[78-L] Sargent Messiah^^

[David Lennick]

The Canadian pressing would have been from parts supplied by Capitol in 
Hollywood, and their transfers from EMI masters were notoriously lousy and they 
only got worse on Seraphim. Griffith must have worked from the first generation 
tape.  Me, I'm still trying to find the 1959 Beecham recording. I have it on 
mono RCAs which is all I've managed to turn up. I know it came out on CD but it 
seems to be a hard one to find.

dl

On 12/24/2010 6:23 PM, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:
> 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
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