[78-L] Columbia 647

[Chris Zwarg]

At 18:50 30.11.2008, you wrote:
>Jack Raymond wrote:
>> Yes, if the Florodora girls recorded their number for Columbia it was 
>> probably on Take 2.  But can anyone shed light on a recording of the 
>> song by a sextette on Canadian Berliner 1178?  Edward B Moogk in his 
>> "Roll Back the Years" indicates that there was a Berliner record that he 
>> says was "by the original cast of Florodora."  Was he confusing Berliner 
>> with Columbia, or did he know what he was talking about.  Or could the 
>> Berliner performance be by the girls of the London production?
>> 
>> -- Jack Raymond
>
>Per London Musical Shows On Record, there was indeed an earlier recording made 
>in London, October 3, 1900 by the Lyric Theatre Chorus, Berliner 4524, mx 1439. 
>Is this 7-inch or 10-inch? Canadian Berliner 1178 would be 7-inch, but no title 
>is listed for that number in the Berliner numerical lists in RBTY.
>
>dl

That's 7-inch of course (experimental 10-inch UK Berliners started around March 1901 only and probably didn't hit the shelves until August 1901), recorded by Fred Gaisberg, and it is not unlikely that this master was the source of Canadian Berliner 1178. In October 1900, a whole series of solo and duet numbers from "Florodora" were also recorded for UK-Berliner by members of the London cast (Louis Bradfield, Kate Cutler, and others), some of them piano-accompanied by the composer, others by Landon Ronald, then musical director at the Lyric Theatre. Almost the whole series was reissued in the 1980's on the OPAL label, subtitled "World's first original cast album" - among the bonus tracks, they included the cylinder version of the Columbia "Florodora Girls".

Chris Zwarg