You Want Rare and Obscure - Part 2

[Lah Ca]

I bought a carrier box for 12" records this morning. It is in easily salvageable condition: cosmetics B+/A-; structurally sound; all hinges, latches, and locks present and in good working order; original key present.

It came full of 10" and 12" 78s that I did not look at until I got home. As it turns out, they are all of Japanese manufacture, most made by Nipponphone (various western labels on many, however), except for one or two that might be German.

However among the disks are two test pressings. Most interesting. The Nipponphone one has 1925 penciled in on its sleeve, and it sounds almost as if it were an acoustic recording. There is less information about the Polydor disk. There are no matrix numbers on either disk.

[Inigo]

The Polydor label reads, I'm almost sure, (between brackets the doubtful names)
Standchen, Brahms, Lena Nakamura, accomp. (H Petzold)
Mondnacht, Schumann, Lena Nakamura

Mondnacht belongs to Liederkreis op39, no5
Standchen, Brahms, may be the famous op106 no1
Lena Nakamura might be a Japanese sopran, can't find anything about her
The accompanist (Petzold)? seems to be the same name written above on the nipponphone labels, who could be the artist on those, accompanied by a (J Dunn) in the Grieg songs

[m_nakamura]

Nipponophone!!

[Inigo]

Nipponophone!!

Right, thanx!

[Lah Ca]

The Polydor label reads, I'm almost sure, (between brackets the doubtful names)
Standchen, Brahms, Lena Nakamura, accomp. (H Petzold)
Mondnacht, Schumann, Lena Nakamura

Mondnacht belongs to Liederkreis op39, no5
Standchen, Brahms, may be the famous op106 no1
Lena Nakamura might be a Japanese sopran, can't find anything about her
The accompanist (Petzold)? seems to be the same name written above on the nipponphone labels, who could be the artist on those, accompanied by a (J Dunn) in the Grieg songs

Dear Professor Inigo,

Thank you for sharing your advanced skills in palaeography and musicology and thereby rendering the indecipherable into something legible.

[Lah Ca]

Nipponophone!!

The Buddha logo side of the Nipponophone sleeve/jacket which illustrates the listening Buddha presents (to my rambling/laterally thinking mind) an interesting twist on/mash up of the HMV/Victor logo and a famous koan.

A monk asked Zhaozhou, 'Does even Nipper have Buddha Nature?'
Zhaozhou said, 'No.'

ある僧が趙州に『ニッパーにも仏性があるのか』と尋ねた。
趙州は『いいえ』と答えた。

The above (reverse) translation is courtesy of DeepL and may not be entirely accurate. 『いいえ』 may not be the best (reverse) translation of "no" in this context. My long neglected Japanese is no longer up to dealing with such subtleties, however, and perhaps never was.

https://www.cheltenhamzen.co.uk/writing ... dha-nature

[Lah Ca]

And it is always fun to see what Google's Image Translation services do:

[m_nakamura]

HELLO?!?!

It's trying it's best. Hey it got Violin right!

[gramophone-georg]

The Polydor label reads, I'm almost sure, (between brackets the doubtful names)
Standchen, Brahms, Lena Nakamura, accomp. (H Petzold)
Mondnacht, Schumann, Lena Nakamura

Mondnacht belongs to Liederkreis op39, no5
Standchen, Brahms, may be the famous op106 no1
Lena Nakamura might be a Japanese sopran, can't find anything about her
The accompanist (Petzold)? seems to be the same name written above on the nipponphone labels, who could be the artist on those, accompanied by a (J Dunn) in the Grieg songs

Dear Professor Inigo,

Thank you for sharing your advanced skills in palaeography and musicology and thereby rendering the indecipherable into something legible.

Actually it's quite legible. It's the old German "Fraktur" cursiv known as "Kurrent", Suetterlein style, which was widely used up until the Nazis phased it out.

[Lah Ca]

Actually it's quite legible. It's the old German "Fraktur" cursiv known as "Kurrent", Suetterlein style, which was widely used up until the Nazis phased it out.

Thank you for the information. This site and its contributors, such as you and Inigo, for only two examples, are such valuable resources.

Handwriting styles have changed radically over time, which is why there is the academic field of palaeography, the study of handwritten manuscripts.

I have old family letters from the 1920s and 1930s, some in Yorkshire dialect and some in Møre og Romsdal Norwegian dialect, both are now very difficult to read because of their different and old fashioned cursive scripts, the Norwegian that much more difficult because my Norwegian is limited to a smattering of Bokmål.

My point is that "the old German "Fraktur" cursiv known as "Kurrent", Suetterlein style" was mostly impenetrable to me.

I know Inigo resides in Spain. I assume you have a European background or residence. Perhaps you both have had some experience with this archaic German cursive script.

Anyway, thank you to the both of you.