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Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:15 pm
by melvind
For those of us that love early Opera records, here are two that I think are in pretty spectacular shape for being from 1903 (the red one) and 1904 (the black one). There isn't even much in the way of issues with the opening grooves as with so many other records from this period. They must not have been played too often is all I can think. In any case, two of my rarest early Columbia records and in what I would consider great shape.

[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1ryMCATS_A[/youtubehd]
https://youtu.be/H1ryMCATS_A


[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4SF8_cQ4bM[/youtubehd]
https://youtu.be/P4SF8_cQ4bM

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:18 pm
by Viva-voce
Thanks Dan for another great post.
Original pressings from Columbia's 1903 Grand Opera series are highly collectable and in clean condition are expensive. They were issued on both red and black labels. You are fortunate to have this example :)

Steven

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2018 10:22 pm
by Viva-voce
And, they suffered from groove wear after a few playings due to the effects the f the front-mount horn design then in use, and the very forward recording.

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 6:28 am
by Menophanes
Two very impressive recordings. Ferruccio Giannini, a very early Berliner artist, emerges here as an admirable lyric tenor. Clearly it is not always true that early Columbia discs have noisy surfaces!

Oliver Mundy.

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 11:45 am
by epigramophone
Ferrucio Giannini, father of the soprano Dusolina Giannini, seems to have been fond of recording the Miserere duet from Il Trovatore as a tenor solo with either a band or a pianist filling in the missing parts. He did it once for Columbia, twice for Berliner and three times for Victor if one counts separate 10 and 12 inch versions.

Finally in 1904 he recorded it as a duet, for Victor with Edith Merrilees.

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 2:43 pm
by drh
Viva-voce wrote:And, they suffered from groove wear after a few playings due to the effects the f the front-mount horn design then in use, and the very forward recording.
Especially true of the machines with larger horns, like Columbia's AH. After looking at the black dust storm flying up from the grooves of a couple of records I tried on mine, I summarily consigned it to "display machine" status.

Re: Two early Opera Columbia records from 1903 and 1904

Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2018 4:03 pm
by Viva-voce
drh wrote:
Viva-voce wrote:And, they suffered from groove wear after a few playings due to the effects the f the front-mount horn design then in use, and the very forward recording.
Especially true of the machines with larger horns, like Columbia's AH. After looking at the black dust storm flying up from the grooves of a couple of records I tried on mine, I summarily consigned it to "display machine" status.
LOL which is why I only play the more common easily-replaced records on my Victor IV and play the others on a modern turntable --with variable pitch, proper sized styli, and EQ playback, of course :)