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Re: [ARSCLIST] Telefunken & DGG

More about RCA Oberstein:

If memory serves, it was the Havana SO- my error.

For years I thought Tele was the Nazi record label, making the official discs for their radio station libraries. Recently I got some white label Polydor (I think- could be Grammophon- can't check at the moment) which were also from radio, posibly for radio use. The latter was 3.5 Serious Songs of Brahms sung by Louise Willer, an alto whom I like. Side 5, which I lack, finished the cycle, s. 6 probably being blank.

These records are among the great discographic mysteries. The German radio published catalogs of this stuff for their own internal use. The disccs almost never turn up. I remeber seing listed a Beethoven 9 with Rehkemper singing the bass part. Apparently they made 12 copies of each selected broadcast for later use, distributing one to each of the 12 (I think) regional stations. This goes back to 1928 or so, pre Hitler. I have what I believe to be one of them, an "Un bel di" or the like with Reining, incomplete on one side,

Someone abroad with better German than mine might consider this as a research project.

Steve Smolian


----- Original Message ----- From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 29, 2005 10:37 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Pirated Mengelberg 78s


"eric@xxxxxxxxxx" wrote:

>Original Message:
>-----------------
>From: David Lennick dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:18:53 -0500
>
>Don Tait wrote:
>
>> Mengelberg's Concertgebouw recording of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony
>> (Telefunken SK 2424/9) was pirated on the "Music Appreciation >> Recordings
of the
>> World's Greatest Music" 78 series. The labels say "World's Greatest
>> Symphonies," the disc numbers are X-40/44, and they are in a flimsy
album with a leaflet
>> of notes. The labels say "Copyright 1941 Music Appreciation Projects,
Inc."
>
> I recently found the Beethoven Eroica on "World's Greatest Symphonies",
in two 3-disc
> albums, and I'd bet it's the Mengelberg although I haven't made a > direct
comparison yet.

The Eroica is Schuricht / Berlin Philharmonic (rec. September 1941).

Up until this exchange I, and thus my website, confused "RCA" with "RCA
Victor", and had further assumed this was a licensed issue. It's a relief
to realize that they were pirated; the thought that someone in the states
was licensing from Polydor in 1941 is a bit nauseating. Yes, I know much
worse went on, but still.

Regards,
Eric Grunin
www.grunin.com/eroica

This is fascinating! I'd always assumed (and to assume is to make an ass of u
and of me) that Obie stole nothing but Telefunkens..but there's a period where
Telefunken and Polydor (DG) are sharing the same roof, maybe before the Siemens
era. It still raises the question of how Obie got the discs to bootleg while we
were at war with Germany, or were enemy phonograph records still being exported
to the US? I find that hard to believe.

As for "RCA", Obie wanted everyone to believe that the Record Corporation of
America stood for just that.

dl


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