Frequency Resp Comparison Between Hill & Date & Lateral Cut

[Menophanes]

Interesting photo of the set-up for the Mendelssohn. Notice that violins are playing the Stroh violins. The horns have piston valves, not the usual rotary valves, and resemble what used to be called mellophones in the band world. The small tuba next to the string bass is not specified in Mendelssohn's score, but is present to reinforce the string bass; this was customary in acoustical recordings. The whole setup is unbelievable cramped, and must have been quite uncomfortable for players accustomed to having more elbow room on stage. Also, playing in each others' ears is not exactly the most comfortable arrangement, either!

Well observed, Henry! Piston-valve horns, often of French or Belgian origin, were common in Britain at the time; Aubrey Brain, who recorded an abridged version of Mozart's fourth horn concerto for Edison-Bell in the late 1920s, still played an instrument of this kind. These would have been 'single' horns, without the extra B-flat tubing which nowadays renders high-lying passages somewhat less difficult for the player. As for the bass part, the remarkable thing is that a double-bass is present at all instead of being superseded altogether by the tuba. Perhaps this was done so that the quiet bass pizzicati which occur several times in the Mendelssohn score could be played as written. Many an acoustic orchestral recording suffers from the unintended comedy of a tuba grunting out its irrepressible pom, pom, pom in the midst of passages like these.

Oliver Mundy.

[Henry]

Surprising to hear that Aubrey Brain played a piston-valve instrument! Certainly far removed from what Mozart had in mind, or even available, for his friend Leutgeb to perform on. (Of course, I'm familiar with Aubrey's son Dennis's brilliant recordings of the Mozart Concerti. I have them on LP and on a CD re-issue; unfortunately, they were made before stereo recording came along, but they set a standard that has not been surpassed to this day. Dennis Brain's early death (1957) in an automobile mishap was a tragic loss for the musical world. If you've never heard Dennis playing the Leopold Mozart horn concerto on a length of garden hose, you've missed out on an artistic triumph of a different sort! Pace Dennis Brain and Gerald Hoffnung.)

Now I learn from the wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Brain ) that Dennis Brain played a piston-valve horn for many years. Well, whaddaya know---ya learn something new every day.

[drh]

If you would like to hear the Mendelssohn concerto recording depicted in Batten's photo, issued as Edison Bell Velvet Face 640 to 642 (5 sides; the last was given over to the Rondo Capriccioso), here's a transfer you can download (not stream). Each movement is in a separate file saved in Monkey's Audio (.ape) lossless format. If you can't play .ape files, you'll need to convert to FLAC or back to .wav. To match score pitch (as we know it today, maybe a little sharp of what they actually played, but I have no way of knowing) the records go at 84 RPM. Unfortunately, I did this transfer well before the introduction of the Graham Slee Accession phono preamp, so although I transferred it "flat" as I then understood things, it's actually bright relative to what it should be. https://www.mediafire.com/folder/133gk3q3osn3r/

Curious that the photo shows the piano set so far from the recording horn, but that might explain why it seems rather recessed relative to the orchestra as recorded. Novello is a great favorite of mine; sadly, she died young, just after making her sole two electric sides (both 10" for HMV).

[Henry]

Many thanks for the sound files. I was able to convert them on my Mac through a program called Switch. Fine performance; very clean playing. Movement 3 is especially appealing, I think. Having listened to all three movements, I believe that all the instruments specified in the score (plus the tuba) are indeed present in the recording. I'm not a big fan of Stroh violins, though! We can only imagine how different, and so much better, this all would have sounded in a concert hall.

[Menophanes]

If you would like to hear the Mendelssohn concerto recording depicted in Batten's photo, issued as Edison Bell Velvet Face 640 to 642 (5 sides; the last was given over to the Rondo Capriccioso), here's a transfer you can download (not stream) . . . https://www.mediafire.com/folder/133gk3q3osn3r/

Curious that the photo shows the piano set so far from the recording horn, but that might explain why it seems rather recessed relative to the orchestra as recorded. Novello is a great favorite of mine; sadly, she died young, just after making her sole two electric sides (both 10" for HMV).

Many thanks for making this available; despite an almost lifelong interest in acoustic recordings of classical orchestral and instrumental music, I had never heard it before.

The photograph suggests that Novello is playing a grand piano with the lid completely shut; small wonder that the tonal and dynamic range is restricted even by the standards of the time. Nonetheless one can appreciate the pianist's rhythmic impulse and delicate touch (both especially important in anything by Mendelssohn) as well as Batten's admirably responsive accompaniment.

Oliver Mundy.

[Lucius1958]

Surprising to hear that Aubrey Brain played a piston-valve instrument! Certainly far removed from what Mozart had in mind, or even available, for his friend Leutgeb to perform on. (Of course, I'm familiar with Aubrey's son Dennis's brilliant recordings of the Mozart Concerti. I have them on LP and on a CD re-issue; unfortunately, they were made before stereo recording came along, but they set a standard that has not been surpassed to this day. Dennis Brain's early death (1957) in an automobile mishap was a tragic loss for the musical world. If you've never heard Dennis playing the Leopold Mozart horn concerto on a length of garden hose, you've missed out on an artistic triumph of a different sort! Pace Dennis Brain and Gerald Hoffnung.)

Now I learn from the wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Brain ) that Dennis Brain played a piston-valve horn for many years. Well, whaddaya know---ya learn something new every day.

Excuse me if I'm wrong; but I think the Leopold Mozart concerto was originally intended for alphorn, rather than French horn...

- Bill

[Henry]

Excuse me if I'm wrong; but I think the Leopold Mozart concerto was originally intended for alphorn, rather than French horn... - Bill

Right you are. From the liner notes for Angel LP #35500 ("Music from the Hoffnung Festival Music Concert," recorded Nov. 13, 1956):

Concerto for Hosepipe and Strings (3rd movement only) - Leopold Mozart....Mozart's father Leopold wrote a concerto for alphorn, with strings. Dennis Brain here plays the work on a brass mouthpiece applied to a length of rubber garden hose....

Brass instruments were "natural", i.e., without valves, until the invention of the valve in the early 19th century. The alphorn, in its various sizes, is essentially a folk instrument played by jolly mountaineers in lederhosen and funny hats. It's made of wood. Alphorns are best played, and listened to, when accompanied by lots of good beer.

[edisonphonoworks]

On Facebook I created a closed group, for those interested in acoustical recording. We share notes on different horns, historical recording photos, wax formulas, shavers, some later electric recording is ok too, with a focus on acoustical recording. https://www.facebook.com/groups/acousticalengineers/

[Uncle Vanya]

The other thing to consider is the psychoacoustic effect where it can be shown that on hearing the harmonics the brain fills in the fundamental so we recognise a tuba without all the fundamental being present even in old recordings.

Well, you can infer the fundamental, but that's not the same thing as actually hearing the fundamental pitch. It is, of course, true that instruments are identified by their individual upper partial profiles (subjectively, their timbre or tone quality); the fundamental is not usually sounded. An exception would be, for example, in the case of brass instruments, the so called "pedal tones," which are indeed the fundamentals of their respective harmonic series. I can tell you that when you hear a trombone solo by Arthur Pryor playing pedal tones, you are actually hearing, not inferring, those fundamental pitches. IOW, those low pitches are actually present in the recording and in the playback, pitches as low as pedal F (43.6 Hz).

Other examples of fundamentals actually sounded by musical instruments would be the pitches produced by the open strings of string instruments.

Take a copy of that hit of 1940, Will Bradley’s “Celery Stalks at Midnight”, and play it on a cheap 4 tube combination, like this little Arvin. 302A. That stiff magnetic pick-up, the anemic little 50L6 with its puny output transformer and 3” diameter PM speaker couldn’t possibly reproduce any fundamental much below 200 cycles, and yet that open trombone note repeatedly played during the ride-out, which has a fundamental of about 70 cps comes through loud and clear. The same happens when the record is played on , say, a Victrola VI.

One is certainly not hearing the fundamental in either of these cases. On the other hand the above explains why very many copies of this popular record are so terribly worn.

[YouTube] https://youtu.be/TxdBJZffJ5U[/YouTube]

[startgroove]

Not to sound argumentative, but even a 2" speaker will reproduce frequencies below 50 hz. Just not with as much volume as the rest of the spectrum (assuming it is in the source to begin with). A roll off below say 200 hz, just means that the volume of successively lower frequencies drops, but not to nothing. While that Arvin and a Victrola cannot reproduce that low of a frequency with much volume, those low frequencies are still there, they are just overwhelmed by the higher frequencies which are louder. If you were able to play a 40 Hz tone by itself, it would be easy to hear.

Meanwhile, back to the original theme of this thread. I've done a few empirical comparisons of very late Edison Diamond Disc recordings to the earlier electrically recorded lateral discs. My ears are not professionally rated as sound judges, but a recent hearing test revealed no issues. No matter, mostly what I was listening for was what sounded best to my ears.

I chose several genres of music to make the comparisons; Classical, Fox Trots and Waltzes. All were played on a late turntable with a light tracking tone arm and solid state amplifier and 3 way speakers, and a 3 mil stylus.

None of those recordings had much oomph below about 100 hz. I have a quality graphic equalizer in the system, and was able to change the very low end response considerably. Although I could hear something changing, it was not pleasant to hear when accentuated, on either type of recording.

I judged that some DD sounded better than others, suggesting that quality was not uniform from recording to recording.
Most lateral discs sounded pretty good compared to others, except for certain Columbia's.
Between the two, the best sounding Diamond Discs sounded about as good as the best sounding lateral discs.

Cheers, Russie