[78-L] Sargent Messiah^^

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Aside from the fact that Sargent did record "Messiah" on 78s, (many sections 
more than once), this has nothing to do with those recordings.  But please allow 
me a rant.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the Stereo recording, Sargent's last EMI 
recording of the work, which came out in the late '50s.  This was THE recording 
of Messiah at the beginning of the stereo era and stood alone very briefly until 
Beecham's spectacular 1959 recording, (Beecham's last two recordings of Messiah 
trumped recently released Sargent recordings) - the last two such treatments of 
the work before the Period Performance craze took over so that today there is no 
such romantic recorded version of Messiah available which is less  than 50 years 
old.  But the point of the rant is that, at least  in Canada, the recording of 
the Stereo Sargent Messiah was issued in  very poor quality - there was no 
focus, no depth and distorted sound.  But sometime in the '60s, Anthony C. 
Griffith remastered this recording for World Records and the results are 
stunning, even today.  The distortion is removed, sibilants are clear and there 
is at least an extended octave and a half of organ pedals rumbling around the 
basement.  I used to love playing the last chorus, "Worthy is the Lamb", from 
the Canadian, (Seraphim), issue and then amazing my guests by playing the World 
version and astonishing them that it was the same recording.  Unfortunately, the 
CD reissue has the same sound as the Seraphim recording.

Griffith did so much fine work on projects like the complete Elgar recordings 
and the early Sibelius recordings, exhorting sounds from those old masters that 
belie their age, and yet, I find, most record collectors today have never even 
heard of him.  I think he was easily as much of a legend as Alan Blumlein in the 
history of recording  technology.

db