This Week in Classical Music-November 2, 2008

by: Randy Kinkel

November 02, 2008

historic cylinder recordings

( Phoenix )
•Historic 19th century recordings to be released
•CBC Orchestra to become Web orchestra?

This week in Classical Music 11/02/08

It’s This week in Classical Music, an update on what’s happening in the classical music world, I’m Randy Kinkel.

Some of the earliest recordings in classical music history will become available next month o n a 3-CD set on the Marston label. The recordings, made in the 1890s with an early Edison Cylinder phonograph, will be invaluable to scholars and music fans wanting to know what the musical playing styles were in the late 19th century. In fact, the recordings feature the playing of several accomplished Composer/pianists: Sergei Taneyev, a pupil of Tchaikovsky’s who played the premiere of his Second Concerto; Anton Arensky, playing his much-loved Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor just months after it was written; and the legendary pianist Josef Hofmann in his first known recordings. Each cylinder was able to record for only two to four minutes, so the release will be limited to snippets: 90 of music and 4 with just spoken words. Those include Tolstoy reading from his work and what may be the voice and whistling of Tchaikovsky. The musical recordings in the release run from 1890 to 1923. The recordings are not likely to appeal to casual music lovers, as engineer, Ward Marston of Marston Records, concedes. The surface noise is heavy, the music sometimes barely audible. “It’s not what you call pleasant to listen to,” said Mr. Marston, who is considered one of the leading audio-conservation engineers. You can get more information on the recordings at www.marstonrecords.com

There’s going to be new life—a reprieve of sorts—and a new start for The 70-year-old CBC Radio Orchestra, which was to be cut off from funding by the Canadian Broadcasting Company in January. Plans are to resurrect the orchestra as the National Broadcast orchestra, Montreal businessman Philippe LaBelle and music director Alain Trudel describe the NBO as "Canada's multimedia orchestra," a term that appears on the group's rudimentary website…"It will mostly be digital broadcasting," said Labelle, and a venture capitalist whose current principal venture is an online software platform named ZeFridge. "What we want to do is bring the orchestra close to Canadians, and to everyone, since there are no borders on the Internet." Trudel said he expects to perform six to 10 programs a year, with 35 to 50…."The programming will stay eclectic, with a lot of new stuff, and when we do pieces that are better known, we'll play them with young Canadian soloists, to give them a stepping stone," Trudel said.

For more on these and other items and events, go to the website, kbaq.org; be listening each week at this time for another update, and join me every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries. I’m Randy Kinkel, for This Week in Classical Music, on 89.5 KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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