[78-L] Nellie Melba Recordings Reissued on 78rpm

[Chris Zwarg]

At 03:23 04.12.2008, you wrote:
>Thank you!  And if you go here:
>
>http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/03/2436220.htm?section=entertainment
>
>there are mp3s of "Comin' Thro' the Rye" and Tosti's "Goodbye" you can
>listen to or download, so you can get an idea of how these rediscovered
>Melba items sound.
>
>Marie Lamb

I have already ordered my copy of the set. What the article gets wrong is that these recordings have been known for a long time; test-pressings of the three unpublished ones were in Melba's personal collection and have been reissued from that source several times, first on an EMI LP box in the early 1970's.

The "sensation" is of a more technical kind: The metal parts they have rediscovered now are the "first shells", or "fathers" in usual parlance, i.e. negative discs electroplated directly from the master waxes. These were kept at the Hanover factory for the sole purpose of producing a small number of positive "mother" discs from them, which in turn were employed for making the stampers needed to press commercial shellac records. All previous issues are thus "one generation removed" from the original, and as manufacturing techniques were far from perfect in 1904, are noticeably less forward in sound. To make matters worse, clumsy early attempts at correcting small inherent faults  in the original masters by polishing the mother and/or stamper metals caused heavy distortion and a generally mushy sound on most vintage copies from this particular series of Melba discs.

Even the mediocre MP3s on the ABC site sound clearer than anything previously heard from these sessions, with only a small hint at the (usually nasty) distortion on the high notes towards the end of "Good-bye" - at the time, the record was so problematic that Melba remade it within a year, and unworn original copies are very scarce indeed. Now you can have 16 sides for the (average auction) price of one original pressing, only better - need I say more?

Chris Zwarg