[78-L] Spontaneous recordings that were released

DAVID BURNHAM burnhamd at rogers.com
Mon Feb 6 11:43:23 PST 2012


I don't know if this is the kind of thing you're talking about but there are several classical examples of spontaneous comments getting onto a record.  On Sir Thomas Beecham's recording of the Damnation of Faust Orchestral selections you can hear Sir Thomas saying, "Very well done, gentlemen" in the runout spiral.  On the Piatagorgsky recording of Schumann's A minor cello Concerto  you can hear the conductor complimenting the soloist.  They apparently tried to retake this side but none of the retakes measured up to the first take.  I think the comment may have been removed from some of the releases.  Also, Vladimir de Pachmann was known for adding comments to his recordings or stopping and re-starting a performance while the disc was spinning.  A mystery to me has always been the Boston Pops recording of "Bolero".  On the third side the trombones completely mess up near the end of the piece and you can almost hear them laughing while they're
 playing.  I'm sure they thought they would do a retake but they obviously didn't.  I wonder if Fiedler was fed up with them and let the thing be released as it was played.  I know that brass players seem to do more horseplay than other sections of the orchestra and can often try the patience of conductors.

db


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