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Topic: Audio recording 100 years ago (Read 2854 times) previous topic - next topic
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Audio recording 100 years ago

Quote
Simon Heighes visits an unusual recording session at the Royal College of Music where students and early recording experts have teamed up to recreate Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic'€™s 1913 recording of Beethoven'€™s 5th Symphony. The original recording, one of the earliest one and most successful attempts to record an entire symphony using (close to) a full orchestra, used an acoustic horn to cut into a wax disc. Simon talked to participants in the 2014 re-enactment about the challenges of re-creating a recording process that pre-dated the use of electronic microphones.


They played the 1913 recording, the recoding from modern microphones in the room, and the reproduction from the new acoustic recording. Switching between the last two, it was at first terrible to hear how much is lost in an acoustic recording, then once you got used to it, amazing to hear how much survives.

They also talked a lot about the original recording, and the techniques they had rediscovered to improve the quality of the new acoustic recording.

The podcast (entitled "RCM Session Report") is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bal
(available forever I think)

The full original broadcast is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wm1nq
1:26:00 to 1:41:40
(It's the same thing, but higher quality in the UK)
(available for four weeks)

You can see five photos from the session here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/galleries/p02g6yqf

Larger versions of the first four here:
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p02g6yw1.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p02g6yw3.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p02g6ywc.jpg
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p02g6yxz.jpg


We don't realise how lucky we are - though judging by contemporary reports, I think some music fans in 1913 were even more excited about what they had available back then than we are today.

Cheers,
David.

(originally posted here.)

Audio recording 100 years ago

Reply #1 –
Looks like the link is restricted to the UK only. Any other mirrors?

Edit: the full broadcast link works.

Audio recording 100 years ago

Reply #2 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Quote
Simon Heighes visits an unusual recording session at the Royal College of Music where students and early recording experts have teamed up to recreate Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic'€?s 1913 recording of Beethoven'€?s 5th Symphony. The original recording, one of the earliest one and most successful attempts to record an entire symphony using (close to) a full orchestra, used an acoustic horn to cut into a wax disc. Simon talked to participants in the 2014 re-enactment about the challenges of re-creating a recording process that pre-dated the use of electronic microphones.


They played the 1913 recording, the recoding from modern microphones in the room, and the reproduction from the new acoustic recording. Switching between the last two, it was at first terrible to hear how much is lost in an acoustic recording, then once you got used to it, amazing to hear how much survives.


The acoustic recording process suffers from limited dynamic range and fairly  horrible frequency response. There was also a serious problem with noise but that persisted into the days when electrical recordings were made on the same medium.

The point I'd like to make is that as you seem to be suggesting, the ear can adapt pretty well to fairly serious technical difficulties. So if we don't get everything right in accordance with some standard that we may eventually find was somewhat arbitrary, its not the end of the world.

Audio recording 100 years ago

Reply #3 –
Not being from the UK, I couldn't get any to work. Just looking for the broarcast: any other links?
Glass half full!

Audio recording 100 years ago

Reply #5 –
the full-length link David gave works for me in the States;  make sure you advance it to 1:26:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wm1nq
1:26:00 to 1:41:40

They aren't very clear on what we are hearing; I believe the old recording is sampled several times near the beginning; there's a lot of chatter after that, then you can hear what I think is the the modern 'mic' recording at  1:37:18  and the modern 'horn' recording at  1:38:54.

I wish they had been more explicit in offering comparisons.
 

Audio recording 100 years ago

Reply #6 –
Quote from: krabapple on
the full-length link David gave works for me in the States;  make sure you advance it to 1:26:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wm1nq
1:26:00 to 1:41:40

They aren't very clear on what we are hearing; I believe the old recording is sampled several times near the beginning; there's a lot of chatter after that, then you can hear what I think is the the modern 'mic' recording at  1:37:18  and the modern 'horn' recording at  1:38:54.

I wish they had been more explicit in offering comparisons.
I was able to play the full-length link here in Australia.  It's remarkable how much of the sound was successfully captured with the simple acoustic horn and wax disc recording technology back in 1913.  The rather slow tempo used by the Berlin Philharmonic in 1913 at the beginning of the second movement (the Andante Con Moto) of Beethoven's 5th symphony was very expressive to my mind [beginning at 1:30:00].

The modern acoustic recording starting at 1:38:54 is similarly remarkable in how much of the sound of a modern orchestra huddled not far from the recording horn can be heard through the noise and distortion of the recording, and through the resonances of the horn coupling the sound to the recording cutter.

I didn't notice any explanation concerning how the recordings were played back but I see one of the photos shows a modern looking turntable. The playback was evidently not done with a further acoustic horn!

Quote
then you can hear what I think is the the modern 'mic' recording at  1:37:18
I thought this electronic recording sounded a bit odd, presumably because of the unusual seating positions of the players for the purposes of the mechanical recording.