That cover and label might necessarily suggest a junk-label product, and we might necessarily conclude that the audio is probably not state of the art. No, not necessarily. However, in this case, yes. A junk label (Eli Oberstein strikes again!), and with less than RCA-quality fidelity, but still pretty decent audio, considering. Well, fairly decent...
And I thrifted this mainly for 1) the wonderfully chintzy jacket, and 2) the inclusion of Liszt's Chromatic Galop, which I had never before heard. And it's as amazing as I figured. And, again, for the early 1950s, the audio is... okay. Middling.
As far as the sound-editing/-correcting process on my part, the VinylStudio declicking filter did wonders for the many clicks (aka, ticks) and pops. But I had to spend approx. two hours on manual click repairing. Was it worth the time? Well, seeing how this is is a delightful LP and a marvelous example of rack-jobber Classical music, yes. And I used an excellent after-market stylus and my Stanton 500 cart instead of my terrific AT cartridge, and simply because it's better for junk vinyl. (The wonderful after-market stylus is, of course, no longer in production.)
The Gramophone label--and all the junky Record Corp. of America rip-offs--fascinated me as a kid. My maternal grandparents had a number of Gramophone, Varsity, Royale, et al. albums, and I found them quite cool in their cheapness. Obviously, I still do, and nearly (yikes!) 60 years later.
And... something I still, to this day, find difficult to believe. Namely, when I first discovered thrifting, ca. 1967, it always puzzled me that the cashiers (always women, all of whom looked "old" to me) had no clue about the difference between, say, a 12-inch 78 and a 12-inch LP. All they knew was that the "big" records were 25 cents and the "little" records were 10 cents (I think). Big/little. And so I hypothesized that, back when long-playing records (including 45s) were introduced, most customers were just as confused as the Salvation Army cashiers. I figured that people saw no reason to pay $3.98 or more for an LP, and thus was created the market for 99-cent budget vinyl!
Adding to the confusion caused in the first place by the introduction of 45 and 33 & 1/3 rpm discs, we had RCA trying to hype 45s as the long-playing format of preference (instead of 10" and 12" LPs). This made sense, in a way, since 45rpm EP albums and boxed sets were analogous to 78rpm albums and boxed sets.
But buyers figured things out eventually, and so RCA's plan failed.
And, last thing, dig the appearance of I've Been Working on the Railroad in Poet and Peasant, and nearly 50 years before that song was penned. By Facebook "woo woo"-reel standards, this is proof that time travel must be real. We have the "proof" right here!!
Oh, and of course the "National Opera Orchestra" could be anyone. And, off the top of my head, I recall that Eli Oberstein recorded in Europe because the musicians worked for a flat fee (no royalties). I can picture a German musician in his 80s, and somebody asking, "Were you part of the National Opera Orchestra?" And the old man replying, "The what?"
DOWNLOAD: A Great Light Concert 1953.zip
Poet and Peasant (von Suppe)
Hungarian March (Berlioz)
Chromatic Galop (Liszt)
Zampa Overture (von Herold)
March Slav (Tschaikowski, sic)
Military March in D (Schubert)
A Great Light Concert--National Opera Orchestra (Gramophone 2044; 1953)
(And there's "art" this time!)
Lee
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