[78-L] Hear My Prayer

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Musically I find the earlier recording far superior to the later one, mainly because of the vocal quality.  The suppliant nature of the words is conveyed so much more successfully by the timid sounding unknown choir boy who sings the first version than the far more confident sounding minor celebrity who sings the second version.  Also the two recordings, (which, I believe were recorded in roughly April and roughly October of 1927), covered a major period in the maturing of Lough's voice.  Lough was 15 at the time of both recordings and boy sopranos kept their treble voice far longer then than they do now so the advanced vocal control which was often available to boy trebles in the 1920s is largely not developed today before the boy's voice has cracked.  This was a lament expressed to me almost word for word by George Thalben Ball in the late 70s.  I'm sorry to sound like a name dropper here but I did befriend G.T.B when I went to England and spent
 much time discussing his career and English Church Music in general; besides, I believe most on this list can drop far more impressive names than I can.

db



>________________________________
> From: Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com>
>To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com> 
>Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 10:38:28 AM
>Subject: Re: [78-L] Caruso with wrong label
> 
>
>I'm glad you brought this up because the copy I recently got is only
>five feet from me, and I see it is the second recording.  I've got
>another one somewhere downstairs which I hope is the earlier recording!
>
>Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: Re: [78-L] Caruso with wrong label
>From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
>Date: Wed, September 18, 2013 10:24 am
>To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
>
>And although it didn't involve an acoustic/electrical crossover, both
>versions of Ernest Lough's "Hear My Prayer" have identical HMV labels,
>(in fact I wasn't even aware that there were two versions until I ran
>into Ernest Lough in the Temple Church in 1977).  The two versions are
>easy to distinguish, (once you know about them), because the first
>release was take III on both sides and the later release was take VI on
>side one and take VIII on side two.  I assume the take sequence was just
>continued when they re-recorded it so that both sides would have begun
>with take IV.  The North American Victor release was only the first take
>III version, (I guess the record wasn't as popular here as it was in
>England).
>
>db
>
>
>