[78-L] Question 1812 Overture

[victrola78s at aol.com]

Philip Carli Philip_Carli at pittsford.monroe.edu 
Thu Mar 31 11:50
"No early version that _I_ know of uses cannons, but the Grenadier Guards version I mentioned uses heavy percussion very effectively in the close; it must have been extremely difficult to record, but it is very exciting and festively clamourous.  Really worth a listen.
I should dig out my early HMV electric with Eugene Goossens and the Covent Garden orchestra -- I remember it being quite good as well.  I like Sokoloff's hell-for-leather acoustic Brunswick  with the Cleveland Orchestra, but I've never heard the "Light Ray" electric remake, which might be fascinatingly horrible, sonically.  Has anyone here (I'm sure they have)?"

I have heard the 1926 electric remake of the "1812 Overture" by Sokoloff & the Cleveland Orchestra. It was presented by Don Tait on his "Collector's Item" radio program in 1984, at which time I lived in California & listened to the KUSC broadcast of the show. I was a fairly regular listener to Don's show from 1984 to 1992, and I taped the show onto type II chrome cassettes whenever I had the chance. The Brunswick "Light Ray" process produced a muddy, almost gritty recording in this instance. The crescendos during climaxes in the music sound overloaded and congested in the copy Don used, and overall the record sounded like it was recorded "inside a barrell", as Don put it. Allowing for the state of FM broadcasts in 1984 and any compression used by KUSC, the Brunswick "Light Ray" recording STILL suffers in comparison with the other 78s Don played that night. I've read many comments in different 78rpm discussion groups that say that the late acoustic Brunswicks sound better than their early electrics, and they're not far wrong with this one. Definitely sounds electric, but geesh bring me a Victor Orthophonic any day! I have NOT heard the acoustic version done by Sokoloff; I'll bet it sounds excellent. And I too have a copy of the Mengelberg/Concertgebouw set on Mercury Classics, album DM-23(sounds like a Victor number!). The Mercury Classics label is gold with a black "cap", and states "from Czechoslovak Masters". My set(I am looking at it now)has a green cover with gold lettering and a gold rendering of the Kremlin on it. There is also an error, as in lower case lettering it states "amsterdam concertgehouw orchestra". And also, there is a sickening wow through all four sides of this pressing. Anyone care to weigh in on the reason for this? Other American reissues of Europa-based recordings I've heard(I'm thinking Capitol's Telefunken reissues) sound much better than this.

Dennis "Spoils of War" Forkel