Boris Godunov - Symphonic Synthesis (Stokowski, 1941)

Cover design by Alex Steinweiss

This is something that I should really have saved for Stokowski's birthday in April, but I simply couldn't resist posting it on this eve of Inauguration Day. A posting containing Stokowski's theatrical "symphonic synthesis" of the best-known, and greatest, musical work about a political figure (and not only that, but a political figure whose legitimacy to rule was widely questioned), seemed only too apropos. And this is the closest you will find me coming to making political commentary on this blog, for, as Charles Schulz said, when asked why he wouldn't make his "Peanuts" comic strip a vehicle for politics, "why would I want to offend fifty percent of my readers right off the bat?" With that in mind, I hope you will enjoy the music:

Mussorgsky-Stokowski: Boris Godunov - A Symphonic Synthesis
The All-American Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Recorded July 4-5, 1941
Columbia Masterworks set MM-516, three 78-rpm records
Link (FLAC file, 59.42 MB)
Link (MP3 file, 41.38 MB)

Speaking of Columbia, I have recently completed compiling a numerical listing of their records in American Columbia's celebrity "-M" suffixed series (1925-1954), which I am making available as a PDF file here:

Link (448.08 KB)

Also, I am making available a copy of the Music Lovers' Guide from March, 1934. This magazine, edited by Axel B. Johnson, is the successor publication to the Phonograph Monthly Review, and eventually morphed into the American Music Lover and then the American Record Guide, which still flourishes. Until that happy day when a complete run of the Music Lovers' Guide is available online, this single copy will give you an idea of what the magazine was like:

Link (28.16 MB)

Columbia Masterworks Blue Label -D Series (1924-1951)

This may well be my magnum opus in the field of discography.  It's something I've been working on, off and on, for the past fifteen or twenty years.  This is a numerical listing of all known (and a few conjectured) issues in the American Columbia 67000-D, 17000-D, 11000-D and 19000-D series, including an artist index.  Much of this information has been culled from WERM, the Rigler-Deutsch index and from Columbia catalogs, and I hope it will prove useful to collectors.  As with my previous discographic efforts, this is downloadable as a PDF file.

Link (PDF file, 841 KB)

I do apologize for my long absence from posting; I have had some health concerns this summer (getting old's a bitch, ain't it!?!), but I'm hanging in there, and I've also been spending a lot of my free time actually listening to other downloads that have tended to accumulate without my quite realizing it!  I probably won't be doing too many new uploads in the near future, but I have started a project that will probably occupy the next few weeks - that of going back to old posts and adding FLAC files.  I've already modified the first post of 2011 (the Beethoven Piano Quartet) and the last post of 2010 (the Shostakovich piano concerto, et al) to include them, and will work backwards from there, so if you want to upgrade to FLACs, keep checking those older posts.  If there's any interest I might also post some examples of my program-note writing; about 10-12 years ago I was active in writing these for local concert organizations like the Georgia Sinfonia.

More Victor Numerical Set Listings

As a sort of appendix to my post earlier this week of my listing of Victor Musical Masterpiece sets, I present listings of four contemporaneous classical and semi-classical series.  These are:

1) The Concert Series (C-1 to DC-45), a semi-classical line featuing many Gilbert & Sullivan sets;
2) The Black Label Classics (G-2 to DG-32), begun in 1940 as a cheap classics line, but which morphed into yet another semi-classical series;
3) The "Victor Showpiece" Sets (SP-1 to SP-16), a short-lived series of two-record sets presented in colorful gatefold paper folders; and
4) The "Red Seal Deluxe" Sets (V/DV-1 to V/DV-30), classical sets pressed in red vinyl.

As with the other listings, this is downloadable as a PDF file:

Link (PDF file, 69 KB)

Victor Musical Masterpiece 78 Sets: A Numerical Listing

I'm back, folks!  I certainly didn't mean to let this much time elapse since my last posting, but I assure you I have been far from idle.  I have merely been working on a companion for the Columbia numerical listing of the last post, and here it is.  This is a similar listing of all Victor Musical Masterpiece sets from its inception in 1927 to its demise in 1951 (actually it was merely transferred to 45 rpm, and then to LP, but that is beyond the scope of this listing), as before downloadable as a PDF document.  There are quite a few gaps in the sequence, especially in the M-900s and the DM-1400s, so anyone with information on those entries which I have had to mark "unknown" is invited to come forward.  Meanwhile, here's the link to this work-in-progress:

Link (PDF file, 624 KB)

Postscript: Someone did very kindly come forward, and so, as of March 5. 2012, the file has been updated with the new information that has been made available to me.

Columbia Masterworks 78 Sets: A Numerical Listing

This is my first foray into discography by means of this blog.  I present here a listing of all US Columbia Masterworks 78-rpm album sets known to me between 1924 (when the series began) and 1951 (when the series effectively ended with the takeover of LP), in numerical order, downloadable as a PDF document.  All 1,000+ regular series sets (prefixed "M-" from 1939 on), as well as all 33 Opera sets and all 355 "X-" sets (two-record sets) are included, and for us Steinweiss fans, data on which sets are known to me to be graced with his inimitable cover designs.   Individual record numbers for each set, manual and automatic sequence, are given, but not matrix numbers or recording dates, most of which can be found on the CHARM website anyway.  This is intended to be a checklist printable on 66 pages of letter-size paper, not a complete discography, but I hope it will prove useful for collectors nevertheless.

Link (PDF file, 580 KB)