In this week's newsletter:

• New this week - Ormandy conducts Bach transcriptions at Philadelphia, 1946-55
  
• New This Week - Mark Obert-Thorn presents Weingartner in Basle and London, 1928-29
  
• PADA Exclusives - Oswald Kabasta's 1942 Schubert 3rd Symphony in Munich
  
• Reviews - Latest reviews, e-mails and comments
  

Editorial - Leave it in or take it out? A restorer's question

Earlier this week I recorded an interview for a BBC Radio Four programme on the subject of remastering, due for broadcast in April of this year. The question and answer session stretched to about 35 minutes, during which I attempted to outline my approach to the subject, as well as explain what on earth XR remastering is and how it works, all without the aid of pictures.

In the middle of all of this, one question stuck out - and required answering again as I renewed work after the interview on the finishing touches to this week's Ormandy Bach recordings. We now have the technology to remove all sorts of extraneous noises from a recording - but should we, and if so, how does this affect the recording as an historic document?

I immediately recalled two recordings I'd worked on. One was Toscanini's première broadcast performance of Barber's Adagio for Strings and Essay for Orchestra No. 1. The Adagio was shot through with radio interference - speech from another broadcast was clearly audible throughout much of the performance. Thankfully the nature of the music, with its long, drawn-out notes and relatively sparse orchestration allowed me to delve in-between the musical frequencies and extract the offending interference. The recordings were previously unissued - was this one of the reasons for this? And if so, was it not therefore better not to have them so as to be able better to enjoy the music and the performance?

The other recording which sprang to mind was Boult's January 1945 Bedford Corn Exchange recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Holst's Planets Suite. As the music receded into the HMV shellac noise during Neptune something else could be heard, something which sounded suspiciously like the drone of heavy wartime aircraft. The noise impaired the audibility of those exquisitely quiet bars of music, and was duly filtered out.

And then this week it was the traffic noise outside which marred Ormandy's Bach. There are few extraneous sounds which are both as recognisable and as likely to turn up on both 'studio' and live recordings than motor traffic accelerating away outside the concert hall - though the Bakerloo Line Underground trains were a constant annoyance to those of us working in the sub-basement of the BBC's Broadcasting House in London for many decades, until an expensively sprung massive false floor was inserted to soak up all the vibrations!

But should we be removing these noises? Are they not part of the historical document that is a recording? What about the man with the hacking cough marring a live broadcast? Or the conductor humming along with the music?

Ultimately it's a matter of judgment. Rule number one is simple - if it can't be removed without damage to the musical content, it has to stay. Thereafter the rules become a little less clear. Traffic noise I can do without. If I get rid of 80-90% of the coughs in a live performance I don't mind leaving a handful in to remind the listener of the nature of the performance - preferably quiet ones which I can't get out anyway. Radio interference was not a part of the performance or broadcast at all; rather it was a shortcoming of the equipment used to tune into the broadcast and record it, and I'll do what I can to get rid of it - likewise print-through or cross-talk from tapes, and pre-echo on discs.

What I'll not be losing in a hurry is Toscanini's humming (nor Paul Paray's for that matter). Bum notes stay in as well, even if they can be 'fixed', especially in a live performance. On the other hand, tape drop-outs can sometimes be patched in such a way that the listener hears the original frequencies up to, say, 5kHz, but above that they hear something copied in from elsewhere in the same recording which sounds identical or sufficiently similar as to be undetectable.

Some orchestras are noisier than others, with all sorts of bumps, clanks, creaks and clatters - these I tend to treat like coughs: get rid of the majority of the worst whilst not producing a completely 'perfect' recording. After all, they are a part of the sound of humans making music, albeit not the sounds we necessarily wanted to hear.

Is this the 'right' approach? Can there ever be such a thing?


Andrew Rose, St. Méard de Gurçon, France

The Philadelphia Orchestra
conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Recorded 1946-1955

Transfers by Edward Johnson from his private collection 
XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, January 2010 
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Eugene Ormandy

Total duration: 79:52 
©2010 Pristine Audio.

For more download and CD options, see our website

The FLAC downloads:

New release today:

Weingartner in Basle and London
Pristine Audio PASC 210

Basle Symphony Orchestra
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Felix Weingartner, conductor 
Recorded 1928 and 1929

Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn
Cover artwork based on a photograph of Felix Weingartner

Total duration: 58:41 
©2010 Pristine Audio

For more download and CD options, see our website

The downloads:

Five excellent late 1920s recordings from Felix Weingartner

Transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn include some of his rarest electrical recordings

 

• WEBER Der Freischütz - Overture [notes / score]
  Recorded 3rd May, 1928 in the Musiksaal, Basle
  Matrix nos.: WZX 75-3, 76-2 and 77-1
  First issued on Columbia 9644 and 9645
  
• SCHUBERT Rosamunde, D797 - Entr'acte No. 3 in B flat [notes / score]
  Recorded 3rd May, 1928 in the Musiksaal, Basle
  Matrix no.: WZX 74-2
  First issued on Columbia 9645
  
• WEINGARTNER The Tempest - Scherzettino ("Spuk neckender Geister")
  Recorded 3rd May, 1928 in the Musiksaal, Basle
  Matrix no.: WZX 73-1
  First issued on Columbia 8852
  
• WEBER (orch. WEINGARTNER) Invitation to the Dance [notes / score]
  Recorded 3rd May, 1928 in the Musiksaal, Basle
  Matrix nos.: WZX 71-2 and 72-1
  First issued on Columbia 9691
  
  Basle Symphony Orchestra
  conductor Felix Weingartner 
  
  
  
• MENDELSSOHN Symphony 3 in A minor, Op. 56 ("Scottish") [notes / score]
  Recorded 27th March, 1929 in the Portman Rooms, Baker Street, London 
  Matrix nos.: WAX 4808-2, 4809-1, 4810-1, 4811-2, 4812-1, 4813-2, 4814-1 and 4815-2 
  First issued on Columbia 9887 through 9890
  
  Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
  conductor Felix Weingartner
  

Felix Weingartner's 1928 Basle recordings include some of his rarest electrical records, assembled here in truly superb transfers by Mark Obert-Thorn in the shape of four works by Weber, Schubert and Weingartner himself - the conductor was also a prolific composer and considered this his foremost musical skill.

Also included on this album is Weingartner's 1929 London recording of Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, made with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for UK Columbia and transferred here from excellent American 'Viva-Tonal' and 'Full Range' pressings.

Mark's choice of excerpt recording for our website pages is Weingartner's own arrangement of Weber's Invitation to the Dance, recorded in May 1928 and sounding astonishingly good - as a taster for the rest of this set it is truly mouth-watering!

Download listening sample: (Invitation to the Dance)

Notes on the recordings:

The sources for the present transfers were a mixture of American Columbia “Viva-Tonal” and “Full-Range” pressings for the Mendelssohn and English Columbias for the remainder. The Basle recordings are rather rare; Invitation to the Dance was the only title released in the USA, while Weingartner’s Tempest excerpt was only released in Switzerland.

Mark Obert-Thorn

 

Available as 320kbps MP3, 16-bit FLAC, CD
or listen on demand with Pristine Audio Direct Access (PADA)

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