[78-L] Unknown soprano on Polyphon

[Chris Zwarg]

At 13:35 04.01.2009, you wrote:

>Maybe you can also identify this: I have three white label test pressings of the 1920s(?) with a very able violinist. The name is not listed but I think it could possibly be Willy Burmester. Matrix nr. are: "425 BT VI" (Take 1 and 2) and "432 BT VI"  

These date from June 1929, recorded in Berlin (in "Room 6" as indicated by the Roman numeral "VI" following the engineer's code, no idea where that was). If it is Burmester they were probably never issued, as there are no electrically recorded Burmesters in any DG catalogue I have seen. I have a gap in my matrix listing at this point from between 418 and 438 BT, so we are out of luck regarding adjacent masters as well, and there is no violinist nearby except Paul Godwin as leader of various ensembles and obbligato player for contralto Hilde Ellger. There's apparently no surviving paperwork for the BT series, at least none of these numbers are included among the fragmentary ledger transcripts I received some time ago from Dr. Lotz.

1929 and 1930 catalogues list various titles by Ibolyka Zilzer and Vasa Prihoda for which I am lacking matrix numbers. Can you identify the titles played on your tests so I can compare them with the issued repertoire of these two? 

Chris Zwarg