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SonnyPhono wrote:...The other is a cylinder I just picked up in a large group a week ago. It's a Blue Amberol in the German series, #26092. It's titled "Der Erlkonig" and is a recitation of a German folklore poem that is all three...eery, spooky and morbid. It's about a man riding home on a horse while holding his son. His son can see a demon/evil spirit called the "Erlkonig" that the father can't as it only attacks children. It doesn't end well and is overall a terrible story. Why it was recorded on a Blue Amberol is beyond me but makes for an interesting addition to the collection. ...

Well, Der Erlkönig is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, so it's actually high literature. Therefore it's no wonder that it has been recorded by Edison. I am suprised that there are not more recordings of it, because probably every high school student in Germany has to study it. I'd love to have that recording.

Andreas

alang wrote:

SonnyPhono wrote:...The other is a cylinder I just picked up in a large group a week ago. It's a Blue Amberol in the German series, #26092. It's titled "Der Erlkonig" and is a recitation of a German folklore poem that is all three...eery, spooky and morbid. It's about a man riding home on a horse while holding his son. His son can see a demon/evil spirit called the "Erlkonig" that the father can't as it only attacks children. It doesn't end well and is overall a terrible story. Why it was recorded on a Blue Amberol is beyond me but makes for an interesting addition to the collection. ...

Well, Der Erlkönig is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, so it's actually high literature. Therefore it's no wonder that it has been recorded by Edison. I am suprised that there are not more recordings of it, because probably every high school student in Germany has to study it. I'd love to have that recording.

Andreas

Of the versions recorded in English, the best in my opinion is by the great Australian bass-baritone Peter Dawson on HMV C1327.

To sing three different parts and make them all sound convincingly different is not easy, but Dawson's performance is magnificent. My copy is from my parents collection, and I can remember it giving my younger brother nightmares!

If any singer deserved promotion from the plum to the red label, that singer was Peter Dawson.

epigramophone wrote:

alang wrote:

SonnyPhono wrote:...The other is a cylinder I just picked up in a large group a week ago. It's a Blue Amberol in the German series, #26092. It's titled "Der Erlkonig" and is a recitation of a German folklore poem that is all three...eery, spooky and morbid. It's about a man riding home on a horse while holding his son. His son can see a demon/evil spirit called the "Erlkonig" that the father can't as it only attacks children. It doesn't end well and is overall a terrible story. Why it was recorded on a Blue Amberol is beyond me but makes for an interesting addition to the collection. ...

Well, Der Erlkönig is a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, so it's actually high literature. Therefore it's no wonder that it has been recorded by Edison. I am suprised that there are not more recordings of it, because probably every high school student in Germany has to study it. I'd love to have that recording.

Andreas

Of the versions recorded in English, the best in my opinion is by the great Australian bass-baritone Peter Dawson on HMV C1327.

To sing three different parts and make them all sound convincingly different is not easy, but Dawson's performance is magnificent. My copy is from my parents collection, and I can remember it giving my younger brother nightmares!

If any singer deserved promotion from the plum to the red label, that singer was Peter Dawson.

Well, I don't have the Dawson version; but here's Johanna Gadski, in the original German:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-lyAPZFSKg[/youtube]

Thanks for posting this Lucius.
Andreas

The Husch waxing is perhaps a bit more to my taste, though the Dawson is really fine.

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/QTkOw4thTcU[/YouTube]
http://youtu.be/QTkOw4thTcU

Of course the magnificent and justifiably famous Kipnis recording has its good points:

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/IH3ILg9ogO8[/YouTube]
http://youtu.be/IH3ILg9ogO8

but my favorite recording is the Schumann-Heink.

[YouTube]http://youtu.be/jxJzBOWNxv0[/YouTube]
http://youtu.be/jxJzBOWNxv0

VintageTechnologies wrote:Hands down, my favorite recording is "Some Little Bug Is Going To Find You".
http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/3975/

For me, Some Little Bug Is Going To Find You is a winner for clever humor and worth listening to again.
This pick is from my collection.
A wonderfully depressing number
by Ernest Rogers from 1927
on Victor Scroll Label #21361.

I've Got The Misery

Oh, I've got the misery - and it's truly killing me
Instead of getting better - seems to get worse
Bought a pleasure car - I bought myself a hearse

Oh, I've got the misery

When I set down beside you - it stirs my soul
When I set down beside you - it stirs my soul
But when I look in your eyes - I simply loose control

Well the fire in the stable - destroyed the town
Well the fire in the stable - destroyed the town
But it's the fire in your eyes - that truly burns me down

Well the reason why a little kitty sings
Well the reason why a little kitty sings
is because she's full of fiddle strings

Oh when I die - let there be no pain
Oh when I die - let there be no pain
Just pour me back - in the bottle again

Oh, I've got the misery - and it's truly killing me
I lost the only sweetie that I ever had - I want a good girl and I want her bad
Oh, I've got the misery

James.

Peter Dawson's HMV Erl King (1927) is one of my favourites. It used to care the **** out of me at my grandparents' when I was little. I used to dare myself to put it on and run away! I still have it, and now another quite different performance of the same piece by him on a 1914 Zonophone.

Here's a REALLY spooky recent discovery, a 1933 UK-issue Decca, Polydor series (PO5066). Three unusual songs set by Maurice Ravel, and accompanied by him. The singer is Madeleine Gray and the three songs are Kaddish (prayer for the dead), Mejerke and L’Enigme Eternelle. There's also a serious oddity to this record - at the end of all three the last sustained chord on the piano is recorded right onto the locked groove (albeit faintly) as it dies away. (The side with two songs has a locked groove at the end of each). I imagine the sombre, mysterious quality of the songs and the subject matter (death; eternity) led to the idea. Really fascinating. And with Ravel himself accompanying, surely he must have thought this up or at least approved - it is after all a serious classical record so it must have been seen as an artistic device rather than a gimmick.

I really must investigate making videos and uploading to Youtube!

Almost forget that I had this one. My favorite version and definitely the most spooky record I have is the recitation spoken by Aleksandër Moisiu. I got this 12" record probably when I was 10 or 12. The complete pathos overkill did actually sound quite funny to me then:

Today I think it's pretty scary, also because it was recorded in 1917 while the devastating wrath of WW1 was covering Europe. And Moisiu does capture this horror pretty good in his monologue.

Apt accompaniment for J. K. Rawling's new book. I started it yesterday and am about 200 pages in. Written with all the skill you would expect, but so far mostly depressing.

Clay

And here is an actual Morbid Record!

Found this in a load of 78s I got in Providence the other day. OK, maybe it's not strictly spooky content; but with a name like that....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCwKGD4bYZE[/youtube]