How it all started

When I was a kid there was no music, no singing at home. We were not gloomy people. Just nobody particularly liked music. My pa used to quote Tolstoy: "music and artillery are the most expensive of noises". Dear pa! An intellectual, he felt he should ratify his likes or dislikes with a theory. His or someone else's. Anyway I was different. I loved music since the day I remember myself. I listened to the radio: songs of course. What we call today pop. But with a difference. All my attention was captured by what was going on behind the voice, the instruments, the orchestra. Then came the radio Third Program. They played records. Some so badly used you heard the persistent clicks and pops. I still expect the big scratch to come in the middle of the Respighi Concerto Gregoriano played by German violinist Stiller (?) and conducted by Ernst Borsamsky. (Anyone remember those names?) Then came record buying, the beginning of a lifelong addiction. Rudimentary pickup connected to radio set up, the ancient predecessors of today's (yesterday's actually) hi-end wherewithal. I still have my first Philips deck, playing 78s, 45s and 33 rpms, safely hidden behind a record cabinet in my listening room. You changed the needle with a lever, at the side of the head, a thick one for the 78s, a thinner for the rest. 78s I never had. Nor wished to have. Long playing was the pinnacle of sound recording technology, no record collection of my elders at home to cherish and learn to love - only some light music 78s I can't recall where were they found and ended up on my shelves: Victor Sylvester's orchestra playing tangos, some songs. That was all.

LPs were expensive. All were imported. The most consistent of importers were Philips, and my father had a friend of his in some important post there. We bought with a 25% discount. But we bought once or twice a year. My father must have felt this was the most unreasonably spent money he ever paid for anything. But he had to oblige me in Christmas and on my birthday.

So Philips was instrumental in shaping my tastes. We bought whatever was on the catalogue irrespective of the names of the performers. DGG (a separate producer then) was not so well distributed. As for Columbia, they came from England - later to become HMV and later EMI. RCA was scarce. You found German pressings and American pressings in various outlets. Decca had an individual representative who imported minimal classical numbers. My friends and I read the catalogue and our mouths watered - but there was nothing to be found. The man either hated classical music or he didn't bother to order any numbers that weren't guaranteed to sell. VOX was present much later and by then the market had opened for classical music. The guys who imported them from the U.S. and from France brought virtually everything on the VOX catalogue. The difference was audible both recording-wise and interpretation-wise, I must say. But young, avid collectors on a budget didn't have the luxury to pick. VOX was the equivalent of paperback novels. You bought them and got the gist of the work at least. Sometimes you'd be pleasantly surprised by major interpretations who beat the great names of the "big" brands. Like Horenstein's Ninth. (There still is ONE Ninth, eh?) Who'd beat the hell out of Bruno Walter's New York record on Columbia. Or Grischkat's Vespro who stressed the romantic-epic character of this masterpiece in a way the more stylish Lewis on Oiseau-Lyre (which cost three times the price of the double VOX album) wasn't able to for all the Ritchies of the world.

Decca ffrr s made from the very start a great impression. A friend of mine had at home a modest library. In this Rach2 with Katchen/Fistoulari and the so-styled New Symphony Orchestra of London left indelible memories. And on another ffrr at my friend’s, there was the Concertgbouw / Kleiber Beethoven 7 – this one never removed from its throne! There I fell in love with Ravel’s Ma Mere l’ Oie played by the Bostoners and Koussevitzky. The flip side housed Bolero. Their Ninth was Bruno Walter on two Columbias – but I always preferred mine: Otterloo with The Residency Orchestra (The Hague) and the impressive “Toonkunst” Choir on a Philips twofer which also accommodated on side 4 Egmont and Coriolan Overtures. I have been missing this 9th for decades now, till recently thanks to the advise of my Dutch friend Rolf’s I bought from Amsterdam a 10-CD box with many of the mono Otterloos of the 50s. Among which this one: Still THE Ninth, for me from the 29 in my collection.

Which brings me to another topic – the indelible mark that a first hearing leaves us each time we first come across a composition. But I shall deal with this at another instance.

Back to first experiences and first loves. The Callas/Gobbi Rigoletto was a great favorite. My friend's parents had only two complete opera sets: that one and the Toscanini/Traviata. I can claim solid fundaments as an opera lover. His father did for a spell import some Remingtons. He was an electrical appliances dealer, had split from his partners and tried to survive on his own. I inherited these Remingtons and I love them. I love their jackets artwork, I love their piercing highs and the scrappy but enthusiastic playing of the so-called Austrian Symphony Orchestra which was a pseudonym serving, as it seems, both the Vienna Volksoperorchester and the Tonkuenstlerorchester, Niederoesterreich who played the New World Symphony (still #5 that time) under George Singer, the Tchaikovsky Pathetique under H. Arthur Brown, accompanied Friedrich Wuhrer in Beethoven no.4 under Karl Randolph (two sides for this!) and the Fritz Busch Eroica. My friend didn’t care at all for any of them, so I got them when I asked. I have given innumerable hours reconstructing the sound, for all were in bad condition. But I am very proud of the results and now they are in the bearac_reissues catalogue for anyone willing to explore them.

These were the times the Viennese knew hunger ( I should know, as my nick here in this blog vouchsafes) and their orchestras played for a handful of dollars for the Remington and the Vox engineers & producers who rushed to get the European flavor back to their public in the States. For years I also thought the conductors were under aliases too. Frizt Busch was the only one I knew. It’s a very recent discovered that both George Singer and H. Arthur Brown existed, the first an opera conductor, active mainly in Israel, the second a very important personality who did much to promote music in his area, El Paso. You can look up H. Arthur Brown at the site devoted to him. His Remington Pathetique is an exemplary rendition, he manages to build tension and drama without hysteria – a really classical reading.

And the years went by and LPs accumulated asking for more room. CD arrived just in time. Where 65 LPs were housed I now could accommodate 88 CDs dividing horizontally the space in two. Like everyone else I started buying new DDD recordings to enjoy the sound. But I had for some decades before been listening to such great artists – the younger generation didn’t cut any mustard. Pollini is one instance. I gaped at the technique and the leanness of his renditions but little by little I started getting rather tired of an ever so imperceptible degree of heartlessness on his part. Too clinical. A keyboard Boulez. I no longer listen to his CDs. There’s always someone plays them equally “perfectly” but does so infusing his (her) reading with a more humane streak.

And as I had started looking nostalgically back to my LPs which I didn’t play any longer, reissues started coming. I gradually replaced most of them; new issues were bought rarely and sometimes returned to the dealers. I had a subscription to Gramophone since 1969. Gramophone proved to be a very frustrating experience after all. I read their high brow reviews chewing my lips each time Charles Munch and Markevitch were simply ignored as Berliozeans of the first order and the unimaginative and soft cored Colin Davis got the crown – compared only, where possible – to sir Thomas Beecham. I marvelled at the temerity of these guys to argue about the New Philharmonia being a world class orchestra (which they weren’t) and their unashamed promoting of the old and unsteady Klemperer’s Beethoven, Brahms and Mozart (even the operas got an A) or Karajan’s homogenized sound over the complete orchestral repertoire from DG and Berlin. Even the Berliners pale and whining first oboe sound was praised. One could see why all this. The ads – my god – the ads. Who paid for the “esteemed publication”? The ads did. That is, the big companies, EMI and Polygram, later swallowing Philips, Mercury, Decca and the biggest part of their antagonists. I kept on reading Gramophone though. For one thing, it was a way of knowing what was new. I read it more as a Swann Catalogue in small instalments. Never the reviews. There were exceptions of course. Robert Layton was an excellent critic and so were Ivan March and Trevor Harvey (not always this last one, but most of the time). There was also someone very good writing the Opera section - very good indeed, but I forget his name. The majority gave the unfortunate impression of mercenary writers. You could sometimes understand how bad a new recording was by reading between the lines (even behind some carefully selected words – because, well, most of them were knowledgeable and they couldn’t leave all of their good taste at home). But «payroll oblige», as the French might put it.

And speaking of French, I also read Diapason, though not systematically. The French had their soft spots too. But for the most part were (somewhat surprisingly) less chauvinistic than their English counterparts and never shy to mention much older recordings, even of the mono era, in comparison – ending naturally with far less *stars* for the new arrivals. Best of all I found to be the American reviewers. Some even wrote for English publications, e.g. Hi-Fi News & Record Review a.o. I found Americans the most consistent, informed and knowledgeable of all. Germans too of course. And Italians, it must be said. Of course how you read criticism is also a matter of taste.

And so LP came to pass on CD transfers. Not always successfully. There were horrendous jobs done there, there were also very successful ones. All in all I could now have on the convenient new carrier my music. And bought most of my collection back. There was no discount for me from either Philips or Decca or RCA or CBS (now Sony). I couldn’t do otherwise.

Some though I didn’t. Not all my LPs were worthy of replacement. And many never appeared on the new format; till, recently, I discovered some pages in the Internet that offered exactly what was missing. “Private LPs to CD transfers”. Pierre Paquin, John Wilson, Lahni Spar (an oboist) on his own site and David Gideon on his, all offered excellent digitizations of rare LPs. Not only of those I had on my shelves, waiting in vain their resurrection in the new format, but even many LPs I wasn’t able to buy when they still were out (years ago!) and sorely wanted. These were the luminaries that set me on the warpath. Most of all Pierre was instrumental in this. Here is how.

Like myself Pierre is a Munch fan. I got the virus during the early 60s when our radio rented from the US tapes of live concerts at Symphony Hall, transmitting them with 3-4 weeks delay, on Sunday mornings. I was ready with my tape recorder and recorded them. I remember great Berlioz of course, but also a beautiful Brahms 1st Serenade for orchestra, a near ideal Mozart K.466 with Monique Haas and modern American music by Piston and William Schuman. And from the guests a white hot Sibelius 2 with Schippers and an Elizabethan Suite by – and under – John Barbirolli. I learned all the first desk names of the orchestra, I knew Irwing Firth from his inimitable battery, Berj Zamkochian from his dexterity and verve in both Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and Poulenc’s Organ Conerto, Roger Voisin for his clear and sometimes overenthusiastic trumpet, James Stagliano from his lusty horn, their leader Richard Burgin in various solos often doubling as a conductor, Joseph de Pasquale as soloist in Harold and Richard Mayes for many delectable cello solos.

I bought as many records of Boston/Munch I could lay hands on. Yet at some point, Pierre refused to mail any more CDs to Greece. Was it the mailing cost? Was it that once or twice I asked for a replacement for a jitterish copy? I never knew. He wrote me that henceforth he would only ship his goods to (civilized) countries like the US and Japan – fulstop. The fact is I now had to do without his digitizations; ergo I had to try do them myself. And so it all started. Took me over three years and I did twice the catalogue you see at the site as “Under preparation” plus the ones already available – first overenthusiastically taking out all noise, the second time leaving some and the third (there was a third for many of my compilations) as I had to universally apply my patent for the mono recordings to become true mono. And now we are ready to sail.

Offering the digitizations to the public for me is not so much a commercial enterprise as it is the joy of the collector to share with others his love for the material at hand. This is the way I see it. And being a collector – it couldn’t have been different.