Glory to His Name (Cornet solo by Eric Ball)
Harry Dilley, Salvationist Publishing & Supplies Band, cond. Eric Ball
Regal Zonophone 78rpm disc, MF 283
Rec. 1939
A lovely old recording from the world of Salvation Army brass bands.
Professional music organisations, most notably some of our finest orchestras and military bands, have over the years gained much from the presence of brass players with a Salvation Army or other brass band background. Harry Dilley, a one time salvationist and the soloist here, was also principal trumpet with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden for many years: readers may recollect the Joan Sutherland album, The Art of the Prima Donna, which included Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim (still available on Decca) - trumpet obbligato courtesy of the same Harry Dilley. Professional colleagues regarded Dilley with unstinting admiration. His apparent easily-produced tone balanced power and projection with lyricism and sweetness, an ideal combination not least in the great ballet scores of Tchaikovsky.
Eric Ball, also a salvationist, was, and remains posthumously, a towering figure in the brass band movement, having composed marches, extended suites, and 'test' pieces which continue to this day to feature strongly in band programmes. Glory to His Name is cast in the traditional 'bandstand show solo' mould of theme and variations, the theme being the Hoffman/Stockton hymn from 1878 of the same name, an old favourite from the Salvation Army Song Book. A largely triple-tongued flourish opens the proceedings and the Salvationist Publishing & Supplies Band gives strong support under the composer's baton.
The record used for this transfer was in fair condition bearing in mind its age: considerable physical cleaning was still necessary before digital transfer but only very light filtering was applied from there in order to preserve the recorded sound: surface noise remains, but the signal remains admirably true.
As with other posts here, I will willingly remove this album from this blog should anyone concerned in its production or copyrighting complain about its presence here on legal grounds.
For an incredibly wide collection of Salvation Army recordings (not downloadable) visit regalzonophone.com . Very highly recommended for free listening via the site's online player. Based in Australia, the site's author, Ian Barton, has amassed just about every recording made by the Salvation Army over the last 90 or so years.
Download links (Flac is high quality, but takes up significant computer space (about the equivalent of an audio CD for the whole album). Use flac for reference listening or for further editing/mixing etc.; Mp3 is more suitable for mobile listening, still of fairly high quality, but takes up much less space. Both downloads come with the same notes and high resolution artwork. Click on above image for preview):
Glory to His NameFLAC
Glory to His NameMP3
Please feel welcome in commenting on this post. Enjoy!
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73
'Claridge Symphony Orchestra' (Philadelphia Orchestra, cond. Eugene Ormandy)
RCA Camden CAL-236 - MONO
Rec. 1939
The following information is taken from Richard A. Kaplan's excellent 'The Philadelphia Orchestra, an Annotated Discography' (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), entry WGM-6, page 285.
'Recorded Mar. 26th, 1939, Academy of Music. Charles O'Connell, producer.....
.....78's: World's Greatest Music SR-28/32; Lp Camden CAL-236.
The Camden Lp was credited to the fictitious "Claridge Symphony Orchestra"; it was the only Camden issue on that label, and the only Camden issue that was taken from a World's Greatest Music recording [performers were not credited at all in this New York Times subscription series, although Victor's log lists the Philadelphia Orchestra and Ormandy* as the artists here]. For many years the source of this Lp was incorrectly presumed to be an HMV recording by Fritz Busch; careful listening and examination of the label copy for CAL-236, which lists the original matrix numbers, revealed its actual provenance.'
*page 8 of Kaplan mentions Ormandy as conducting World's Greatest Music recordings made with the orchestra during 1938/9. Some sources have attributed conducting roles for the series in general as being taken by others, including O'Connell, the producer himself
Notes on the present transfer/downloads
The posting of this Lp transfer/download comes with a 'Health Warning' regarding the condition of the Lp used, ie. there was a significant degree of surface noise, several scratches, much 'crackle' (most notably on Side 2 during movement 3) and an occasional minor wavering of pitch. Furthermore there was some peak distortion here and there. Because of the outstanding playing and rarity of the recording, much time was invested in taking out scratches and experimenting with various audio cleaning software programs and settings, the overriding aim being to maintain the integrity of the original recorded sound. The results may still only be just acceptable, but this remains a superb piece of music making by a truly great orchestra whose musicality and lyricism are hard to resist.
Please refer to the extra guidance re. the download links below. These also include completely unfiltered Wav files for home editing if preferred.
Track Listing
Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73
Side One
1. First Movement: Allegro non troppo
2. Second Movement: Adagio non troppo
Side Two
1. (Trk 3) Third Movement: Allegretto grazioso
2. (Trk 4) Fourth Movement: Allegro con spirito
As with other posts here, I will willingly remove this album from this blog should anyone concerned in its production or copyrighting complain about its presence here on legal grounds.
Downloads
FLAC files: take up a large amount of computer space but offer the best relative quality listening experience. Here, the main Lp surface scratches were initially edited out manually and then minimal auto-scratch and de-crackle filters were applied:
Brahms Symphony No. 2FLAC
MP3 files: take up much less space, remain of very good relative quality but are better suited to mobile listening. Same clean up process as FLACs:
Brahms Symphony No. 2MP3
WAV files: take up a similar amount of space to FLACs and also offer a similar quality listening experience. Here, only the main Lp surface sratches were edited out manually but no auto-filtering of any kind was applied:
Brahms Symphony No. 2WAVunfiltered
Please feel welcome in commenting on this album via the link or box below.
