A GUIDE TO THE COMMON ABBREVIATIONS

ASO = American Symphony Orchestra

Berlin = Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

BSO = Boston Symphony Orchestra

CSO = Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Cleveland = The Cleveland Orchestra

COA (or C.o.A.) = Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam

Leningrad = The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra

LSO = London Symphony Orchestra

LPO = London Philharmonic Orchestra

Philadelphia = The Philadelphia Orchestra

RPO = Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

S-RO = Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande

NYPSO = The New York Philharmonic under Mitropoulos and all earlier conductors

NYPO = The same orchestra under Bernstein and all subsequent conductors

Generic Abbreviations:

RSO = Radio Symphony Orchestra

RTVSO = Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra

PO = "Philharmonic Orchestra" (city name attached)

SO = "Symphony Orchestra" (city name attached)

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RECORDS IN MY ATTIC

            A priceless resource for Serious Record Collectors

I discovered classical music at the age of 13, and immediately became a hopelessly addicted record collector. I still am. Each composition and individual performance is cross-indexed on note cards, stored in a magnificent old-style library card-catalogue cabinet. I stopped keeping count 20-odd years ago, but I estimate that my collection presently numbers about 6,000 items. They’re heavy, they take up an awful lot of space, and many of them a extremely rare live performances or one-of-a-kind performances of exotic repertory (much of it from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia). Several months ago, I decided it would be fun and useful to the cause of classical music in general – which is in serious danger of becoming marginalized, as more and more record companies drop out of the genre altogether or reduce their new releases to a pathetic handful of those unspeakable “crossover” titles (well, some of them are pretty cool – I really get a big kick out of “Pavarotti Sings Dylan” and the on-going series of BMG anthologies, “Classical Favorites for Tone-Deaf Yuppies”); we music-lovers can no longer count on the sustaining element of new generations becoming enthusiasts, not when the American education system and Federal Government continue to slash performing arts’ subsidies and the very idea of offering classes in “Music Appreciation” (once so common in our schools) has become extinct.

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I’d like to share my collection with kindred spirits; help them fill in the gaps in their collection of Mengelberg recordings, or modern Scandinavian Romantic composers. So I’ve spent many hours compiling a catalogue of the interpretations and compositions that have at least marginal value as collectors’ items, and will soon be investing in the equipment required to make one-off copies of anything in that catalogue.

So far, this compilation reflects approximately 25 % of my collection. That’s about 500 pages of listings, and I figure that’s enough to whet your appetites, and give you an idea of what I’ve got. If this new enterprise succeeds, and I get enough orders over the next 60 days or so to justify the enormous time and trouble involved on my end, I’ll implement an bi-weekly “New Listings” feature, just to keep you coming back. I assure you that, as desirable as many of these first offerings are, I’ve refrained from listing a great many of the rarest and most interesting items in my possession – again, the idea is to keep this site fresh and interesting and worth many repeat visits. The number of New Listings will vary a lot, depending on how much time I have between installments, but it will never contain fewer than 20 choice additions.

The main catalogue (and the supplementary ones for such esoteric but numerous categories as the “Bolshoi Theater Centennial Collection” and “The Complete Elgar Recordings” (comprising that great composers total output of both acoustic and electrical discs) can are downloadable and printable from your own PC. 
 

Send to:
TrotterBooks and Records
PO Box 14752
Greensboro, NC, 27401

Now, I can imagine the questions running through your brain if this is your first visit to the Attic. Let me try to answer them with the following FAQS:

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FAQS about “Records in my Attic”

Are you running a “pirate” operation here?

No. As a full-time writer, I would feel morally corrupt and ashamed of myself if I knew I was depriving any conductor, soloist, or composer of even the smallest royalty compensation. I do clear approximately $2.05 for every 80-minute CD I burn, but most reasonable people would consider that a “service charge” rather than a serious “profit margin”. Considering the cost of amortizing my investment in hardware, the operating expenses of blank discs, mailers, and postage, not to mention the potentially huge amount of time and trouble this will involve if the Attic proves to be a popular endeavor, I think the notion that I’m somehow making scads of money by ripping off musicians and major record companies is ludicrous.

But aren’t some of these performances still under copyright?

I honestly don’t think so, although some of them have in recent years been issued in newly remastered incarnations. The version I dub from (let’s call it the Source) is NOT one of these remasterings. To the best of my knowledge, none of the listings in my catalogue can be purchased in any record store in North America (unless it’s a very well-stocked used record outlet). A great many of my live performances are derived from reel-to-reel tapes I acquired from a variety of private sources over the span of many years – I don’t know if they were in copyright when I bought them or not, and frankly –like most collectors – I didn’t much care.

Similarly, a great many interesting and collectable compositions and interpretations were purchased in or from countries in the former Soviet Union, which was NOT a signatory to any international copyright protocols. Admittedly, we’re in a very “gray” area here, but my conscience is entirely clear about dubbing from such Source material. Blame Stalin, if you find anything listed that bothers you.

Please be advised that I have NOT and WILL not dub from the wonderful remasterings sold by my colleagues at Rediscovery.com. Nor – when it comes to the work of Dimitri Mitropoulos – from the extensive listing of Mitropoulos rarities mastered and sold by my good friend Nick Nickson – although it’s inevitable that some of my listings duplicate some of his. Nick has access, in some cases, to first-generation copies and he takes pains to “clean up” his source material. I obtained a rather large number of privately held Mitropoulos recordings during the four years I spent writing his biography, and in some cases, my Source actually had better sound or surfaces than Nick’s remastered versions, but on the whole, if you’re a Mitropoulos collector, I urge you to patronize Nickson’s service, because he has some incredibly rare stuff for sale, and I will NOT duplicate any of those items, even though I own and treasure quite a few of them.

If you’re not selling “re-mastered” incarnations, what, exactly ARE you selling?

I’ll make you a clean, honest dub from the Source that has the best sound/quietest surfaces/ fewest scratches and ticks. I have neither the equipment nor the expertise to do actual remastering. However, like many compulsive collectors, I have more than one incarnation of a favorite performance (always searching for the best-sounding one, regardless of format or origin). This was particularly true of some milestone Furtwangler and Mengelberg interpretations, some on which have appeared in a dozen or more labels during the 50 years since they were first recorded. The difference between the version issued by, say, “Penzance” Records and the one issued by the Pirate Label of the Month in Italy is often significant, and sometimes the cruddiest bargain-bin knock-off version actually sounds cleaner and more vibrant than that issued by a quasi-legitimate label. I’ll use the Source that has become my preferred iteration over four decades of comparison.

IF there are smudges, scratches, pops, or groove-wear problems I will state as much in the catalogue listing. Most collectors would rather have an imperfect version of a desirable rarity than no version at all. I was always a fanatic about record care: replaced the stylus once a year, always stored the vertically, removed and reinserted them into their inner sleeves with the focused care of a brain surgeon, etc. But items acquired second-hand, at yard sales or in used media stores, might not have been previously owned by someone as maniacal about record care as I was.

And some discs just deteriorate even if you don’t play them.  Those old Black Label Mercury mono recordings, for instance, were sold in coarse, spine-less cardboard covers, without inner sleeves of any kind, and were pressed without the raised rim that protected discs from rubbing against each other if stacked on an automatic “changer”. They were also pressed on a strange, brittle, “dry modeling clay” compound which could not be flexed at all – so every time they were played, the stylus just clawed rough-shod through the grooves, wearing them down bit by bit. I have NEVER seen one of those old Mercury LPs that was not housed in a cover with split edges, suffering from some degree of inner-groove distortion, or pristine in terms of surfaces – hell, they got scratched if you looked at them the wrong way. Nevertheless, I have listed a few of those relics, due to the extraordinary rarity of what’s preserved on them.

Same thing applies, to a lesser degree, with a fair number of the LPs I purchased in the USSR, or in the once-notorious KGB-managed “Four Continents” book and record shop in Manhattan. Some of them were packaged in rough, gritty paper sleeves, with no inner envelope, and if the record stores in Leningrad were any indication, Russian clerks – a universally surly and unhelpful lot on their best days – generally slung them around like sacks of corn meal, and made sure to leave their fingerprints all over the surfaces when allowing customers to “audition” (by means of cheap plastic headphones plugged into turntables whose industrial-strength tone arms weighed approximately three pounds), so the best I can do is give ‘em a good cleaning. I’ve listed a few of those, too, such as the 10-inch Ansonov version of a Miaskovsky symphony that sounds like Rice Crispies throughout the first five minutes of both sides – the performance never has been, and almost certainly never will be, reissued, and it’s incomparably atmospheric and poignant.

LPs that have major scratches, I didn’t even bother to list. But I’ve tried to be up-front about minor blemishes, if they do not, for me, actually ruin the listening experience. Every collector has a different threshold of tolerance for such flaws, and mine might be broader and more charitable than yours. If you order a dub of a flawed Source, and you find out when you play it that you just can’t tolerate the flaws, I’ll be happy to exchange it for something else and will knock off the price of the postage required to return it. Fair enough

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How Does This Work?

Simple. Find the items you’d like to have and email a list to me. Where possible, I’ve listed the timings of each performance. Cherry-pick an 80-minute concert of your choice. The cost is $13.50 per CD (and that includes “media-rate” postage and suitable packaging). Add $3.00 for the first CD and $.50 for each additional disc, if you want them sent first class. Turn-around time for most orders should be about two weeks or less.

At least, that’s how I think it’s going to work. It may turn out that I under-estimated overhead and need to raise prices a smidgeon. If I get a HUGE number of orders, I may be able to drop prices a tad, too – I simply don’t know how this is going to fly at the moment, or what hidden factors I haven’t taken into consideration.

Can I order cassette tapes instead of CDs?

Sure, but I can’t imagine many people would want to, since blank CDs now cost LESS than blank tapes, and they never wear out. I’ll offer the same deal for a 90-minute tape as for an 80-minute CD dubbing – there’s no way I can give a discount on tapes, due to the extra trouble of dubbing them and the highest cost of the format itself.

You mentioned a couple of other sources for CDs of rare performances – tell me more.

Glad to. Do a Google Search for “ReDiscovery” records (they’ve changed their URL several times, so I won’t be more specific than that – their current URL will pop up at or near the top of the list of hits. ReDiscovery is the brain-child of Mark Koldys, a long-time reviewer for American Record Guide, and they have done a simply fantastic job of remastering very rare early LPs and two-track tapes by Stokowski, Paray, Scherchen, et. al. The improvement in audio quality is often astounding (the fabled Scherchen “Ilya Murometz”, which always sounded like crap on EVERY Westminster incarnation, can now be heard, on one CD, without a single pop, tick, or pitch fluctuation). They’ve also searched out worthy performances that were previously little more than ghostly memories, and brought them gloriously back to life. Recently, I purchased their two-CD set of virtually all the commercial recordings of Vittorio Gui, and they are amazing – fresh, vital conducting, in refurbished old two-channel reel-to-reel-only stereo that sounds astonishingly vivid, considering how primitive the stereo technology was at the time they were recorded (in the mid-Fifties, for some items!)

Mitropoulos fans will find treasures beyond their dreams on Nickson Records’ refurbished CDs. Nick is a passionate devotee of the late Greek maestro, and has acquired some amazing live performance tapes, which he remasters with total devotion and sells at a very reasonable price. Most of his offerings derive from live New York Philharmonic concerts, and the sound quality varies from superb to abysmal, but the performances are never less than fascinating, even when (as is the case with Dimitri’s 19   “Missa Solemnis”) they’re perversely wrong-headed. Send for his latest catalogue at:

Nickson Records
PO Box 25523
Rochester, N.Y., 14625-0523

It’s interesting to note, by the way, that the current management of the Minnesota Orchestra has NOT taken legal action with regard to Nick’s reissues of early Minneapolis Symphony recordings, they’ve actually encouraged his efforts and made those CDs available in the orchestra’s official “store”! What an enlightened attitude, and what a refreshing change from the Boston Symphony’s ferocious suppression of a European label which was, briefly, issuing a fabulous assortment of live Koussevitzky performances! I got into a letter-writing pissing match with someone representing the B.S.O. when they set their legal pit-bulls on the label in question, and the “official” reason is that these off-the-air transcriptions are of such inferior quality as to be defamatory to the BSO’s reputation.

Bullshit. The BSO no longer has a reputation (although the management is sitting on hundreds of good-sounding broadcast tapes from the Koussevitzky era, which would dramatically change peoples’ perceptions of the orchestra if they were made available), not since they decided to coast along for twenty years with the inert, plodding, but ever-so-safe Ozawa as Music Director. I think the real reason is that once the larger classical audience discovered how fantastic the Boston Symphony sounded under Koussie, nobody would buy anything conducted by Ozawa (come to think of it, I’ve never met a single serious record collector who had anything good to say about the man – his continued presence for so many years is simply inexplicable!). Even in the BSO’s recent “official” historical reissues collection, Koussevitzky was given disgracefully short shrift. Considering how few commercial recordings he made with them (there was a Musicians’ Union boycott of RCA during the years when both orchestra and conductor were in their prime), the only way contemporary music-lovers will ever discover how great a conductor “Uncle Serge” really was, is through archival broadcasts. It’s almost as though the present-day Boston establishment were, for some unfathomable reason, ashamed of their greatest conductor. The Philadelphia Orchestra certainly hasn’t been reluctant to open its vaults for Stokowski treasures, nor the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony for their Reiner, Toscanini, Mengelberg and Bernstein gems… What is the problem in Boston? (I will, of course, cheerfully eat these words if the orchestra suddenly puts out a 12-disc Koussevitzky edition, but so far there’s no sign that they’re planning such a monumental gesture).

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Common Abbreviations

But I digress. Here are the hot links to the Attic catalogues. Click on the category that interests you and you can print them out. And don’t forget, every two or three weeks, I’ll be adding 20-30 new items, so check this site regularly, because I’m going to dole out the really sensational rarities a few at a time.

MUNDO BIZARRO !!!

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Prices:

$13.50 per 80-minute CD, contents of your choice!
Check, cash or money order.
Please allow two weeks minimum for return shipping of your order.
TrotterBooks and Records
PO Box 14752
Greensboro, NC, 27401