Difference between revisions of "Chicago Gramophone Society 50019-P, 50020-P"

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This page presents a discography of the Chicago Gramophone Society's second issue.

It is part of the site Classical 'Society' Records by Nick Morgan.

For dates of creation and latest update, please see 'Page information' in left sidebar.

Contents

This issue consisted of two double-sided discs containing seven songs for solo voice and piano.

The first disc contains the four songs which make up the collection Water-Colors, Four Chinese Tone-Poems by John Alden Carpenter:^[1]

• (i) On a Screen ('A tortoise I see on a lotus-flower resting...'). Text by Li Tai Po (701–762)
• (ii) The Odalisque ('A gaily dressed damsel steps forth from her bow'r...'). Text by Liu Yuxi (772–842)
• (iii) Highwaymen ('The rainy mist sweeps gently o'er the village by the stream...'). Text by Li She (fl. 806-20). Dedicated to Thomas Dobson (1890-1918)
• (iv) To a Young Gentleman ('Don't come in, sir, please!'). Anonymous text, from the Book of Odes, traditionally ascribed to Confucius (551–479 BC). Dedicated to Maggie Teyte

All the texts were set in English translations by Herbert Giles

The second disc contains two songs by Hugo Wolf and one by Richard Strauss:

• Auch kleine Dinge, No.1 of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch, Book 1. Text by Paul Heyse (translation into German of anonymous Italian original)
• Nimmersatte Liebe, No.9 of Wolf's Mörike-Lieder, Volume 1. Text by Eduard Mörike
• Blindenklage ('Wenn ich dich frage, dem das Leben blüht...'), No.2 of Strauss's 6 Lieder Op.56. Text by Karl Henckell

Origination

System

Western Electric, under licence to Columbia Phonograph Co., as denoted by the logo Ⓦ preceding matrix numbers. This symbol cannot be searched for in MediaWiki, and so is not used in the above table.

Cuts

All items recorded complete and uncut.

Availability

Issued January or February 1928, in a limited edition of 200 copies, without leaflet.
Price US $ 5.00 per set.
Deletion date unknown; presumably, when sole documented pressing exhausted.

Sources

• Audition of digital transfers from original discs held in private collections^[2]
• Columbia matrix cards, Sony Music, New York^[3]

The exact recording location is not certain. In 1917, Columbia 'Personal' Records were made in the Company's Master Manufacturing Department, at 102 West 38th Street, New York City; it is not known if this studio was still in use in 1927.

• 'The Chicago Gramophone Society hereby...' (notice), Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.2 No.4, January 1928, p.146
• 'Special', Music Lovers' Phonograph Monthly Review, Vol.2 No.8, May 1928, pp.306-15; unsigned review, probably written by Robert D. Darrell (1903-88)^[4]
• Pollak, Robert 'Current Records', The Chicagoan, Vol.4 No.8, 14 January 1928, p.26
• Additional discographical information from Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings, Yale University, Newhaven, CT, USA^[5]

Notes

Commissioned and underwritten by Vories Fisher and Robert Pollak of the Chicago Gramophone Society.

Song titles are billed on the labels of disc 50020-P in both German and English (see above), but all were sung in German.

Of the seven songs in this issue, only Auch kleine Dinge was omitted from Clough, Francis F. and Cuming, G.J. The World's Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music, London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1952 ('WERM'), which also gives the singer's surname, under both Blinderklage [sic] and Nimmersatte Liebe, as 'Heger'.

This issue presented the first commercial recordings of all the above works. The next to be issued were:

• Carpenter Water-Colors, (i) & (ii) only, Mina Hager (mezzo-soprano) and Celius Dougherty (piano), recorded c. early 1937 (see Hager's recordings)
• Wolf Auch kleine Dinge, Elena Gerhardt (mezzo-soprano) and Coenraad V. Bos (piano), recorded 9 November 1931, issued 1932 in Hugo Wolf Society Volume I, H.M.V. DB1615-20 (on DB 1618)
• Wolf Nimmersatte Liebe, Karl Erb (tenor) and Gerald Moore (piano), recorded 31 August 1937, issued on H.M.V. DB6813
• Strauss Blindenklage, no further issue on 78 rpm disc

This issue includes Carpenter's sole published commercial recording as a pianist; he is also known to have made one non-commercial recording, provisionally documented here.

This issue includes the only known recording by Kimsey, who is not credited on labels of disc 50020-P or in press notices, and is named only on Columbia's matrix cards.

Copies known

• Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings, Yale University, Newhaven, CT, USA (50019-P, 50020-P)
• Special Collection, Performing Arts, University of California at Santa Barbara (50020-P only)
• Private collection, UK (50019-P, 50020-P)
• Private collection, Chicago USA (50020-P only)

Other issues

No other issue known.

Transfers

No transfers publicly available.

References

1. ↑ Data adapted from IMSLP
2. ↑ Transfers kindly provided by their owners, whose generous help is gratefully acknowledged, as this that of Bill Anderson of Chicago, USA
3. ↑ Provided by kind courtesy of Michael H. Gray (personal communication, 18 September 2015)
4. ↑ Darrell, R.D. 'O Pioneer (A Half Century Later)', ARSC Journal, Vol.19 No.1, 1987, pp.4-10
5. ↑ I am grateful to Andrew Jones of Yale University for kindly forwarding details of these discs from the Yale Collection of Historical Sound Recordings, as well as scans of labels (personal communication, 10 December 2015)