For today, new rips of my standard Easter 78s: The famous Robert Lowry hymn Christ Arose! as recorded by the Haydn Quartet in 1908 (with no !) and the Shannon Quartet (a.k.a. Shannon Four) in 1925, and Jesus Lives!, recorded in 1922 by the Trinity Choir. The tune for Jesus Lives! was written by Henry J. Gauntlett in 1852. Meanwhile, the Shannon Quartet became the Reverlers in 1925.
The rest of the tracks are me at the organ (actually, my Casio WK-3800), playing Easter hymns. I tossed this together at the last minute, meaning last night. Total rush job.
I play two Jesus Lives! tunes--the Gauntlett music used by the Trinity Quartet, and a 1921 tune by Andrew L. Skoog, who was born in Sweden and died in Minnesota.
LINK: Easter 2019--78s, Lee at the organ
Christ Arose! (Lowry)--Shannon Quartet (Victor 19883; 1925)
Jesus Lives! (Gauntlett)--Trinity Quartet (Victor 19004; 1922)
Christ Arose (Lowry)--Haydn Quartet (Victor 16008; 1908)
Jesus Christ Is Risen Today (Lyra Davidica, 1708)--Me, Casio WK-3800
Sing, men and angels, sing (John Porter)--Me, Casio WK-3800
Jesus Lives! (Andrew L. Skoog, 1921)--Me, Casio WK-3800
Welcome, Happy Morning (Frances R. Havergal)--Me, Casio WK-3800
Jesus Lives! (Gauntlett, 1852)--Me, Casio WK-3800
Lee
11 comments:
Happy Easter Lee!
Hmm, that might not be the link you were going for...
Sorry--it's fixed. I had to swap the first and third titles, too. This might have something to do with my four hours of sleep before sunrise service....
Happy Easter, Lee!
You lost me for a minute trying to find the Reverlers...or the Revelers. Found these articles as a result, and this is quite a story, so I'll be looking about for more delightful recordings of these fellows.
And thank you for sharing your own recorded delights with us , Lee. I always enjoy your performances. If you lived closer I'd have to come over and bring my clarinet or a sax and play along.
https://www.registerguard.com/news/20180706/uo-prof-preps-for-revival-of-revelers-after-discovery-of-rare-music
https://www.artsjournal.com/condemned/2018/07/music-from-the-attic-the-revelers-return-with-a-mellifluous-secret-garden/
Happy Easter!
Happy Easter, Lee!
It's good to see the Haydn Quartet record featured prominently here. My denomination (PCUSA) favors "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today" over "Christ Arose." So, a few years back I made a video using the Haydn record and H.B. Warner's 1927 resurrection scene, and every Easter I post it on Facebook. It's on youtube if you're curious. Thank you for all the wonderful music and prose!
Zoomer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbxAwBJudcEc
Rev.b,
You, too!
DonHo57,
Thanks for the links! The discovery of the scores is fascinating, though the writer seems to know little about the history involved--the Revelers didn't make "albums" (they made lots of 78s, however) and they're hardly a "lost" group, what with all their 78s still being collected, and a CD on ASV, etc. The writer is confusing the status of the quartet arrangements with the quartet itself. "Lost" is kind of silly, anyway, since such manuscripts tend not to survive. The writer should check Archeophone's catalog and find out about the other quartets whose sound evolved beyond the turn of the century's--the Heidelberg Quintet, for example. Part of the problem is with the prof's over-generalizations. Meanwhile, the black close harmony groups of the 1920s--both secular and gospel--made the Revelers sound quaint. And I've frankly always found the R.'s sound very much of its era. I associate them with those Victor "Gems from...." 12-inchers.
At least the second piece is written by someone who knows what a 78 is. This is likely not news to you, but for the longest time--back to the 1880s, at least--songbooks notated male quartets in treble and bass clef fashion, only with a weird symbol replacing the treble clef, and incorrectly called a "tenor clef." The proper symbol would have been the treble clef with an 8 below it, to indicate an octave lower than notated. And the writer of the second piece must know that close harmony is... close harmony. Just what the term implies. So I don't get his "The harmonies are closely voiced" observation. Anyway, great discovery, and the barbershop/close harmony over-generalizations in the articles are, I guess, to be expected. I've had my mind blown by some of the earlier barbershop sides--the African-American type, in particular.
I meant to add that notating same-sex quartets on separate staves is, of course, the practical way to do it. Much easier to read. But for years it confused me, because I didn't know what that funky clef meant. The real tenor clef, of course, is the one used by orchestras. It's not the treble clef down an octave....
Zoomer,
Thanks! Glad to have you sharing that wonderful recording, too. Not sure which of us brought it to cyberspace first! I don't remember my first posting, and I deleted most of my earliest blog entries, due to requests for files no longer ready to put up. Once upon a time, I was buried in requests.
It goes perfectly with the 1927 video. That is one amazing silent flick. And, is it just me, or is YouTube's search function terrible? I looked for this recording on YT last night, and your post did not come up--just another rip, badly recorded from a speaker. Or maybe from a wind-up cabinet gramophone.
Lee,
Did you try "christ arose zoomer"? That's how I find it. Youtube isn't my go-to venue.
Zoom.
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