I've loved this set since I first heard it as an LP transcription around half a century ago. Since then I've acquired the original 78 album as featured at the start of your upload plus several CD copies. I've added to that a DVD and several other versions including a Piano Roll duet version played by Cuthbert Whitmore (1877-1927) and Dorothy Manley. The Piano Roll is most enjoyable and I like to think that if Elgar himself had devised it using a Piano this is what it would have sounded like. At the Elgar Birthplace Museum they have the Gramophone give to Elgar by HMV (although it's not in a useable condition) and an identical model on which you can hear Elgar's own recordings.
Could that be the (Aeolian?) piano roll for which Elgar wrote the notes, subsequently published separately and (in that form) bought by me at the Birthplace around 1974?
The Elgar gramophone in the Birthplace Museum worked in 1973! I played the entire Violin Concerto 78 set on it having walked the mile and half from Aymestrey School, Crown East [unsupervised but with permission] on a sunny summer Saterday afternoon. I doubt that kind of thing would please the school inspectors these days! Halcyon days! Best wishes from George
Yes, it's a great recording. I'm hopeful that one day I might turn up laminated pressings in pristine condition: but even in these earlier pressings the quality of the performance shines through!
Always so fascinating to hear Elgar's conducting of his own music. Unlike you, I didn't know this recording. Interesting how different the approach is from how it's often done nowadays. Thanks to VS.
Wow! I knew this recording from the 78s at school in the early 1970s. I never had it on LP, but do have it on the 1993 CD transfer on EMI. The performance requires no comment from me, but I do know that composer and the Gramophone Company were very pleased with Elgar's first recording using the electrical process. And it is a surprise to me how much better your transfer is over EMI's own, which was made from fresh pressings from the master parts. The EMI should have been better than it actually is. With your transfer, you can tell the orchestra is playing this as if it really means something! Best wishes and thanks from George
Thanks so much George. I haven't actually listened to the EMI transfer recently. I would have liked to have worked from laminates, but I was reasonably happy with the result. Although 6 of the 7 sides were recorded on the same day, there are still some challenges in trying to end up with a consistent result because of the use of two different recording machines. "Elgar on Record" tells us that "the sound for each one was set at a different dynamic level" but it is quite apparent from listening over many years to early electric Gramophone Company recordings that there was a little more to it. Presumably, the signal was fed into a separate preamplifier for each recording machine. It now seems likely that in at least some instances, the signal came to each machine via a separate microphone. However things were configured, the result usually seems to have been that the tonal characteristics of recordings made on one machine differed from those made on the other machine. They weren't hugely different here, but I still had to deal with seven sides where three different recording characteristics had been used! On top of that, it is necessary to keep in mind the presence of the bass reinforcement when trying to get the sound balance correct. Here, we have both a contrabassoon and a tuba in addition to 3 double basses, so obviously the sound in places is going to be somewhat bass-heavy! Album sets of this period certainly have their challenges!
@@vintagesounds3878 I have an original Elgar on Record as a paperback that was in the old HMV LP set RLS 713. I never got RLS 708, which contained the big recordings including the two symphonies, Enigma, and Cello Concerto, but as I had access for the 78s, this did not matter. RLS 713 contained a lot of music that was not in the school library on 78 ... Reading that book actually sparked my interst in the actual technique of recording, and soon led to a fascination with the inventions of AD Blumlein. Such an odd hero for a twinge year old! Best wishes from George
@georgejohnson1498 RLS 713 was also a huge inspiration to me, as was the book. I was finally given RLS 708 around a year ago. I have the CDs bit it was a nice acquisition nonetheless!
Listening to this recording in your lovely vivid transfer, with the Queens Hall organ pedals thundering in the last few bars, I'm led to recall that the conductor knew the "meaning" of the "enigma", the significance of the three asterisks, and would have remembered his friend Jaeger/Nimrod telling him to extend the finale. And all of this from a man who was the son of a High Street tradesman in provincial England, with no academic training.
@@webrarian Yes, one of the things that always floors me about Elgar is that he was essentially self-taught. What incredible talent! And he certainly communicated his wishes to the orchestra!!
I've loved this set since I first heard it as an LP transcription around half a century ago. Since then I've acquired the original 78 album as featured at the start of your upload plus several CD copies. I've added to that a DVD and several other versions including a Piano Roll duet version played by Cuthbert Whitmore (1877-1927) and Dorothy Manley. The Piano Roll is most enjoyable and I like to think that if Elgar himself had devised it using a Piano this is what it would have sounded like.
At the Elgar Birthplace Museum they have the Gramophone give to Elgar by HMV (although it's not in a useable condition) and an identical model on which you can hear Elgar's own recordings.
Could that be the (Aeolian?) piano roll for which Elgar wrote the notes, subsequently published separately and (in that form) bought by me at the Birthplace around 1974?
The Elgar gramophone in the Birthplace Museum worked in 1973! I played the entire Violin Concerto 78 set on it having walked the mile and half from Aymestrey School, Crown East [unsupervised but with permission] on a sunny summer Saterday afternoon. I doubt that kind of thing would please the school inspectors these days! Halcyon days!
Best wishes from George
@@georgejohnson1498 Those really were the days. When the Powick notebooks were just sitting on shelves so we could look and marvel at them.
Yes, it's a great recording. I'm hopeful that one day I might turn up laminated pressings in pristine condition: but even in these earlier pressings the quality of the performance shines through!
Always so fascinating to hear Elgar's conducting of his own music. Unlike you, I didn't know this recording. Interesting how different the approach is from how it's often done nowadays.
Thanks to VS.
Wow! I knew this recording from the 78s at school in the early 1970s. I never had it on LP, but do have it on the 1993 CD transfer on EMI.
The performance requires no comment from me, but I do know that composer and the Gramophone Company were very pleased with Elgar's first recording using the electrical process. And it is a surprise to me how much better your transfer is over EMI's own, which was made from fresh pressings from the master parts. The EMI should have been better than it actually is.
With your transfer, you can tell the orchestra is playing this as if it really means something!
Best wishes and thanks from George
Thanks so much George. I haven't actually listened to the EMI transfer recently. I would have liked to have worked from laminates, but I was reasonably happy with the result. Although 6 of the 7 sides were recorded on the same day, there are still some challenges in trying to end up with a consistent result because of the use of two different recording machines. "Elgar on Record" tells us that "the sound for each one was set at a different dynamic level" but it is quite apparent from listening over many years to early electric Gramophone Company recordings that there was a little more to it. Presumably, the signal was fed into a separate preamplifier for each recording machine. It now seems likely that in at least some instances, the signal came to each machine via a separate microphone. However things were configured, the result usually seems to have been that the tonal characteristics of recordings made on one machine differed from those made on the other machine. They weren't hugely different here, but I still had to deal with seven sides where three different recording characteristics had been used! On top of that, it is necessary to keep in mind the presence of the bass reinforcement when trying to get the sound balance correct. Here, we have both a contrabassoon and a tuba in addition to 3 double basses, so obviously the sound in places is going to be somewhat bass-heavy! Album sets of this period certainly have their challenges!
@@vintagesounds3878 I have an original Elgar on Record as a paperback that was in the old HMV LP set RLS 713. I never got RLS 708, which contained the big recordings including the two symphonies, Enigma, and Cello Concerto, but as I had access for the 78s, this did not matter. RLS 713 contained a lot of music that was not in the school library on 78 ...
Reading that book actually sparked my interst in the actual technique of recording, and soon led to a fascination with the inventions of AD Blumlein. Such an odd hero for a twinge year old!
Best wishes from George
@georgejohnson1498 RLS 713 was also a huge inspiration to me, as was the book. I was finally given RLS 708 around a year ago. I have the CDs bit it was a nice acquisition nonetheless!
Listening to this recording in your lovely vivid transfer, with the Queens Hall organ pedals thundering in the last few bars, I'm led to recall that the conductor knew the "meaning" of the "enigma", the significance of the three asterisks, and would have remembered his friend Jaeger/Nimrod telling him to extend the finale. And all of this from a man who was the son of a High Street tradesman in provincial England, with no academic training.
@@webrarian Yes, one of the things that always floors me about Elgar is that he was essentially self-taught. What incredible talent! And he certainly communicated his wishes to the orchestra!!