INTRODUCTION
The vocals here date from the so-called 'golden age'
of
operatic singing in the early years of the 20th
century. Whereas the
three vocal records on the 78s demo page (which are
also included here)
were chosen principally for their technical quality,
the recordings
here were selected more for their musical interest,
and in some cases
the quality is not quite as good as the demo records.
The object has been to retain as much as possible of
the
quality of the voices, so minimum filtering has been
carried out: no
affordable digital noise reduction was available at
the time I made
these transfers, but more recently I've been able to
apply noise
reduction - see note below. On the whole the surface
noise is
reasonable, with occasional slight wear noises or
clicks. Equalization
for the pre-electrical recordings has been carried out
by ear, since
there is obviously no agreed standard.
Most transfers of this sort of material to LP or CD
that I
have heard are so determined to remove the surface
noise that they also
take all the life out of the voices. I understand that
non-collectors
can find the surface noise very distracting: but do
try to listen
through the remaning noise and I think you will find a
surprising
vitality to the voices: even quite early recordings,
such as the
Tamagno (1903) bring out the voice quite vividly when
carefully
equalized and not over-filtered. I should add that the
small speakers
usually used with computers tend to be rather peaky
and exaggerate the
surface noise. If you can connect your computer to
your hi-fi you will
hear a considerable improvement.
Speed is always a difficulty with older pre-electric
recordings: prior to around 1920 there was no agreed
speed, and
variations from 75 to 83 were common. The speed was
only occasionally
given on the label, though some some catalogues did
show them (however
these should be approached with caution and not taken
as gospel). The
obvious approach of pitching the recording against a
score is also not
reliable, since singers sometimes transposed arias to
suit their voices
(as with the Melba and Tamagno recordings here, both
apparently
transposed down a semitone); also modern concert pitch
(A=440) was not
an international standard until 1939, and recordings
may have been made
in concert pitch (A=440), continental (or French)
pitch (A=435), London
Philharmonic pitch (several different, including
A=433.2 and the
uncomfortably high A=452.5), or just out of tune. In
the end there is
always an element of guesswork and speeds have to be
set with regard to
published speed, pitch, and the resultant sound.
These recordings have been transferred to MP3 files:
if you
need help in downloading or playing them please refer
to this
page.
Incidentally, the flowery decorations across the top
of the
screen were taken from the 1914 HMV catalogue (with
the wording changed
to suit this page) (though the flower columns are
modern clip-art, I'm
afraid).
Noise reduction was carried out using ClickRepair and
Denoise
from Brian Davies (no longer available), with the aim
or reducing, rather than totally
removing, the noise with the object of doing as little
damage as
possible to the sound of the voices. Occasionally
there is actual
damage and wear - not surprising in records around 100
years old -
which can't be reduced as successfully.
Some other links:
The Metropolitan Opera, New
York, has a historical
section.
Andrea
Suhm-Binder's site is dedicated to her operatic
collection and
includes some audio downloads (taken, I assume, from
commercially
available transfers) and a shop (in Germany).
Rare
78s.com
offers rare operatic vocal 78s for sale.
Links to commercial sites are provided for your
information
only.
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