Yesterday evening, I spoke with Ryan Wishner about that book entitled Tantalizing Tingles which is essentially a full master book on all the piano solo records made in the acoustic era to the beginning of the electric age. The first few records mentioned in this book are said to be duets. Piano duets! But by whom? Well, as Ryan told me, they were by these two here:
Duets! By these two? Apparently so. I could not believe such a thing, but when you think about it, this duet idea creates a deeper connection between the two members of Issler's orchestra. Pianists who believe their styles are somewhat similar and trustworthy play duets, since I know what that's like, I can somewhat understand why these two would have enough trust in each other to make a handful of duets. I am waiting see the full list of titles of tunes they recorded at this session, but it can be very well assumed that a list is out there, because record lists from so early on exist out there. You can see a section of these surviving lists on this video here. The pianist is stated... ugh.... If only Columbia lists were left...
Anyhow, these duets were made around the end of 1889, probably close to the date listed on the list in the video above, also for the same company listed, North American. The first thing that came to mind upon mentioning these probably extraordinary records was;
How did they balance it?
Well, one thing is for sure, that couldn't have been easy. Since one of the pianists was Issler, we do know that it was well done, however it was done so. Issler's studio genius certainly would have been tested when making these records, but he probably came up with a solution. It is very hard to imagine how those would have been recorded, usually I can get an image, but with this one it's a little hard. It's not like the sound on this one here from 1898. This one gives a clear image of Columbia's big room upstairs at 27th and Broadway, from Harry Spencer's SHOUTED ANNOUNCEMENT(I had to listen a few times to make sure that it was Spencer, the shouting makes it hard to tell...), the trombone playing far back in the room, to Hylands' loud piano playing just to the left of the horns. However Issler made those records, it was most likely upon his obliging that he and Schweinfest make those duets. As we know, these were made not long after Issler formed his Parlor Orchestra in 1888, so after getting to know each other for a little while, they both found talent on the piano between the two of them. Yes, we know of Schweinfest of making records like this one here, but he did play piano somewhat, and now as I have explained, played better than just a little.
It is very unlikely for any of these cylinders to exist, as they were probably made on white-wax records, which almost guarantees that there aren't any surviving copies. As Ryan told me, if they were made a few years later on Berliner, there is a more likely chance of surviving copies.
In this book, they mention many recorded piano solos by C. H. H. Booth:
(from the Phonoscope)
If you know anything about Booth, you'd probably know that he was an early studio pianist, who was known mostly for operatic Victors, playing behind Luiza Tetrazzini, and Enrico Caruso. Booth did in fact make a handful of piano solos for Berliner in the mid-late 1890's. One of his prominent, and surviving ones is a tune titled "Wild West Galop" which must be a fantastic record, just by how the title sounds. Booth was a very high-class Victorian pianist, so he was no Frank Banta or Fred Hylands, so according to what a "Galop" was, and to Booth's background, it is probably a very authentic Victorian piano solo. By this, it probably includes the rapid speed changes, and the unsteady rhythm that we know of from Fred Gaisberg. Ryan indicated to me that the famed solo Gaisberg made of "The Honeymoon March" was also listed within the pages.
(that's Gaisberg in Japan. LOVE THIS PICTURE!)
Anyone notice the writing on the side? It says ,"Good Morning Carrie!" Hilarious.
Anyhow, Gaisberg was reported to have made this solo in 1892, when he was only 19, for the few of Berliner's men who were out in the Washington D. C. area before 1894 and 1895. Without further a-do, here's that record:
It's obviously a Berliner made in 1892, as the speed can't seem to stay at a uniform pace, and it's not just because of Gaisberg, it's mostly because it was recorded in the era of the hand-cranked Gram-O-Phone. That machine is probably what it was recorded on anyway, which doesn't help with a constant speed. It was probably recorded on something similar to this here:
In fact, you can actually see one of these in action here!
Of all the tedious methods of recording in the 1890's, the hand-cranked Berliner takes the cake. I can see Sinkler Darby or Berliner himself standing behind the horn cranking that machine while Gaisberg is playing(somewhat nervously...) on that solo record...
I forgot to mention that at the same 1889 session that Issler and Schweinfest recorded a bunch of their own solos as well, which also must have been a great feat, as recording the piano in 1889 was something that was still being figured out by studio workers. That early on, I don't think that even Len Spencer had figured out how to record the piano very well. When Spencer was making his first records in 1888 and 1889 for Columbia, he must have been experimenting with the piano balancing, even though Frank Dorian only recounted that Spencer would set five phonographs on a piano and set the horns down toward the keyboard, and that was it. Though, thinking of Spencer's age(21-22) and impulses, he certainly would have done some other things to understand balancing other than just what Dorian described. It's Len Spencer, and it would just make full sense for him to want to experiment. Hopefully, this section from The Phonoscope comes to mind for some when thinking of young Len Spencer:
Yep, chimes records indeed. How that crazy privileged Spencer was always experimenting.
Anyway, I am awaiting replies from my friends who own this book about any information on Hylands that might exist in the book. They do have a bunch of information on Frank B. Banta and Schweinfest, so they better have something on Hylands!
Hope you enjoyed this!
No comments:
Post a Comment