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Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears in 2 cd sets
Tom,Very helpful information,indeed.I was looking last night,and I have seven of these Lp.I gave the "Pictures",the Wagner,and the Debussy/Ravel,a spin,and they are sweet!I bought mine,in two lots,at thrift stores,in the early 90s,and have not seen copies this nice since.Your information is very helpful,in explaning,why these sound different,even from the Capitol Pittsburghs,of the period.I had read that Mercury had taken the 35mm recorders,that Everest had used,but I was not aware Command got the mics,and mixers.There have been so many Westminter reissues over the years, you would have thought there would have been a couple of these in the mix,too,since they were both controlled by MCA/Universal,at one time.
So were the Commands,originally sold as "premium" price records ? This would explain thier relative scarcity.I remember ABC,later relegating Command,to thier "low rent district",before licensing,some of it off to Pickwick,just before THEY went under.
Roger Kulp
Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Rod:
My father made most of those recordings and his company did all of them. Most of the ones not
engineered by my father were engineered by Bob Eberenz, although some of the last sessions were done
by Ted Gossman. There were a few unique things about the Pittsburgh recordings, which resulted in a
unique sound. Not everyone likes them, but people who do seem to like them very much.
What was unique:
1. the Pittsburgh hall had the stage in the middle of the hall, so the whole space was in effect a
reverberant chamber.
2. six mics were used, in order to get an in-focus pickup of the orchestra but also get a good heavy
dose of room sound. The mics were Church mics, which are either rare or very rare depending on what
history you believe. Church were Neumann U-47 capsules in a different body and with a different
power supply designed by MGM sound engineer Stanley Church. Some say Church was still selling mics
in the mid-60's, but I'd like to know how he got the capsules loose from Herr Timmer, who tightly
controlled Neumann goods in the US from the mid-50's onward. These particular Church mics, and the
custom Westrex mixer to which they were connected, were originally at Everest.
3. of course, not too many people recorded directly to mag-film, and all the advantages of low noise
and high dynamic range are there.
4. Command spared no expense with these records, so the LPs were pressed on great vinyl and were in
super-rigid sleeves. This changed when ABC bought Command, and by the end of the recordings, 1967,
ABC was selling the earlier albums for a couple of bux in the cutout rack.
If you have the original-issue Command quarter-track tapes, they were duped at Fine Recording's
duplication operation. Those tapes should sound good but I have a bunch of them and mostly they
suffer from edge warp so they're not pleasant to listen to due to left-channel dropout unless the
old gauze-in-the-head-can method is used to play them. I'm not a big fan of quarter-track duped
tapes, but some people seem to have better condition tapes than I usually see. I dig the original
LPs, but mine are getting pretty played out. Which is why it would be great if this stuff got
reissued. I wonder if any patrons of the Pittsburgh Symphony would have any interest??? Or the
Pittsburgh PBS stations?? A nice box set of Steinberg's Beethoven and Brahms symphonies would make a
nice member pledge gift and catalog item.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roderic G Stephens"
To:
Sent: Tuesday, June 06, 2006 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears in 2 cd sets
> I'm another devotee of the Commands, especially the
> Pittsburgh/Steinberg recordings. Mine are all the reel
> to reel releases that I've collected through the
> years. The string sound of the Rach #2 Symphony is
> some of the sweetest I've ever heard.
>
> Rod Stephens
>
> --- Roger and Allison Kulp
> wrote:
>
>> I have a few of these Commands myself.They were
>> pretty good.35mm film,George Piros mastering,etc. .I
>> had thought they were pretty much forgotten,as
>> nobody talks about them,the way they do Everest,or
>> any other early stereo label.I would assume the
>> original film is either long gone,or unusable.I
>> guess you might talk someone like Classic Records,or
>> Simply Vinyl,into pressing a batch up.Some
>> interested,and well-heeled benefactor might have to
>> help fund it,though.
>> Roger Kulp
>>
>> Tom Fine wrote:
>> Hi David:
>>
>> This is great info, I'm certianly not going to
>> berate you.
>>
>> I can't understand what "last of its kind" machine
>> Omega was claiming to use. I had heard they used
>> 3-track tapes played back on an Ampex 3200 transport
>> with MR-70 heads and electronics. If their
>> "last of its kind" was indeed playing films, it was
>> not near last of its kind. 3-track mag-film
>> machines are still in use all over the place. In NY,
>> one need only go to Astoria to see masses of
>> mag-film machines in daily use.
>>
>> Whatever those guys out in CA told you is probably
>> closer to the truth than my 3rd-hand info.
>>
>> Hey, if someone on this list has a viable reissue
>> label, let's talk about Command Classics. I think
>> Universal wants a pretty hefty units commitment, so
>> it's gotta be someone with some marketing and
>> distribution abilities. A 500 or 1000 unit release
>> won't cut it with those guys.
>>
>> -- Tom Fine
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "David Lewis"
>> To:
>> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 2:38 PM
>> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Vanguard Classics reappears
>> in 2 cd sets
>>
>>
>> Then what did DCC use to make thier reissues,a few
>> years back?
>>
>> Tom Fine wrote: This is the key fact about
>> Everest, from the Vanguard Classics website:
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>> WHAT ABOUT EVEREST?
>>
>> That's the most asked question from consumers who
>> visit our site. When
>> Artemis Records purchased
>> Vanguard Classics from the Omega Records Group in
>> 2003, we declined to
>> purchase the license to the
>> Everest label held by Omega. We know that many of
>> you are looking for the
>> catalog of recordings
>> available from Everest, but Vanguard Classics no
>> longer distributes the
>> Everest label.
>>
>> ------------------------------------
>> (Tom continues...)
>> As I understand it, and I might be wrong ...
>>
>> Everest is now owned by Universal, and Omega no
>> longer exists as a working
>> entity so they no longer
>> have a license to release any Everest recordings.
>> Universal also owns the
>> libraries of the only two
>> other labels to extensively use 35mm mag-film,
>> Mercury (which Universal
>> acquired as part of
>> Polygram) and Command (which was owned by former MCA
>> group that morphed into
>> Universal, acquired by
>> MCA as part of ABC Records).
>>
>> As I understand it, and again I might be wrong,
>> Omega made their 3ch SACD's
>> from the backup 3-track
>> tapes (or the original sessions were done on tape,
>> not film), not from
>> Everest's magnetic films,
>> which I've been told are in terrible condition and
>> many are not around
>> anymore.
>> ****
>>
>> I remember speaking with Duane Martuge, who was
>> working as a rep for
>> Omega/Everest/Vanguard Classics when they first
>> rolled out the Everest
>> product line in about 1996 or so. I met him at the
>> Allegro Conference. Duane
>> said that they **did** work from the Everest films
>> and utilized a machine at
>> Sony that "was the last of its kind" to play back
>> the films. Apparently,
>> this machine was mothballed just as the Everest
>> project reached completion.
>> At one point Omega/Everest was including a little
>> insert with photos within
>> the Everest CD releases to show how they did it
>> technically. But do note
>> that the re-issue program was very limited - perhaps
>> only 8-16 short CDs
>> ever resulted from it. So Tom's assertion that "they
>> are in terrible
>> condition and may not be around anymore" might well
>> be correct. The
>> Northridge earthquake also damaged a great many of
>> the Everest masters - a
>> pity - many reels were bent in half.
>>
>> Tom:
>> Some of the Everest jazz stuff has turned up on a
>> small label the name of
>> which escapes me (Woody
>> Herman, Tito Puente and some others). If I recall
>> correctly, they noted that
>> the material was
>> licensed from Universal, which backs up my belief
>> that Everest is now owned
>> by Universal.
>>
>> The DCC reissues of Everest Jazz material were
>> supplied by Bernie Solomon,
>> who was part of Everest initially and also had a
>> share in DCC. These would
>> have been taken from tapes, and I wish that there
>> had been more of them done
>> than the couple that appeared. At the time at which
>> I met Bernie, in the
>> late 1990s, he still owned a large part of the
>> Everest catalogue, and had
>> issued some of the classical items on a terrible,
>> but persistent, label
>> called Bescol (i.e. "Bernie E. Solomon Company
>> Limited" or something like
>> that) and had leased these and still more to
>> LaserLight. Bernie hasn't been
>> dead a very long time, and if Artemis/Vanguard
>> decided to pass on the
>> Everest classical catalogue, perhaps it has reverted
>> to his, or someone
>> else's, estate. Remember that Bernie Solomon
>> (Everest) and Seymour Solomon
>> (Vanguard) were brothers, so this might complicate
>> matters of legacy
>> considerably. If Universal purchased Everest, I have
>> yet to hear of it, but
>> they don't crow very loudly when they make such
>> acquisitions.
>>
>> Tom:
>>
>> I wish there was enough interest
>> in the Command orchestral stuff to license and
>> reissue some of it. The
>> Pittsburgh/Steinberg stuff
>> was really good.
>>
>> ***
>> I am SO with you there, brother! I remember for my
>> ninth Christmas I told my
>> parents I wanted Stravinsky conducting his three big
>> ballets. I got the Le
>> Sacre and Firebird LPs but there was no Petrushka,
>> so Mom and Dad persuaded
>> me to settle for the $1.99 Pittsburgh/Steinberg
>> performance on Westminister
>> Gold. I grew to love it so much I never went back to
>> look for a Petrushka
>> with Stravinsky conducting. The Schubert symphony
>> disc in that Command
>> series was also just astounding.
>>
>> Finally, I just wanted to say that I have discussed
>> these topics before only
>> to be berated on this list for repeating what guys
>> like Martuge, Steve
>> Hoffmann and Bernie Solomon said to me. Bear in mind
>> that the office for DCC
>> was not far from where I worked (as the classical
>> guy at the Tower Records
>> in Woodland Hills.) PLEASE - do not come on here and
>> tell me I'm a bleeping
>> liar and how could I stand to circulate such myths.
>> I have no idea why these
>> guys would say such things, but I was a good account
>> for them and perhaps
>> they put a little gloss on it. They did seem
>> surprised that I seemed to know
>> so much about their back catalogue and may have been
>> a bit guarded about it.
>> But I used to see Bernie in the store two and three
>> times a week, and I made
>> a point of remembering whatever he told me.
>>
>> David N. Lewis
>> Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
>>
>> My life is the clearest proof that if you have
>> talent, determination and
>> luck, you will make it in the end: Never Give Up. -
>> Sir Georg Solti
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------
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