The last several weeks have been unexpectedly hectic for me... so while I work on finishing my next substantive diary entry, let's take this feature back to its original, simple intent:
When I was a small child, I hated naps. I have never been able to fall asleep easily, and as an energetic youngster, trying to force it only left me frustrated. One of the things my mother did to teach me patience and concentration, and to cope with my "nap problem," was to sit me down for half an hour or so every day, and have me concentrate on some orchestral music. She would put something on the stereo, and my job was to close my eyes, relax, and let the music generate whatever imagery it might. Once the piece was over I was free to get up, and I would then have to give a summary of whatever story the music had generated in my imagination. Think of it as "make your own Fantasia."
This practice helped instill in me a deep love of music, of all types. I spent most of elementary school begging for music lessons, and for my tenth birthday I started learning the violin. My repertoire has since expanded to several other instruments--none of which I play particularly well--but music is a lifelong passion for me, and I trace that deep appreciation back to those daily listening sessions I had as a small child.
So today, I would ask that you take ten minutes out of your busy day. Sit down, close your eyes, click Play, and clear your mind. Let the music take you where it will, and share your experience in the comments.
Information about the piece and the machine is below the fold.
A brief rundown on what you have seen and heard:
The Machine
The player is an old wind-up phonograph. The Victor Talking Machine Company completely reinvented its "Victrola" series in 1925, using audio research licensed from Western Electric to develop what it was calling its "Orthophonic" line of players. Music studios had just begun to switch to electric recording processes (before that, records were made by having musicians sing and play loudly into a giant horn, which would carve the sound directly into a master record... which, amongst other drawbacks, provided a much more limited frequency response than electric microphone-based recording).
In 1925, true electric players (with magnetic pickups and tube-based electric amplifiers) were still in their infancy, and far too expensive for most homes. This would change by the end of the decade, but the purely mechanical machines would still dominate for a few more years. The Orthophonic series of players used new materials, and calculated shapes and proportions in the construction of the machine to ensure better playback of these new electrically-recorded discs.
Keep in mind as you're listening that what you are hearing is not a speaker. There are no electronics of any kind involved, and no amplification. The record is being spun by a hand-cranked spring. The needle is vibrating in the record groove; these vibrations travel up a small metal bar to a thin aluminum diaphragm, whose vibrations create the sound that you hear. This sound then travels through the hollow pipe-like tonearm and into the body of the machine, which is essentially just a giant wooden horn.
This particular machine is a late-production version of the "Credenza" model (Victor's top-of-the-line Victrola from 1925 to 1927), and the reason it is so large is because the wood body of the machine contains a six-foot-long folded horn to help provide the deepest bass and best frequency response possible.
The Music
Franz Liszt is widely regarded as the creator of the symphonic tone poem, a somewhat free-form musical composition that paints a scene or story in the listener's mind. Other well-known tone poems include Mussorgski's "Night on the Bare Mountain" and Goethe's "The Sorceror's Apprentice," both of which were featured in the Disney classic film "Fantasia."
The Moldau (alternatively known as "Vltava") is a tone poem from Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. It is the best-known part of a six-poem set known as "Ma Vlast," or "My Fatherland," each part of which explores a different European landscape. This particular piece follows a Bohemian river (the Vltava, better known by its German name the Moldau) from its tributaries up in the mountains to a wide, roaring river, as it flows past a country wedding, through the deep woods, past castles and other settings borrowed from the other works in Ma Vlast, and eventually out to sea.
The Record
This particular recording was made in 1941 by the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, conducted by Bruno Walter. Since 78 rpm records spin more quickly and have wider grooves than LPs, each 12" side only holds about 5 minutes' worth of sound. As a result, the 13-minute piece is spread across three record sides (the fourth side, omitted from this video, contains a separate piece of music). Most 78 rpm records are 10", which is enough for about 3.5 minutes--or one pop song--per side. The larger 12" size was reserved almost exclusively for classical music.
78 rpm records were not made of vinyl. Rather, they were comprised of a solid core (which could be anything from cotton to cement) coated with shellac, a tough, brittle substance made of insect exoskeletons. This shellac coating contained the actual record grooves. As a result of this different construction, 78s are much harder to scratch than modern records (touching them with your fingers--while not recommended--is also far less harmful to 78s than it is to vinyl records), but are also much more brittle and likely to shatter. This was so that the records could hold up under the weight of the heavy metal tonearms used on early phonographs. Abrasive materials were also often mixed into the shellac coating so that the needle would quickly be worn down by the record, rather than vice versa.
The earliest 78 rpm records came around the turn of the century, and were single-sided. The backside was sometimes smooth and blank, sometimes carried an embossed logo, and sometimes contained an adhesive label with information about the artist or song. 2-sided records became common in the 1910s, and the records evolved again in the mid-20s with the advent of electric recording studios. Record companies began experimenting with new materials in the 1930s, and by the 1940s--with the rise of LPs and 45s--the formula had begun to change.
By the 1950s, records were being made out of softer materials, trading the earlier records' durability for new materials that provided better fidelity and less record noise. This change was made possible by the move from heavy mechanical phonographs to more modern, electric models with their lightweight tonearms. Records made after the 1930s should typically not be played with a non-"Orthophonic" acoustic phonograph, and records made after the 1940s should not be played with an acoustic phonograph of any kind.
By 1960, the LP had established itself for collections and longer pieces, and the 45 had taken hold as the primary format for individual pop songs. With the exception of countries like India and Brazil, which still had large percentages of the population without electricity in their homes, production of 78 rpm records had completely ceased by the end of 1961. As a result, 1950s music (particularly early rock and roll) is highly sought-after on 78, and what little '60s music was published in countries such as India--where the format held on a bit longer--is often worth several hundred dollars per record. A Beatles song on 78, for example, will easily sell for $500.
3:05 PM PT: CORRECTION: Shellac is actually derived from the secretions of the lac beetle, not made from the insect itself. Thanks to reader watercarrier4diogenes for pointing out the error. More information is available here.