Re: [ARSCLIST] History help needed

[Don Tait <Dontaitchicago@xxxxxxx>]

  Regarding Tom Fine's message about the use of stairwells and bathrooms as 
reverb chambers until the '60s, I used to read that Peter Bartok used his tiled 
bathroom for his still-excellent-sounding mono recordings. The most famous 
example of the use of stairwells may be Ormandy's first, circa 1947, 
Philadelphia recording of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. It was issued on 78s and an 
early Columbia LP (ML 4089). On some editions of the LP (but not the first ones 
or the 78s), at one point one can hear a dog barking. The story I've heard is 
that Columbia was using a stairwell to add reverb in the early '50s, that the 
stairwell went down to street level, the dog barked outside the door while the 
tape was being re-worked, no one was paying attention, and it was issued. 

  Don Tait