The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

There was a wonderful report on BBC Radio 3 this Saturday from a recording session by Vulcan record's Duncan Miller...

Simon Heighes visits an unusual recording session at the Royal College of Music where students and early recording experts have teamed up to recreate Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic'€™s 1913 recording of Beethoven'€™s 5th Symphony. The original recording, one of the earliest one and most successful attempts to record an entire symphony using (close to) a full orchestra, used an acoustic horn to cut into a wax disc. Simon talked to participants in the 2014 re-enactment about the challenges of re-creating a recording process that pre-dated the use of electronic microphones.

They played the 1913 recording, the recoding from modern microphones in the room, and the reproduction from the new acoustic recording. Switching between the last two, it was at first terrible to hear how much is lost in an acoustic recording, then once you got used to it, amazing to hear how much survives.

They also talked a lot about the original recording, and the techniques they had rediscovered to improve the quality of the new acoustic recording.

You can download the podcast (entitled "RCM Session Report") here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bal
(available forever I think)

You can listen to the full original broadcast here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wm1nq
1:26:00 to 1:41:40
(It's the same thing, but higher quality in the UK)
(available for four weeks)

You can see five photos from the session here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p02g6yqf

Larger versions of the first four here:
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x ... 2g6yw1.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x ... 2g6yw3.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x ... 2g6ywc.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x ... 2g6yxz.jpg


Interesting to hear 15 minutes given over to this topic on national radio. I heard about it beforehand via Radio 3's facebook page. They highlight 2-3 things every day, and this was listed on Friday.

Cheers,
David.

P.S. I can't find anything about it on the RCM or Vulcan websites yet. Anyone spotted anything?

Seemed to me like there was an awful lot of surface noise for playback from a fresh wax master. Shouldn't be any.

Sadly, even the lower quality podcast is blocked outside the UK. Grrrr....

Does this link work?

http://audioboom.com/boos/2769808-bal-r ... ion-report

Cheers,
David.

Phototone wrote:Seemed to me like there was an awful lot of surface noise for playback from a fresh wax master. Shouldn't be any.

I listened to the broadcast live on Radio 3 and was also surprised at the amount of surface noise. We were not told whether a metal master had been made from the wax, but even if it had been, a pressing on a modern material such as vinyl should have had a relatively silent surface.

VintageTechnologies wrote:Sadly, even the lower quality podcast is blocked outside the UK. Grrrr....

Yeah, that was a let down.

2Bdecided wrote:Does this link work?

http://audioboom.com/boos/2769808-bal-r ... ion-report

Cheers,
David.

Yes! Thanks!

VintageTechnologies wrote:Sadly, even the lower quality podcast is blocked outside the UK. Grrrr....

Odd: I was able to access it, and even to share it on FB...

Bill

The second link worked for me perfectly here in New Zealand (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wm1nq)

Very interesting thanks for pointing it out.

2Bdecided wrote:Does this link work?

http://audioboom.com/boos/2769808-bal-r ... ion-report

Cheers,
David.

Yes, and thanks so much for posting it. The other link directly to BBC earlier in this thread does not work outside the UK.

Clay