[78-L] Strange Victor couplings

[David Lennick]

I've seen this listing..actually I thought I'd mentioned it once. There were 
also auto coupling sets of ten or so discs where there'd be a complete symphony 
in one direction and another on the reverse sides, possibly with an overture as 
filler..I have a couple of these. There are also some instances where the auto 
sequence issue of an album set has lower numbers than the manual version 
(Koussevitzky's recording of the Petrouchka Suite comes to mind). This was all 
before Slide Automatic.

Something I've never understood is why some 45RPM sets were issued in manual 
sequence. Duh! (Annie Get Your Gun, MGM was one.)

dl

On 9/4/2011 11:08 PM, Michael Biel wrote:
> In the past we have discussed a late 40s pressing of Gershwin playing
> the Rhapsody In Blue where one side is the acoustical and the other is
> the electrical.  It turns out a number of us have that one, so it might
> have lasted in stock along time.  But here is a coupling of the
> electrical RIB that I have never seen and have never seen anybody
> posting about it.
>
> Would you believe a copy of one part of RIB backed with the other part
> of Mississippi Suite?  They would be scroll labels and would be CORRECT
> couplings!
>
> I was leafing thru the 1930 Victor catalog I got a few months ago, and
> after the section in the white pages listing the Musical Masterpieces
> albums, there is a section headed Automatic Victor Instruments.  They
> explain the availability of the machine and first discuss two sets of
> varied classical pieces, A-5 and A-7.  Then starting on the next page
> are three pages (!!!) of SINGLE Musical Masterpiece discs that can be
> paired with others for you to create your own continuous program.  The A
> sides would be one work, and the B sides another.
>
> 35891 is Rhapsody In Blue Part 1 backed with Mississippi Suite Part 2.
> 35892 is Rhapsody In Blue Part 2 backed with Mississippi Suite Part 1
>
> There are about a hundred of these type of couplings listing, most of
> them Red Seal.  Remember, these are NOT IN ALBUMS.  They are sold and
> priced individually.  Most are 2-part pieces, but some are 3 or 4 part
> pieces and allow you to play a full piece without having to flip over in
> the middle.  The four parts of Fountains of Rome are backed with the
> four parts of Don Juan on 9185-9188.  In the alphabetical listing you
> only find the standard manual release, Don is 9114 and 9115, Fountains
> 9126 and 9127.  Set A-7 is interesting because among the seven works on
> the ten discs is Schubert's Unfinished Symphony which if you get it on
> set AM-16 you would have to get up and flip the stack of three records
> over after three sides, but on A-7 the six sides would play in a row.
>
> This is a fascinating comparison with the first Columbia Lps.  Most, if
> not all of the early Lps break a long piece in the middle because they
> did not generally put two different works on one album!  Here Victor
> provided a way that some works could be heard without a middle turnover
> by having albums or sets with multiple different works.  But these two
> sets and these automatic singles seem to have had a shorter life than
> the Program Transcriptions!  And RCA Victor never brought out this idea
> again, such as when they came out with the 45 -- no matter how fast the
> special changer was you still had to flip over the stack in the middle
> of the symphony.
>
> One other point about the Columbia Lp in 1948 -- the first Philco
> changers used a second arm for the Lp, and that arm was not automatic!
> You could stack 78s on the changer but only play one Lp side at a time.
>
>     Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>
>