[78-L] Advent of Electrical Recording

[Michael Biel]

From: Matthew Duncan <recordgeek334578 at yahoo.com>
> I believe the first Gilbert and Sullivan album set with a pictorial cover was "The Mikado" on HMV, 1917.  Prior to this album sets were issued on HMV without pictorial covers.   The earliest of these held single sided discs such as Verdi's 'Ernarni' on HMV from 1903, the label's first complete recording of an opera as opposed to issuing excepts from them was issued in a more plain cover than the 1917 G&S one mentioned above and was made up of 40 single sided discs.  I believe the discs were 12" in size and were G&T labelled records (pre-Nipper logo).

Matthew Duncan.
England.

Great to have confirmation of this.  I'll look them up in WERM and see
if there are early British catalogs at R&H.  Of course I need pictures. 
I'll need to see if anybody already published picture or if these albums
exist anywhere.  Perhaps Earl might be able to help -- he knows opera
collectors and could also hop on over to the British Museum to see if
they are there.  Surely they are.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com