Re: [ARSCLIST] 101 strings collection up for grabs LA area

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roger and Allison Kulp wrote:

>
>
>
>
> Dave,

>       I have often wondered about the Firestone/Music Appreciation 78s.This  Mengelberg is a new one to me.You got a list of who did what,for us who  don't have old ARSC journals? Also,are you aware of French radio  perfomances,issued in the late 50s,by Synthetic Plastics,on thier  Promenade label? I have an Lp they did,of excerpts from "Swan  Lake"(!),by Henri Tomasi,and the ONdRFF.What else did they put out?  Promenade,of course, being a successor to thier earlier Parade label.  BTW,I once sold an early Royale 78 of Marian Anderson,on eBay(!) , dub  of an Ultraphon 78 Roger

There was an article in the ARSC Journal a few years back and I believe it's online (possibly connected to The Blue Pages) that identifies a lot of Royale and Varsity performances as coming from European radio tapes (some similar to Mercury releases of the same period). Finding Mengelberg on Oberstein 78 labels is just a logical extension of his using Telefunken as a source..I once heard that he had visited the company and stolen test pressings, possibly more than once, although this wouldn't have been occurring during World War II. And he did issue some Telefunken material with credit to the artists (Leo Blech, Erich Kleiber, probably a number of others).

Royale may have been entirely legit when it started. Larry Holdridge's current auction list has many Eddy Brown Royale discs, most of which are fairly scarce and all of which were recorded new for Royale. The label faced bankruptcy sometime in 1940..maybe when it was reorganized, European recordings (some stolen, some not) were the only way to keep it going.

There were a couple of US labels, including Concert Hall and Discovery, that issued material from the Standard Transcription library. This includes the Paris Symphony Orchestra's recording of "The Comedians" (easily identified because it has a different movement from the usual suite) and later recordings by the Don Cossack Choir.

Parade, by the way, even put out the anonymously issued opera sets that had been on "world's Greatest Operas" (NOT an Obie label, but he copied their style for the Music Appreciation label), adding narration by Milton Cross!

dl