Nutcracker In July 10
It's lunchtime, so it must be nut time! That's right, another installment of Nutcracker In July, where I share yet another treatment of Tchaikovsky's masterwork, The Nutcracker Suite. Today it's a version in eight parts care of Warwick Symphony Orchestra and the album Nutcracker Suite/Carnival Of The Animals (Camden (RCA) CAL-100, Mono). Pretty sure this is the very first release on the Camden label, a budget arm of RCA. Not quite able to pin a solid date to it, though. And I'm betting it's a fake band, but we'll have to wait and see if that's true. Have a listen after you download it and let me know who you think might be the real performers here.
I believe this is the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. The recordings were made in 1934.
ReplyDeleteThe Van Beinum disc was good - my second favorite of the bunch. He could have been a bit livelier in the waltz.
I have a later version coming up from the Philadelphia Orchestra, actually. Twice. I recorded it a second time in a reissue cover without realizing it. I think it's a mid-fifties mono version, so certainly not anything from the thirties.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're enjoying these, I was afraid no one would listen or download them. :)
Wow! Crazy stuff, Buster. You guys are unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteThe month is but 1/3 over and the Nutcracker keeps coming. Love it!
I should explain that I did not identify the orchestra by listening. It's just that I have a lot of the Camden classical albums and am familiar with RCA's pseudonymns.
ReplyDeleteThe second Philadelphia version is probably one of the ones conducted by Eugene Ormandy. He recorded it four or five times. The version you have (if it's ML-5257) is from 1952.
I should add that I just love this series. So much easier than doing it myself!
ReplyDeleteYes, Ormandy, I was trying to think of the conductor but it just wouldn't come to me.
ReplyDeleteMy plan is for Nutcrackers to come all month, but I haven't actually counted them, so I don't know how close I'm going to come to that. There are still a few in the stack unrecorded, but I don't know if I'll have time to do much ripping. Work is just taking all my spare clock cycles right now. :(
Thanks for additional comments. I went to the Google machine to do some digging given what you said, Buster. Came across this about Stokowski and the recordings.
ReplyDeletehttps://books.google.com/books?id=Mt4RB5JO4qYC&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=Camden+(RCA)+CAL-100+Nutcracker+Suite/Carnival+Of+The+Animals&source=bl&ots=Ih39u15HT7&sig=ACfU3U2F-wyFgAeMmsEv-9WTMqCX0oGs0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjP9fn6ysPqAhWDQs0KHaLyCRAQ6AEwAnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Camden%20(RCA)%20CAL-100%20Nutcracker%20Suite%2FCarnival%20Of%20The%20Animals&f=false
Sorry about the hideous pasting of the link...
Badgercat - Thanks for the link!
ReplyDeleteI've listened to the Stokowski - it sounds good. I'm not a fan of his, but he manages to perform this score without too many odd touches.
I recently read a book about the history of Recorded Sound, and Stokowski played a bit of a part in the early history of hi-fi. He was evidently a bit of a hands-on kinda guy, and he frequently spent just as much time working with the guys recording his performances as he did with the folks doing the actual performances.
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