recording of bass
wind instruments to replace bass stings and timpani were abandoned to the great
benefit of recorded realism.
These were also sonically successful. In fact, this Marche Slave was the
first full orchestral recording with the electrical system, and Victor recommended
this recording to its dealers as a demonstration disk for the new Victor Orthophonic
Victrola machines coming out in 1925. In fact, this recording sold
sufficiently well to remain in the Victor catalog well into the 1940s.
To my ears, it is a superior performance both artistically and
sonically to the 1942 NBC Symphony recording which replaced it in the
Victor catalog.
1925 - Ippolitov-Ivanov 'Caucasian Sketches' opus 10
On May 15, 1925 following the completion of Marche Slave, Stokowski
and the Orchestra returned to a work that he had performed at his first
1909 concerts in Paris and London: Ippolitov-Ivanov's 'Caucasian Sketches'.
This work, mainly forgotten in the concert hall today, was based on
Ippolitov-Ivanov's research of folk music of the Caucasus. Stokowski
also performed this work at his second Cincinnati Symphony concert in 1909,
and at his first Philadelphia concert in 1912. He evidently felt it was a
'sure fire' showpiece for the orchesta and for himself.
During the acoustic era, Stokowski on May 15, 1922, recorded the fourth
movement of the
Caucasian Sketches: 'Procession of the Sardar'
.
Now, three years later, he recorded the second movement of the work,
depicting life 'In the Village'.
Although some of the bass wind instruments previously used as reinforcement
in acoustic recordings were still employed for this recording, the sound and the
performance are both very satisfying. In fact, this is my favorite recording
of this work, in part because it elevates the Ippolitov-Ivanov sketch to a noble,
inspired work. Many later performances treat it as a light weight 'pops' item,
and even Stokowski's own later recordings seem to me to have less depth and character
than this 1925 accomplishment.
Particularly enchanting are the violin solo pairing of
Thaddeus Rich
with the prominent oboe solo of
Marcel Tabuteau
. This is one of the last
Philadelphia Orchestra recordings featuring Thaddeus Rich, who
was to depart from the orchestra in 1926 subsequent to a falling
out with Stokowski. Here, in this fine electrical
recording, we can appreciate Thaddeus Rich in a way not fully
possible in the faint images of the previous acoustic
recordings. Another beautiful solo is the extended English
horn - viola passage played by Peter Henkelman, English horn, with
Romain Verney
, viola. Henkelman, born in the Netherlands in 1874, was about
to leave the Orchestra at the end of the 1924-1925 season to go to
the New York Symphony, after having played in the Philadelphia Orchestra
oboe section for 24 seasons 1901-1925. Roman Verney also left the
Orchestra at the end of the 1924-1925 season.
This recording was issued in September, 1925 on Victor Red Seal 12 inch
disk 6514, which also featured the Borodin 'Polovetzki Dance' on the other
side. The matrix number was CVE 32801-2. In the reproduction
below, you can hear, in the background faintly what seems to be the sound artifact
of the motion of the electrical cutting head, still being pulled
by weights (rather than driven by an electric motor). This
subtlety would not have been captured by the acoustic recording
apparatus, and was soon eliminated by Victor or possibly Western
Electric engineers.
Click on the link below to listen to (or download) 'In the Village'.
These new electrical recordings coincided with a decision by
the Victor Talking Machine Company to mount a major sales push
for the new recording process, which Victor and other
companies had abstained from doing earlier in 1925. Victor initiated
the famous "Victory Day" promotion of November 2, 1925, in
which Victor is said to have spent more than $1 million in
advertising and promotion, a huge sum of money at that time. This was
also a real financial gamble, particularly since Victor had lost money
in 1924, and would lose money again in 1925 as a consequence of this
promotional spend.
Advertisement for "Victor Day", the November 2, 1925
promotion of Victor's electrical technology
This change was a success. During 1926, the losses of 1925 of
$26.5 million was were fully recovered, with unprecedented sales
of records and of Victrolas.
The reproduction of the folded horn Victrolas was greatly improved
over previous equipment, but these were still totally acoustic reproduction
devices, using no electrical amplification or equalization. Only with the
introduction of the Electrola and the Radiola was the full potential of the
new electrical recordings realized. The Electrola was an electrical reproducer
with electromagnetic cone speakers. The Radiola was similar to the
Electrola, with the addition of an RCA radio receiver chassis.
1925 Dvorak - New World Symphony
In late 1925 (October 6, 7, and December 8,1925) Stokowski made his
first electrical recording of a symphony: the Dvorak Symphony no 9
"From the New World", opus 95, which had been one of
Stokowski's most successful works in concert.
This 1925 electrical recording continued to use tuba reinforcement to
the bass. However, there are also string basses, and restrained
use of percussion. Sound was somewhat improved, although not with the
open and atmospheric sound of the 1926 recordings achieve the next year
in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Somewhat more string portamento
is featured here than in later Dvorak works, which is not unattractive. The
Philadelphia Orchestra playing continues to be superior, in my opinion in tone
and ensemble to the contemporary European orchestras, at least as judged by
the surviving recordings of the period.
By late 1925, Philadelphia Orchestra recordings had not yet begun in the
Academy of Music, and these sides were presumably made in the Victor Camden
studio, or "recording laboratory" as Victor referred to it, located in
Building number 15. I have not seen documentation of the Building 15 location,
but the reasoning for this assumption is described in
Location of the First Electrical Recording Studio in Camden
.
The Dvorak "New World" was recorded on five Victor Red Seal 12 inch disks:
Victor 6565, 6566, 6567, 6568, 6569, and 6743 which could for a time be
purchased individually. However, the recording was now also offered packaged
in a handsome multi-disk album labeled "Music Arts Library", as shown below.
In this way, the New World recording became the first packaging of what would later develop
into the "Victor Musical Masterpiece" series of albums. Beginning in
1926, records of a work or works were placed in the Victor Musical Masterpiece
handsomely bound
albums, and this 1925 Dvorak New World became the first of the series, listed as M-1.
To listen to (or download) these pioneering first electrical recordings of the Dvorak
Symphony "From the New World", click on the links below. The
oboe solo of
Marcel Tabuteau in the second
movement: Largo is particularly sensitive and beautiful.
Second - in the Chronological Discography page.
For example, links to a 1926 recording are also found in the
electrical recordings chronological discography page:
Chronological Discography of Electrical Recordings
This page lists all the electrical recordings from 1925 to
1940 made by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold
Stokowski and issued by Victor, including of course the 1926 recordings.
The mp3 files in this site are encoded at 128 mbps. This means that the
files are of different sizes, according to the length of
the music. For example, the second electrical recording, the
April 29, 1925 Borodin ‘Polovetzki Dances’ is small (3.6MB). In contrast,
the 1929 Le Sacre du Printemps file is large. Le Sacre part 1 is 14MB
and Le Sacre part 2 is 16MB.
This means that a large file will take a longer time to
download, depending on your internet connection speed.
Please keep this in mind when you click to listen to -
download a particularly music file. You may click
the link to the music file, but need to wait a number of
seconds or even minutes to listen to the file.
If you have any comments or questions about this Leopold Stokowski site, please e-mail me (Larry Huffman)
at e-mail address:
leopold.stokowski@gmail.com
1 Jones, W. C. Condenser and Carbon Microphones:
Their Construction and Use. Journal of the Society of Motion Picture
Engineers. : January, 1931.
2 see the background information on this subject in:
http://www.stokowski.org/1925 Other Electrical Recordings Stokowski.htm
and also pages 116-127. Copeland, Peter.
Manual of Analogue Sound Restoration Techniques.
British Library Sound Archive. London, UK. February, 2001.
3
Lurie, Maxine N. and Mappen, Marc. Encyclopedia of New Jersey.
page 68. Rutgers University Press, NJ 2004 ISBN 08-13533-252
4
Fagen, M.D., ed. A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System:
The Early Years (1875-1925). New York: Bell Telephone Laboratories,
1975.
5
Frayne, John G. History of Disk Recording Journal of the
Audio Engineering Society, Vol. 33 no 4. page 263 -266. April, 1985
6
Klapholz, Jesse. The History and Development of Microphones. Sound and
Communications. September, 1986
8
page 103. Burns, R. W. The Life and Times of A D Blumlein
Institution of Engineering and Technology.
Herts, UK 2000. ISBN 0-8529677-3-X
9 page
94 Burns, R. W. op. cit.
10 page
93 Burns, R. W. op. cit.
11 Maxfield,
Joseph P. and Henry C. Harrison. Methods of High Quality Recording and
Reproducing of Music and Speech Based on Telephone Research. Bell
System Technical Journal 5, July, 1926
12
page 4, 5 Eargle, John. The Microphone
Book. (Second Edition) Focal Press Burlington, MA 2004 ISBN-13
978-0-240-51961-6
13 Sutton, Allan. Recording the 'Twenties. The
Evolution of the American Recording Industry, 1920-29. Mainspring Press.
Denver, Colorado 2008. ISBN 978-0-9772735-4-6.
14 page 56. Chanan, Michael. Repeated
Takes - A Short History of Recording and its Effects on Music.
Verso Books. 1995. ISBN 1-85984-012-4
15 page 364. Hoffmann, Frank W. and Ferstler,
Howard. Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound, Second Edition.
Taylor & Francis, Inc. July 2004 ISBN-13 9-78041593835-8
16 Thanks to Christine Rankovic, Ph. D. for this information
on Rogers Harrison Galt.
17 Jones, W. C. Condenser and Carbon Microphones:
Their Construction and Use. Journal of the Society of Motion Picture
Engineers. : January, 1931.
18 pages 110, 111. Adams, Stephen B. and Butler,
Orville R. Manufacturing the Future: A History of Western
Electric. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge,
UK. 1999 ISBN 0-521-65118-2
19 page 92-100. Thompson, Emily.
The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of
Listening in America, 1900-1933. MIT Press. Cambridge,
Massachusetts. 1999 ISBN-13: 9780262701068
20 page 334-348. Maxfield, J. P. and Harrison,
H. C. Methods of High Quality Recording and Reproducing of
Music and Speech Based on Telephone Research. Transaction of the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers. February 1926.
21 Frederick, H. A. The Development of the
Microphone. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
July, 1931. New York, New York.
