Win some, lose all?

The thriving second hand market for vinyl LPs and the equally strong surge of official and unofficial reissues of past recordings, bring to mind the storm that blew over a huge heritage of recorded music with the advent of stereo.

As we all know, although not a novelty technically speaking by that time, wide production of stereo recordings started from 1956 onwards to become the standard by 1960. Companies rushed to replace what was recorded in mono with new stereophonic versions. In a way it was a disaster. The result was that a huge and irreplaceable legacy had been locked in the companies’ vaults, only to reappear timidly as budget reissues, often in electronic mock-stereo – to cater for the needs of impecunious stereophiles. Home listeners having spent small fortunes on stereo equipment needed new recordings to enjoy their spendings and show off to admiring guests. You wouldn’t pick anymore the early mono Walter’s Mozart C minor of early 50s; you'd spin on your turntable his brand new stereo version with the Columbia SO, the version that’s become a yardstick for years next, the one that was lucky to get a CD incarnation right after the new digital medium replaced vinyl.

Walter was not the only one. Klemperer returned to the Abbey Road EMI studio for a complete survey of his repertoire with the Philharmonia & the New Philharmonia. Serkin, Szell, Steinberg, Rodzinsky, Reiner, Ormandy and a whole cohort of soloists – ditto in USA. In Europe the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra knew its peak during the mono era. The same applies to the Berlin PO – then under Furtwangler and later recording also under Lehmann, van Kempen, Kempe, Jochum and Bohm. Lehmann and van Kempen didn’t survive the advent of stereo. Jochum’s 9 Beethoven symphonies with the Berliners and his own Bayerische Rundfunks, most recorded in mono, remains unsurpassed by his later effort in London (LSO); and his mono Bruckners in Berlin and Hamburg (Staatsphilharmonie) – were not matched by his stereo remakes. (For the great German orchestra the advent of stereo coincided with the advent of Karajan at its helm and it’s gradual transformation into a thick and homogeneous sounding instrument implementing it’s conductor’s sonic ideals, which pleased Gramophone’s cashier more than that publication’s reviewers.)

And yet – Walter’s Mozart symphonies in the stereo remakes for CBS (later SONY) don’t hold a candle either interpretatively or musically against their mono predecessors with the Philharmonic-Symphony of New York! The Columbia SO was a thirt rate orchestra, CBS engineers gave it a bass heavy sound image very munch at loggerheads with the fleeting, dramatic music, and Dr Walter was too old and bored to try and get better results. Neither did Klemperer’s stereo legacy had anything to do with his earlier self with the less exalted orchestras he guest conducted. Nor were Serkin’s mono Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms concertos with Szell and Ormandy equaled by his stereo remakes with the same conductors. The same applies to Rubinstein’s mono recordings for RCA – later remade in stereo. The same still to Claudio Arrau. Etc etc etc.

All these men were younger and more eager during the mono period – too old to cut the mustard when stereo arrived. And they were the last representatives of a school much nearer the traditions set by the master composers of past centuries, whose works formed the major part of classical music we listened to then as we do now. Younger stars of the purely stereo era were evidently far removed from this tradition. The uniformity of their interpretations has lessened the appetite of record buyers for repeated listening to their recordings as well as concerto goers to pay dearly to get to know them.

Not that there aren’t very good musicians today. But the sense of miracle seems to be gone for ever, as it was with Hollywood’s golden era – cinema is not what it was then, and so it is with music.

If one should need proof, just consider the number of reissues made today from that period. Consider the asked first bidding price at ebay for Mainardi’s Bach Cello solo sonatas ($1.000 for one LP with only the first three of them on it) as opposed to a huge number of technically skilled cellists recording today who don’t get to sell 200 CDs worldwide; or for that matter the evergreen presence in the catalogue of Alfred Cortot’s Chopin, a pianist legendary for his interpretations of Chopin as well as for his too many wrong notes and smudged passages, along the existence of today’s technically perfect young lions of the keyboard, such as Marc Andre Hamelin or Howard Shelley.

But this is a topic to which one should return again and again.

Vinyl hunting - where and how

It’s dawned on me rather late: I could have saved myself hours of hard toil over some LPs in very bad shape, had I ventured a visit to the ebay flee market. I did it this summer and was amazed by the number of records I could have rebought in finer condition than some few of mine.

Well, it was interesting anyway. If you are patient enough you can find real bargains. The vast majority of course is of recent issues collectors have dumped after having replaced them with their CD incarnations (I can hear the gnashing of teeth by vinyl fans!) Most of them are sold for a fraction of their shipping cost.

But there are some surprises too. I haven’t yet found a good explanation of this mystery – there must be one. Perhaps later. For the time being let me put it on record: the most expensive LPs in today’s market are by women violinists! Johanna Martzy, Erica Morini, Ida Handel – artists that used to have a low or medium box office (and have charged analogous fees) share top box office in today’s used LPs market! I mean… hundreds of bucks. Ginette Neveu is expensive too, but nowhere like Martzy! Then second come women pianists: another surprise here - Ingrid Haebler sells for $$$s! Can't fathom why, for the life of me. Perhaps collectors grew weary of Uchida’s tres sec Mozart and need to breath fresher air – even though sanitized-filtered, like with Mme Haebler. Monique Haas is running high fees too, and so are Guyomar Novaes and Maria Tipo. Male stars like Glenn Gould, Horowitz, Sofronitzky, Gilels and Richter go for nothing. Males in general are a dime a dozen. Only Enrico Mainardi’s unaccompanied Bach cello suites reach such hights. And Ludwig Hoelscher runs him close.

As to labels – some Wenstminster sets get high prices, the majority goes for cheap. Same with some Remington’s. Mercuries are high runners too.

There is an artist-fetish in the vinyl buyer, today, but there’s also a brand/label fetish: LPs once famous for their sonic excellence (Mercuries, DECCA ffrr/ffss and LXTs, some Wenstminsters) are sold at very high prices. Added to these now -and rightfully so- you have East German LPs - Eterna etc -. They have always been better recorded and pressed on higher grade vinyl than their competitors of DGG - to say nothing of the much better orchestras active in the eastern sector. And there is of course the pure vinyl-fetish – and here more modern issues give place to older products, when vinyl was high grade, resisted stylus damage and wasn’t dished or misshaped and the like, as later products used to be.

In all these, there still are treasures that go for nothing – you get them cheap. All you need is read carefully the sellers small print as regards LP condition/gradings and chiefly shipping charges. Some sell cheap but rob you by way of postage. East-coast USA sellers charge you more than their West-coast colleagues – nobody knows why. And German/Austrian sellers prefer being paid by bank transfers which is cumbersome and dangerous. Not all of course. And the English insist on selling in English Pounds – of course.