1926 Stokowski Electrical Recordings move to the Academy of Music, Philadelphia

The introduction of electrical recording by the Victor Talking Machine Company using the Westrex process in 1925 was one of the most important milestones in the history of the gramophone.  Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra were in the vanguard of that new era, recording the first electrical symphony orchestra recordings in the world!  In 1926, Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra made a further major advance by initiating what were the first recordings of a fidelity sufficient that music lovers could, for the first time, hear a full symphony with reproduction allowing full enjoyment of the masterworks.  This was the end of recordings in which the music "...sounded like being played by a group of banjos...".

1926 Stokowski - Philadelphia Orchestra Advancements in Recording Techniques

Key to this major advancement was the agreement by the Victor Talking Machine Company in the Spring of 1926 to install the Westrex electrical recording system in the basement of the Philadelphia Orchestra's home in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia.  This change had three important components.

The first improvement was not only the installation of electrical recording equipment, but of a Westrex system which seems aurally superior to the recording system Victor used in Camden in 1925.  This may have been a combination of improved condenser microphones, and of recording heads.  For example the Western Electric Model 394 condenser Microphone Transmitter may have been introduced at about this time, including in Philadelphia.

Second, as well as a technically improved recording system, the orchestra was now recording in the beautiful acoustics of the Philadelphia Academy of Music .  The orchestra's home concert hall provided an added openness and atmosphere to the recordings.  This ambience or "air" in the recording was intentionally missing from the relatively dead acoustics of the Camden Church Studio .  Recording engineers in the acoustic recording era judged it important to have an acoustically dead studio for the acoustic recording process.

Third, Leopold Stokowski and the Victor recording engineers continued to experiment with the most effective way to capture the ochestra using the new electric recording process.  They stopped replacing percussion with contra-bassoons, stopped replacing double basses with bass saxophones and tubas.  The new electric recording process was not disrupted by the impact of percussive instruments as the acoustic process had been.  Also, since the Westrex system recorded sounds down to about 120 hertz, it could capture the double bass strings and other low notes, so reinforcement with bass winds or bass brass was no longer necessary.  Recall that for the initial electrical recordings of 1925, such as Danse macabre, Victor still used a contra-bassoon to replace the timpani part, and the bass strings were replaced by a tuba along with bass winds, just as they had done with the acoustic process.  In contrast, these 1926 recordins employed the full sound of the full Philadelphia Orchestra.

Raymond Sooy, the pioneering recording engineer of Victor wrote of these initial recording sessions in his memoires: "... June 10, 1926: This was the first date of recording the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. Up until this time, all Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra records were recorded at our studio in Camden, N.J. The above date proving very successful, we have continued to make all recordings of the Orchestra at the Academy of Music, using the complete Orchestra of 110 musicians. The first selections recorded: "Sounds from the Vienna Woods" and "The Blue Danube Waltz." ²

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June 10, 1926 - Recordings of two Johann Strauss II Waltzes

These June 10 recordings were of two waltzes by Johann Strauss II:  'On the Beautiful Blue Danube' (An der schönen blauen Donau), and 'Tales from the Vienna Woods' (Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald).  Although the waltzes are substantially cut so that each waltz will fit on a very full side of a 12 inch Victor Red Seal disk, the arrangements are fully satisfying.

These 1926 recordings were so successful, acoustically and financially, that all the Philadelphia orchestra recordings for the next 5 years were made in the Academy.  In 1931, recording sessions were moved back to the Camden Church Studio no 2, because of depression economics. These two recordings of Johann Strauss II waltzes are lush and plush, with the Philadelphia strings, including now prominent celli and bass strings giving polished, if muscular performances.  Also, the sound of the electrical recording in the Academy of Music in 1926 is light years ahead of the Blue Danube recording of 8 years earlier, in 1919.  (Stokowski had also attempted a recording of the Tales from the Vienna Woods in May, 1920, never released.)