Tamagno sings Verdi: OTELLO--'Niun mi tema' (1903).

[Viva-Tonal]

This is a 'creator's record'--in this case, where an aria is performed by the singer who first performed the role.

I don't know when Historic Masters released this record; for whatever reason it wasn't released in 1903, when it was recorded. I wonder if technical flaws were the reason: there's a 'pop' at 1.01 into this transfer where the cutting stylus left the wax for an instant during the recording, and a burst of hiss at 2.23 that looks like perhaps a clump of off-cut wax (or some other foreign material) got trapped between the stylus and the wax, resulting in a rough groove.



This was recorded at Ospedaletta, Italy, in 1903. The original recording had no lead-in or lead-out grooves although a fast lead-out spiral ending in a concentric groove was machined into the metal master at a later date. It ends in a diameter intended for a smaller label than the LP-sized one used on this pressing, hence it ends in the label.

Part of the original matrix information had been obliterated after processing as well.



I can just make out that the obliterated detail is a capital R, just after the written 14-. In the era this was recorded, the Gramophone Co (or G&T as then constituted) had suffix codes for the various 'experts' (engineers) who recorded matrices. R was used on matrices engineered by Belford Royal. F. T. is Tamagno's own initialising of the original wax.

I know the label of this disc says '78 RPM' but I'm aware they recorded records slower than that as a rule. This sounded most natural to me at what worked out to about 73.2 rpm.

I hope you enjoy this; click on the label to hear it.

[Wolfe]

That's an excellent recording. I believe there's at least 3 extant takes of Tamagno singing this.

Thanks for posting, but, sorry, I must say that you have this playing very slowly. Tamagno had a high voice with a slight 'bleat' to it. Here he almost sounds baritonal. The interpretation still comes through, regardless.

[Viva-Tonal]

Apart from transferring this to tape and speeding its playback up, and then transferring that back to digital, I have no way of speeding this up. (I mean, I don't want to go through everything I did to this from scratch in digital again, off the turntable running faster....)

If you (or anyone else here) can easily get this up to whatever speed, please do so, and post it here!

[Wolfe]

Maybe someone can try that. Although it's fine as it, really, but...here is a short segment of a Colin Attwell transfer which I think probably spot on.

http://www.box.net/shared/el0g4zkgpd

[Viva-Tonal]

Here's my re-transfer, from speeded-up tape. I matched the pitch of a YouTube presentation of another take of the same recording; it works out to the equivalent of playing my disc at 79.12 rpm.

http://www.box.net/shared/tkgdkhd0yl