Re: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi David:

As widely written about through the years by Bert Whyte, my father took him along on some of the 
early Mercury single-mic sessions and Bert was allowed and indeed encouraged by those present to 
make experimental binaural (what 2-mic recordings were called back then although the definition of 
binaural has been refined to mean something else now) recordings on his Magnacorder staggered-head 
machine. I think Bert used a pair of U-47's but I might be wrong. Apparently the copyright owner of 
these sessions, Universal and/or the CSO, is OK with the CD release of some of Bert's tapes (at 
least I haven't read about any copyright-infringement actions). The Stokowski recordings are the 
Bell Labs disk recordings from the 1930's, which I believe are PD but might not be because an 
elaborate agreement was made between Bell Labs and the Stokowski family and the Philadephia 
Orchestra when Bell Labs issued their LPs in the late 70's (this according to the original mastering 
engineer; I did some investigating about reissuing a CD from those master tapes under AES auspices 
but too many rights issues involved). Again, I would assume the issuer of the current CD cleared all 
these rights or they would have been sued.

I'm not sure how much tape Bert ran that day but one would think that if a tape of the piece you 
cite existed it would have been issued on that CD.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lewis" <davlew@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 5:00 PM
Subject: [ARSCLIST] OK - Does Anyone Know More About This?


> According to Music & Arts' "Stokowski and Kubelik conduct Experimental
> Stereo Recordings from 1952" (MUA 1190) contains an experimental stereo
> recording, made by Bert Whyte, during the sessions for Rafael Kubelik's
> Mercury recording of Ma vlast. The piece is "Tabor," and annotator Edward
> Johnson writes "Other such experiments from THAT and later Kubelik/CSO
> sessions are known to exist but this is the first to be released..."
>
> What "other such experiments" from this session "[is] known to exist?" I'm
> particularly - strongly, in fact - interested in any stereo takes of the
> movement "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields" from this December 1952 session.
> Even in mono, this performance is positively electrifying.
>
> David N. Lewis
> Assistant Classical Editor, All Music Guide
>
> "To collect [folksongs] without a phonograph - until there's something
> better - is mad and criminal." - Percy Grainger, 1907