SPINNING OUT CLASSICS

In the earliest days of the Compact Disc, a common complaint was the scarcity of classical titles. To many who had enthusiastically welcomed the new format, the difficulty of purchasing specific releases was quite frustrating. They would read a favorable review of a recording but have little success in buying the CD. This scarcity of titles existed even in the big record retailers in major cities.

In part, the problem was caused by limited CD production facilities. What the buying public didn't know was that there were a relatively small number of discs pressed on the initial release--anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 copies, and rarely more than 10,000. This was so despite the fact that these quantities were for worldwide distribution. For quite a long time, it was difficult to find so-called "catalog music," the staples of the symphonic repertoire.

Now, five years into the CD era, we have several dozen facilities around the world which manufacture Compact Discs. The market is literally deluged with a torrent of recordings of every imaginable kind of music. According to the October 1988 issue of the Schwann Compact Disc Catalog, nearly 20,000 titles are now available. True, this is nothing compared to the countless titles available on LP. However, the embarrassment of riches confronting the music lover in the current catalog is truly formidable. How many audiophiles know that there are, as I write, 41 different CD recordings of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, 34 versions of his Third Symphony, a mind boggling 45 recordings of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons," 39 renditions of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," and 31 of Dvorák's "New World" Symphony?

Faced with such a choice on Beethoven's Fifth alone, what criteria do you use in deciding what disc to buy? Among the pertinent factors is economics: Does your budget restrict you to a single version, or can you afford several recordings that have equally compelling virtues? Are you an audiophile and therefore more concerned with the sonic verities, or are you musically erudite and thus pay more attention to performance values? Of course, these days there are many people with expertise in both areas. Perhaps your choice would be dictated by "big names"-glamorous conductors and world-renowned orchestras. Those who consult music critics must always consider the publication in which those reviewers air their opinions. Is it an august specialty music journal, a hi-fi magazine, or an old-line respected newspaper? There is always the peril that those who are strong on music know little of audio and consequently review their CDs on low-fi equipment.

The obverse, of course, is the critic with a state-of-the-art audio system and a limited musical perspective.

As you would expect, virtually every major company, and many of the smaller labels, are represented among the aforementioned 41 recordings of the Fifth Symphony. You can hear this masterpiece performed by the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, London Symphony Orchestra, and so on, ad infinitum. You would think that with so many versions of this work, record companies would finally say "enough." But note that Sir Georg Solti is about halfway through a new cycle of all nine of the master's symphonies, as are Claudio Abbado, Herbert von Karajan, and Bernard Haitink. There is also a new set of the complete symphonies on "original instruments" from Nimbus Records, and Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music are almost finished with a similar cycle. It goes on and on, and not just with the music of Beethoven.

To understand this seemingly unending proliferation of CD recordings of mainstream symphonic repertoire, we really have to examine the convoluted history of the classical recording business.

In the 78-rpm era, the record business was dominated by a very few big companies. In America, you could hear symphonic music performed by the likes of Stokowski, Toscanini, Rubinstein, and Horowitz on RCA Victor, or by Szell, Bruno Walter, and Pablo Casals on Columbia. Foreign artists and orchestras could be heard on His Master's Voice or Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. This was the beginning of the "star system," when the glamorous conductors, pianists, violinists, and opera singers were all signed to long-term, exclusive contracts with a particular label.

The advent of the LP changed that system a great deal. It was said that anyone with an Ampex tape recorder and the price of a ticket to Europe could start a record label. Many entrepreneurs did, and a host of small labels came into being. Since these fledgling companies had little money and the doctrine of "exclusive contracts" was still very much in force, the small labels survived by offering a more unusual, musically adventuresome repertoire.

In those days, sound quality was not a major consideration. With the parallel development of the hi-fi audio business, however, sound quality finally became a "salable" factor. Pioneering audiophiles still fondly remember such highly respected sound-oriented labels as Westminster Records, Bob Fine's famous Mercury Olympian series, and London/Decca's ffrr.

In the late 1950s, many recording engineers were enamored of the famous Telefunken U-47 condenser microphone, which makes for an interesting historical aside. Bob Fine was in . Alsace, recording the great Albert Schweitzer on some organ works. A German engineer who was at the sessions suggested that Fine try this new Telefunken mike because of its especially good bass response. Fine later brought several of these mikes back to the U.S. He used the U-47 in his famous "single-point" monophonic Olympian recordings, the first of which featured Rafael Kubelik conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." Not long after that, I met Fine. On quite a number of sessions with the Chicago, Minneapolis, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, I made experimental stereo recordings with a pair of U-47s while Fine made his own mono recordings using his single-point technique.

The advent of stereo discs in 1958 further brought sound quality to the fore. Everyone was looking for some technical advantage in a never-ending game of one-upmanship. When Harry Belock and I co-founded Everest Records in 1958, we briefly used modified three-channel, half-inch Ampex recorders before going on to the Westrex 35-mm magnetic-film recorders. This was state of the art indeed, as each of the three channels was equivalent to full-track, quarter-inch tape. The tape was 5 mils instead of 1.5 mils thick, and its thicker oxide permitted much higher signal levels. The sprocket-hole drive of the film afforded better wow and flutter and, at 90 feet per minute, was running at 18 ips rather than the usual 15 ips, thus giving better high frequency response.

In the heyday of the LP, sound quality was a highly competitive factor. With the advent of digital recording and the introduction of the CD, many things changed in the recording business. I consider digital recording the "great leveler." In other words, whether you record classical music using the Colossus system, the ubiquitous Sony 1610 and 1630 recorders, a Sound stream, 3M, JVC, or Mitsubishi, few would argue that any of these machines has a significant advantage in any of the usual performance parameters. The emphasis today is more on the choice of microphones and the skill in deploying them, the selection of halls with desirable acoustics, and a new thrust in the direction of acoustic treatment of halls. These are very arcane skills. Despite the industry's domination in the old days by a few large and powerful recording companies, mere size and financial clout do not necessarily lead to technically superior results. A fine example of this are two recent recordings of Richard Strauss' monumental "Also Sprach Zarathustra." One was made by John Eargle for the Delos label, the other by Jack Renner of Telarc. Both are magnificently recorded, thrilling expositions of the music. While they differ in certain aspects, these CDs should please music lovers and audiophiles alike.

Although the days of the exclusive long-term contracts are all but a memory, certain conditions still exist which greatly influence what music will be recorded and which artists will perform. While the record companies try to keep certain orchestras and conductors in their stables, and certain conductors try to maintain a degree of loyalty to a given label, the exigencies of modern orchestra stewardship and jet-setting concert life have become difficult to resolve.

The old game of "musical chairs" can cause the most problems. Allow me to cite some recent examples.

Famed conductor Bernard Haitink, a Philips artist, left his post of many years with the great Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam to become Musical Director of London's Royal Opera, Covent Garden. The members of the Concertgebouw chose Riccardo Chailly, a London/Decca artist, as their new conductor. Now, it is common knowledge that most big-name conductors have their share of artistic temperament and, of course, have very definite ideas on music and how should be performed. Most are also considered specialists in the music of particular composers. If a record company wants to keep the peace, satisfy the conductor, and assure good sales, it will invariably bow to his desires and record some of his specialties. The label may have recently recorded Beethoven's Fifth with another conductor, but if the new maestro wants to record the selfsame work-so be it! Thus, London/Decca has been busy recording Riccardo Chailly and the Concertgebouw in repertoire staples as well as more venturesome pieces. What of friend Haitink? Well, Philips isn't about to lose the services of so prestigious a conductor, so they will continue to record him with the Concertgebouw, too! Having just issued the last CD of Haitink's Mahler cycle with the Concertgebouw, Philips has announced the release of Mahler's First Symphony with Haitink conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. This marks the start of a new Mahler cycle with another fabled orchestra.

In the meanwhile, Deutsche Grammophon has been recording their new Mahler cycle with Leonard Bernstein conducting such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, and Concertgebouw. CBS is all agog because their Wunderkind, Michael Tilson Thomas, has nabbed the post of principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. A flurry of recordings of Thomas' specialties is already underway. The San Francisco Symphony Orchestra has a new conductor at the helm-Herbert Blomstedt, formerly of the Dresden Staatskapelle. London/Decca promptly recorded two of his specialties, the Nielsen Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. And so it goes... The only hope in trying to decide on multiple CD choices of a given work is to audition likely candidates on your own home system. Obviously, such a procedure presupposes the availability of CDs that can be rented or borrowed.

In fact, this column was prompted by a number of advertisements in that venerable and estimable British journal, Gramophone. Several U.K. record retailers who sell Compact Discs also rent them-for the equivalent of 750 to 800 per disc, per week. With the relative indestructibility of the CD, this service offers British music lovers a chance to audition specific recordings from a very large library.

I had thought there might be similar services in the U.S. After all, consider the booming prerecorded videocassette rental market. Much to my chagrin, I learned that the rental of CDs and, for that matter, vinyl records and audio cassettes, is illegal in the U.S.! It seems that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the same folks who are trying to thwart the introduction of R-DAT in this country, supported 1984 legislation to prohibit rental of copyrighted music formats. The law is to expire in 1989, but legislation is underway for a five-year renewal! At the moment, the only recourse is a local public library. Many of the more progressive branches are now loaning CDs to their members. This procedure is exempt from the 1984 law and has the tacit blessing of the RIAA.

(adapted from Audio magazine, Jan. 1989; Bert Whyte)

= = = =