Rare Brahms 2 credited to fictitious orchestra

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

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