As a Foreword to this edition, we offer below a brief but comprehensive history of recorded sound, from Thomas Alva Edison’s first cylinder of 1877 and Emile Berliner’s disc system of the early 1890s, to the arrival of electric recording, which transformed the sound fundamentally, while the debut of the LP in 1950 at last brought continuity to major works. Stereo enormously enhanced realism a decade later, and the compact disc virtually removed both background noise and wear and tear on the disc itself; with the coming of DVD, listeners are able to watch as well as hear distinguished artists making music.
When in 1877 Edison first demonstrated the cylinder phonograph in his factory to an assembled staff, and the words ‘Mary had a little lamb’ came clearly out of its tin horn, he could hardly have envisaged the full potential of his invention. Indeed, its first commercial use, as exploited by the inventor’s Columbia Phonograph Company, was as an office machine, to record dictation. Understandably, this was not welcomed by office staff and its career was short-lived. Instead, in the 1880s, coin-in-the-slot novelty phonographs were devised, equipped with ten sets of ear tubes through which the reproduced sound travelled simultaneously. These were rented out to showmen at fairs, who charged five cents from each listener to experience the primitive sound, and soon these reproducing machines spread to shops and saloons.
This innovative change to the world of entertainment brought with it the recording industry’s first A&R (artists and repertoire) man, Fred Gaisberg, a remarkably gifted man of Bavarian extraction, whose family had emigrated to New York in 1854. Young Fred, with the encouragement of his highly musical mother, soon developed into a first-rate musician and a fine pianist. He also received much early support as a boy from the famous bandmaster/composer John Philip Sousa, who encouraged him to stand beside the maestro at open-air concerts on windy days and turn over and hold down the music. Such continued exposure to the popular hits of the time must have been invaluable to young Fred, and he soon became a very highly accomplished and much sought-after accompanist.
It was not surprising that, while he was still at school, the Columbia Phonograph Company heard of Gaisberg’s talents and in 1889 they offered him the post of producer/pianist (who could play loudly and clearly!) for their expansion into a wider range of repertoire. The first star of this innovative repertoire was John York Artee who, unaccompanied, could clearly enunciate prose as diverse as Mark Antony’s famous speech from Julius Caesar and the Lord’s Prayer. But he was primarily employed as a whistler and as such he was celebrated in duet with the sixteen-year-old ‘Professor’ Gaisberg (piano) for such virtuoso items as ‘The Whistling Coon’ and ‘The Mocking Bird’, which Artee himself announced in stentorian tones.
Gaisberg’s early recordings were made straight into the recording horn, itself attached to a stylus which travelled laterally across a hollow wax cylinder. Simultaneously this was rotated by a hand crank – allowing the sound track to cut across the wax surface turning underneath it, with the vertical motion of the vibrating stylus mirroring the sound signal. It played for up to two minutes. By a resourceful additional expansion it was possible to place up to three horns close together and thus make three recordings at once. However, when Sousa’s band came to record, such was the volume that as many as ten recordings could be made simultaneously! Yet every purchaser of such a recording could justly claim that they had a master copy.
By the beginning of the 1890s the cylinder technology had been considerably improved, and in 1891 Gaisberg spent several months expanding his own knowledge of the acoustic recording technology at his company’s factory at Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was thus equipped to meet and work with the most brilliant inventor of all, the man who devised an innovative new recording system which was destined to replace the cylinder altogether. It was conceived by Emile Berliner, whose family had emigrated from Germany to America in 1870. With little in the way of financial resources and working first in a small laboratory in New York, Berliner had devised a zinc disc on which a recording could be etched as it turned, giving a virtually immediate playback facility. Because the recording stylus vibrated and etched laterally on a flat surface, not rising and falling as in the phonograph’s ‘hill and dale’ recording process, it made a steady progress which produced an improvement in the smoothness of the reproduced sound.
Most important of all, the use of a flat disc as the source of the recording meant that having cut his master into the disc, Berliner could then create a negative image and from that reverse master, in which the groove stayed at a consistent depth, he could press copies. This created a mass-production manufacturing process which provided almost unlimited quantities of listenable discs, pressed from that reverse master and, with the first single-sided discs, 5 and 7 inches in diameter, the gramophone record was created.
In 1893 Fred Gaisberg was invited by Berliner to his house, where a demonstration showed unequivocally how his new gramophone method was superior to the cylinder-playing phonograph, even though the playback mechanism was still hand-cranked. Gaisberg immediately sought a promise from Berliner that when his ‘gramophone’, as it was called, was at the marketing/development stage he could join the working team. A year later he did so, moving to 1410 Pennysylvania Avenue, the address of Berliner’s modest new laboratory in Washington, DC. There Gaisberg was to record a demonstration programme of songs and music to be used to raise capital to market the new company’s products.
The technical success of the gramophone was thus assured, but not its financial backing. Numerous demonstrations were given but, despite their artistic success, potential investors were sceptical and resistant when asked for money. However, this delay was not entirely disadvantageous for, during this waiting period, Berliner found a new material with which to press his records. Developed by the Durinoid Company of Newark, New Jersey (who were button manufacturers), it was a mixture of powdered shellac and byritis, bound by cotton flock and coloured with lamp-black. It was rolled out into ‘biscuits’ which, when heated, were easily moulded under pressure and which, when cooled, admirably retained the impression of the recording grooves pressed into them. Thus was born what was eventually to become the 78-r.p.m. ‘shellac’ record familiar for half a century until it was eclipsed by the vinyl LP and, later, the CD.
It was the discovery of this new plastic material which finally convinced investors of the potential of Berliner’s invention, and in October 1895 the United States Gramophone Company was incorporated in Philadelphia to control the patents. This, as it happened, was opportune; in his machine shop, just across the Delaware river in Camden, New Jersey, a young mechanic called Eldrige Johnson had perfected a practical gramophone motor that was simple and cheap to make. Thus the last hurdle was crossed, and Berliner no longer had to rely on hand-cranking.
Soon a promotional office was organized in New York, and in 1897 Gaisberg was to mastermind the first recording studio in 12th Street in Philadelphia, and he was given carte blanche as to the choice of artists and repertoire.
So great was the success of the venture in the USA, it soon became obvious that a European equivalent should be set up without delay, and in 1898 the new British-based Gramophone Company was incorporated in Maiden Lane in London, initially to import records and record-playing machines from America. But the choice of location for the factory where the new records were to be made was not England but Hanover, where German technology reigned supreme. Moreover the chairman of the new company, Trevor Williams (a brilliant addition to the board), realized immediately that the success of the (initially UK) venture depended on being able to record European performers in repertoire of European interest. Someone with recording experience and wide musical knowledge had to mastermind this expansion, and the choice was obvious.
Thus it was that Fred Gaisberg would cross the Atlantic to set up a new base in London; the artistic success of the new catalogue would be ensured as it was to include the most famous operatic stars of the time. Above all, Gaisberg had the skill to determine whether a singer would record well. The most famous example of his instant recognition of a great voice comes in the often-told story about his discovery of Caruso. In 1902, the young tenor was singing at La Scala opera house in Milan in an opera that was very popular at the time, Francetti’s Germania. He held the audience spellbound and Gaisberg realized that this was a very special voice indeed. Caruso was approached through an intermediary and was asked whether he would be willing to record ten arias. He agreed, but insisted they all be recorded in one session, and he asked for a fee of £100. Gaisberg cabled London for permission and received the stark reply: ‘Fee exorbitant. Forbid you to record.’
But Gaisberg was so sure of his own judgement that he went ahead anyway, hiring a private drawing-room on the third floor of the Grand Hotel. A bell-shaped metal horn was suspended five feet from the floor to pick up both the singer’s voice and the accompanying piano. The selection was to include ‘Questa O quella’ from Rigoletto, ‘Celeste Aida’ and the ‘Dream song’ from Manon, and Caruso went through the whole programme as fast as the wax discs could be put on to the recording machine. But Gaisberg was right: Caruso’s voice recorded perfectly and the result was an artistic and technical triumph; the subsequent success of the ten records not only produced an immediate profit of £15,000 but also encouraged other – previously reluctant – singers to come into the recording studio. For the acoustic recording system was above all suitable for recording the human voice, which in Gaisberg’s hands it often did with uncanny realism. The ‘orchestral’ accompaniments were much less successful and had to be rescored to concentrate on wind and brass sonorities rather than strings, although the piano sometimes reproduced reasonably well.
Gaisberg remained the key international recording manager for the Gramophone Company until 1925, when the coming of electric recording required new skills and produced many new problems outside his previous experience, but also, at last, the ability to record a symphony orchestra with adequate realism. In 1931 the Gramophone Company (affected by the Depression) merged with their main competitor, Columbia, to become Electric and Musical Industries Ltd (EMI) and it was Gaisberg who was appointed to manage the new combined HMV International Department, which now had access to a galaxy of new names. They included Beecham, Gieseking, Szigeti, Bruno Walter and Weingartner, to say nothing of the Victor American catalogue, which featured Horowitz, Rubinstein, Heifetz and Toscanini, among many others – in essence a roster of the greatest artists in the world.
What remained to be done was to perfect the technique of recording and reproducing sound and to keep under contract artists who had an affinity with the music they recorded. Thus the editing of various ‘takes’ could ensure that the performance was musically and stylistically accurate. But it soon became obvious that if recordings of real distinction were to be achieved, then a combined team of producer and recording engineer was necessary, with the producer dominant and soon to achieve a reputation and influence of real significance, especially at EMI, where Walter Legge’s name soon became as famous as those of the artists he recorded.
When the long-playing record made its appearance in 1950 most listeners thought that the final stage in the development of sound reproduction was at hand. Yet, astonishingly, EMI held back, concentrating instead on smaller, 7-inch vinyl discs mainly used for singles, which hardly proved suitable for classical repertoire. This left a glaring gap in the marketplace, which was eagerly taken up by the burgeoning new Decca Record Company (London Records in the USA). Decca had the advantage, in Arthur Haddy, of the most brilliant technical director the record industry has ever known and, in John Culshaw, an equally able and imaginative producer. They made a perfect team.
At the end of the 78-r.p.m. era, Haddy had developed a new extended-range recording system which soon became famous under its logo, ffrr (full frequency range recording). This was incorporated into the Decca/London LP technology to produce recordings of remarkable range and definition. Culshaw took full advantage of the technical improvement which ffrr provided, and soon Decca LPs took the market lead both technically and musically, a lead which they never really lost, although EMI caught up in the 1960s with their remarkable artists’ roster, and both Deutsche Grammophon in Germany and Philips in Holland also brought comparable competition of high quality.
It was A. D. Blumlein of the British Columbia Gramophone Company who, in 1931, conceived and patented the idea of stereo recording on disc. He noted at the time that the coarse shellac composition with which records were then made was unsuitable for the process. But in 1952 Arthur Haddy at Decca realized that the vinyl material used for LPs would indeed be suitable and he devised a 45/45 stereo recording system, based on Blumlein’s ideas, in which the two channels could be cut in the two walls of the record groove at 45 degrees to the surface plane. By 1954 the Decca British and German engineers had combined to produce a recording machine and reproducing pick-ups using this technology, and from that time onwards all major works were recorded at Decca for later issue as both stereo and mono LPs. Although this research was kept secret, other companies were pursuing similar goals, so in March 1958 Haddy arranged a demonstration in New York to show the feasibility of the Decca 45/45 system, and this was adopted universally. Very soon Decca stereo LPs were on the market using the logo ffss (full frequency stereophonic sound) and, with the enhancement obvious to virtually all ears, the future of the stereo disc was assured.
In the USA, the new RCA Victor Company had formed an existence independent of its old affiliation with what had now become EMI, although retaining the famous HMV ‘dog and trumpet’ logo (to which they had equal rights) for their classical catalogue. They too had been secretly experimenting with stereo from 1953 onwards, and in February 1954 the RCA producers John Pfeiffer and Richard Mohr took their new equipment to Boston’s Symphony Hall, which had the finest acoustics for recording in the whole of the USA. They recorded experimentally Munch and his Boston vocal and orchestral team in Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, using a pair of microphones and two-track tapes. It was subsequently discovered that Chicago’s Symphony Hall also had an acoustic ambience ideal for stereo, and so from 1958 until the early 1960s a series of ‘Living Stereo’ recordings was made in either venue, featuring artists of the calibre of Arthur Fiedler (ideal for ballet music), Munch, Fritz Reiner, Stokowski, Heifetz, Rubinstein and others. The simplest microphone techniques were used: the sound was recorded on either two or three tracks, and the result was remarkably successful.
In 2006 John Newton and his technical team at Sound Mirror Inc. in Boston returned to these master tapes and re-transferred them to Super Audio CDs (SACDs), using either two or three channels as available; however, the result proved fully compatible using a normal CD player. The reproduction is astonishingly realistic. The performances are all outstandingly fine, the balance is superb, with the hall acoustics truthfully caught, and these remain among the finest stereo recordings ever made. Many of them will be found in our pages.
At this point we need to remind readers of another, much smaller American record company which produced early stereo recordings ahead of its time. The production team of Mercury combined a first-class producer in Wilma Cozart and a brilliant engineer in Bob Fine. Wilma, who was a trained musician, favoured a natural sound-balance and Bob (who was eventually to become her husband) pioneered the use of just two or three microphones for his stereo recordings (some say that RCA borrowed the idea from Mercury!). The catalogue was imaginatively chosen, including much contemporary American music, and the brilliant sound gave the best Mercury issues a lead over many of their competitors.
One problem remained: background noise. Even well-cared-for LPs gathered extraneous noise as they were played, with sudden clicks and pops (often caused by dust particles) particularly irritating. Even when digital recording sharpened the clarity of the sound image, these disturbances persisted. Finally, with the arrival of the compact disc in the early 1980s this problem was overcome and the newer digital recordings could be heard against a background of absolute silence. Even digitally remastered analogue CDs could be enjoyed with just a minimum of hiss from the master-tape. Moreover, modern technology has managed to reduce background noise considerably even from cleverly transferred recordings with a shellac, 78-r.p.m. source.
One further refinement was to come. In the 1960s several of the major companies experimented with quadraphonic surround sound, but the system failed to catch on, and some say this was because the fair sex refused to accept the presence of four large speakers in the living-room. However, the coming of compatible SACDs revived the project. The back speakers can be very small, even hidden, for their purpose is only to add a subtle background ambience to the recording. With small groups of artists this can bring a subtle but tangible feeling of presence; with large-scale works, especially choral music, the result can be a very thrilling fourth dimension, and one really has the sense of sitting in the concert hall itself.
The appeal of the DVD is so obvious that it hardly needs any advocacy from us. We are discovering that the major international opera houses have been recording (in stereo) and filming their key productions for several decades now, and there is much treasure to be discovered in their archives. The quality of both picture and sound is generally remarkably good, often really excellent. Those music lovers seeking to watch instrumental and vocal soloists, choirs, and famous orchestras playing under key conductors will not be disappointed either. No better examples exist than the superb DVD of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos recorded at Castle Cöthen by the wonderfully alive and stylish Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, or the series of recordings Bernstein made in New York and Boston not long before he died, full of musical joy and brimming over with an exuberant life force.