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From: hal@cornell.UUCP (Hal Perkins)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Goetterdaemmerung: bad pressing?
Message-ID: <2878@cornell.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jul-85 13:37:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: cornell.2878
Posted: Wed Jul  3 13:37:29 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Jul-85 05:40:47 EDT
References: <2961@decwrl.UUCP> <6587@Shasta.ARPA>
Reply-To: hal@gvax.UUCP (Hal Perkins)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept.
Lines: 42
Summary: 

>> Can anyone report any luck with ANY copies of the Solti / Vienna Philharmonic
>> performance of _Goetterdaemmerung_?!  Based on my experiences with the London
>> digital re-mastering, I'd advise anyone: "Don't!".  There's this really awful
>> glitchiness on the second side (near the end), in Act I Scene 1, in Hagen's
>> next-to-next-to-last spiel, "...so ruestiger Kraft / in des Ruders Schwung
>> ###/ ### r#u#e#h#m#t # s#i#c#h # n#u#r # der, / ...".  Groaty to the extreme,
>> it sounds like a folded or badly spliced tape; this is not a scratch on my
>> platter.
>> 
>
>Well, I pulled out my compact disc copy, cued to the appropriate spot, and 
>sure enough the described glitch is there.  An interesting question is 
>whether the glitch occurs on earlier pressings; I've never heard one of
>them.  

Last night I listened to my copy of the record, which is about 10 years
old and is probably the original version.  The "...so ruestiger Kraft..."
passage is just fine, but on my records it's in the middle of side 3!
It sounds like London changed the side breaks and put more music per
side.  My set has 12 sides (6 disks) with about 20-25 min. per side.
How many disks are there in the new version?

In any case, if both the new records and the CD version have a glitch in
the same place, it would seem that there is a botch on the new master from
which both were made, and it won't do much good to return either to the
store hoping for a better copy.  It would probably be worth writing to
London/Decca just to see what their reaction is.

>On a slightly related note, John Culshaw's book "Ring Resounding" is
>a fascinating tale of the entire "Ring" recording project.  Well worth
>digging out of the local library.

Back in the mid 70s, at least, London used to sell the entire Ring in a
big box for just over $100 (of course those were real dollars, not the
play money we use now).  And, as an added bonus, the set included Culshaw's
book and two others.  I don't know if they do it now.  My mistake was I
didn't think I'd want the entire Ring, so I didn't buy the boxed set --
I just got one at first.  But I got hooked and within a few months I had
all 4 -- without the books, since I didn't buy it all at once.  sigh.

Hal Perkins                         UUCP: {decvax|vax135|...}!cornell!hal
Cornell Computer Science            ARPA: hal@cornell  BITNET: hal@crnlcs