A Question of Matrix Information

[Zkeener323]

I have here in the attachments the record and it’s matrix information from online. I find it curious that a recording would take place in the United States only to be shipped off to England to be manufactured and finally sent back as an import. Does this have to do with contract and legal agreements. I am interested to hear others more versed than I.

[Inigo]

Yes, it's strange. I also have British HMVs with that little stamp MADE FOR RCA... Hope someone can clear out this mystery.
A first guess could be that these are WWII pressings, and maybe HMV was then supplying RCA with some quantities of pressings due to pressing shortages in America? Could it be?

[recordmaker]

a very curious thing.

I doubt that pressing records in England was to avoid shortages of materials and the label suggests a wartime pressing as mentioned. So not unsold old stock.
Since all the issued records are derived from take 2 this indicate a distribution of mother molds to other companies in the group.
Since the recording was made in 1927 Victor could have lost/damaged the master mould and not have been able to make duplicate stampers, if the mother mould was returned there would be chance of total loss in transit across the Atlantic I suppose that a small issue quantity would have been an option to top up stock in the USA.
Of course duplicate stampers could have been sent out as an option.

[Zkeener323]

That completely flew over my head that this was recorded in '27 before the RCA takeover. The theory that Victor did not have the masters to press themselves and therefore procured copies from HMV would make sense.

[shoshani]

It's probably more prosaic than most people think: the "Made In England For Radio Corporation of America" stamp turns up frequently in North America, and my guess is that this was some sort of official approval to bring HMV records, with their His Master's Voice trademark, into the United States where that same trademark was owned by RCA. It could be that the importer paid some sort of license fee for the privilege, but I doubt anyone will really know, as the associated documentation is likely nonexistent these days.

The only other option, which was also done on some imports in the acoustic era, was a special half-label overlay that covered up the His Master's Voice trademark, enabling records pressed by one concern to be sold in the other's territory.

[Menophanes]

A point which admittedly has nothing to do with the original query: – I was interested to see that the orchestral forces for this 1927 recording, as listed in the DAHR entry, are still very much the same as they would have been in the acoustic era: only seventeen strings (six first violins, three seconds, three violas, three cellos and two basses), plus a tuba which is not called for in Bizet's score and was therefore presumably brought in to reinforce the basses. Commentators on the history of classical music on record often give the impression that the practice of doctoring and reducing scores came to a sudden and complete end as soon as the microphone appeared. The truth, as this piece of evidence shows, is not quite so simple.

Oliver Mundy.