Merry Shellacmas! John McCormack, Trinity Choir, Collins H. Driggs, International Novelty Orch., (1910-1940/58)

 

One hour of 78 rpm goodies, all Santa-approved (you'll have to take my word).  The Trinity Choir's 8/26/1926 Christmas Hymns and Carols, (I love it when that distinction is made) from a period when the "standard" hymns and carols had almost been codified.  Exception: Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn, which should be a standard carol-sing title, but which never quite entered that category.  It's still performed, but more or less as an extra treat.

John McCormack is magnificent in both acoustical and electrical form, and we get his classic 1914 Ave Maria (with Fritz Kreisler, and in the Bach-Gounod setting I prefer) and a wonderful Oh Come, All Ye Faithful from 1926 (with the Trinity Choir sounding stronger and brighter than ever).  But maybe the highlight of this sleighlist is the 1913 Prince's Orchestra Children's Symphony, aka Kindersinfonieand and Toy Symphony, which for a long time was falsely credited to "Haydn"--i.e., Joseph or Michael--but actually came from the pen of Benedictine monk Father Edmund Angerer (1740-1794). The chief challenge, performance-wise, is locating the original toys (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) for the sound effects.  And we already know that Spike Jones was hardly the first person to expertly employ musical racket, but this circa-1770 piece really pushes the date back.

Plus, Nathaniel (aka, Nat) Shilkret directs the International Novelty Orchestra, with Sigmund Krumgold on pipe organ, in the all-time version of Leon Jessel's 1897 holiday masterpiece, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.  Recording date: 1/25/1928 (a month late!).  But not before Collin H. Drigg's 1940 Novachord recording, very possibly arranged by Ferde Grofe. Says Wikipedia, the Novachord is "often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer." I'll buy that. Er, I would, if I could afford one.  (Or had a place to put it.)

Lillian Currie's Children's Toy March (Pince's Band, 1912) was presented at a faster clip in 1911 as part of the descriptive piece On a Christmas Morning.  I see that I posted same at my Shellac City YouTube page in its Harmony label edition.  Anyway, this more mellow rendition of the march has its charms...

Oh, and I always feel the need to note that "Adeste Fideles" is not "Fidelis," though we see that typo pretty often.  Oh, and when I posted my YouTube upload of the Driggs 78 at Facebook, a number of synthesizer enthusiasts were more than slightly impressed.  Synths have a longer history than we imagine.

And a non-shellac, non-78-rpm selection, 1958's God's Christmas Tree, ripped from my Columbia 45.  How this got on the list, I don't know, but I never said I knew what I was doing.

The wonderful Richard Crooks 1933 performances are of two once-standard holiday concert numbers--Stephen Adam's The Star of Bethlehem and The Holy City.  They may still be featured in England.  The 1933 Red Seal RCA audio is nice.

And I just lost three hours of my life in the goal of finally, somehow, figuring out why OneDrive was not giving me a sharing link to this file.  In the meantime, my MAGIX-exported FLAC files (I discovered I indeed have that option) somehow reverted to mp3s.  And my brain is too fried to even start to attempt to figure out how that happened.  (The letter couldn't been an operator-error event!  I always reason best when I'm annoyed.

DOWNLOAD: Merry Shellacmas! (1912-1940).zip

Adeste Fideles (Oh Come, All Ye Faithful)--John McCormack, Trinity Choir, 1926

Christmas Hymns and Carols, Pts. I and II--Trinity Choir, Dir. Rosario Bourdon, 1926

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus (Guess who?)--Same

Gloria from "Twelfth Mass" (Mozart)--Trinity Choir; pipe organ: Mark Andrews, 1926

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod)--John McCormack, Fritz Kreisler, 1914

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Jessel)--Collins H. Driggs, Novachord solo, 1940

Parade of the Wooden Soliders (Jessel)--International Concert Orch. Dir. Shilkret; pipe organ: Sigmund Krumgold, 1928

Children's Symphony (Father Edmund Angerer)--Prince's Orch., 1913

Children's Toy March (Lillian Currie)--Prince's Band, 1912

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus--Mark Andrews, Pipe Organ Solo, 1925

Babes in Toyland--March of the Toys--Victor Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1939

The Skaters--Waltz--International Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1926

The Star of Bethlehem--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

The Holy City--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

God's Christmas Tree--Southwest High School Choir, O.B. Dahle, 1958

Lee