Provenance of older(er) classical records

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. Read 1348 times.

JohnR

Provenance of older(er) classical records
« on: 16 Jan 2012, 03:26 pm »
Just curious about this. I have a good number of boxed sets. This one, Callas as Carmen, has very little information on it, other than the performers. I cannot find any kind of date or location of the recording.

The back of the booklet does say "World Record Club" with Australian addresses. Would this perhaps have been some kind of reissue?

Elizabeth

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 2736
  • So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #1 on: 16 Jan 2012, 03:48 pm »
Callas was pirated plenty.
Sorry I cannot give you a performance date on yours.
The way to find out is to list ALL the other singers.
Some Callas Maven can perhaps then tell you which performance it was.

Delta Wave

Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #2 on: 16 Jan 2012, 03:49 pm »
I know this doesn't answer your question but I have a few as well, they all vary. Some are labeled as a "club" or a "society" and nothing more.

neobop

  • Full Member
  • Posts: 3448
  • BIRD LIVES
Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #3 on: 16 Jan 2012, 03:50 pm »
Her only recording of Carmen was on EMI in 1964, conducted by Georges Pretre. It was a studio recording.

For the other sets you might have luck kooking up the principal artist's discography. That's how I found out about this one.

canzld

Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #4 on: 16 Jan 2012, 04:13 pm »
World Record Club was a discount mail order distributor of classical LPs in Australia and New Zealand for many years. I believe, according to past conversations with my father who was a subscriber, that the masters they used for their pressings were fairly worn, having been used for large pressing runs in Europe etc. This allowed WRC to acquire masters fairly cheaply. So everything on the WRC label was a reissue from one of the major record labels.That said - I have no issues with the majority of the WRC LPs that I have. Your Callas Carmen is probably a reissue of the 1964 EMI -definitely not pirated.

JohnR

Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #5 on: 17 Jan 2012, 08:47 am »
Thank you for the responses - that helps tremendously! I'm only two sides into it (was late when I posted last night), will listen more tonight. I wasn't so much wondering which performance it was, but how it was delivered with so little information about the recording.

:thumb:

canzld

Re: Provenance of older(er) classical records
« Reply #6 on: 17 Jan 2012, 03:16 pm »
I don't know about you, but I have many LPs displaying a similar black hole with regards to recording date etc, where i spend forever carefully inspecting the cover and codes scratched onto the vinyl,  trying to decide where and when the recording comes from - and not just re-issues either. Re-issues do tend to be particularly bad tho.