Mapleson cylinders

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A sound engineer is holding a phonograph cylinder from the Mapleson cylinder inventory

The Mapleson Cylinders are a collection of more than one hundred phonograph cylinders with live recordings from opera performances and concerts by the Metropolitan Opera in New York City between 1900 and 1904. They were created by the opera's librarian at the time, Lionel Mapleson , a nephew of impresario James Henry Mapleson , recorded.

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The phonograph cylinders contain short excerpts from opera performances from the Italian, German and French repertoire of the Metropolitan Opera. Excerpts from the following operas can be heard:

There are also phonograph cylinders with excerpts from piano improvisations as well as vocal and orchestral music.

The following singers from the Metropolitan Opera can be heard on the phonograph cylinders: Suzanne Adams, Albert Alvarez, Georg Anthes , Jacques Bars, Mathilde Bauermeister , Bernard Bégué, David Bispham, Robert Blass, Lucienne Bréval , Carrie Bridewell, Alois Burgstaller , Emma Calvé , Giuseppe Campanari, Carlo Dani, Emilio De Marchi, Édouard de Reszke , Jean de Reszke , Andreas Dippel , Emma Eames , Johanna Gadski , Emil Gerhäuser , Charles Gilibert , Louise Homer, Marcel Journet, Marguerite Marilly, Aristide Masiero, Marie Maurer, Nellie Melba , Adolph Mühlmann, Lillian Nordica , Pol Plançon , Albert Reiss , Luise Reuss-Belce , Albert Saléza, Thomas Salignac, Fritzi Scheff, Ernestine Schumann-Heink , Antonio Scotti , Marcella Sembrich , Camille Seygard, Eugene Sizès, Milka Ternina , Marie Van Cauteren , Anton Van Rooy, Roberto Vanni, Lodovico Viviani, Alexander Von Bandrowski and Adolph Von Hübbenet.

Conductors of the operas and orchestral works were: Walter Damrosch , Phillippe Flon, Nahan Franko, Alfred Hertz , Luigi Mancinelli, Felix Mottl , Armando Seppilli and Arturo Vigna.

history

Recording of the phonograph cylinders

On March 17 or 20, 1900, Lionel Mapleson bought an Edison Home phonograph . Like most cylinder phonographs , this could be used to record sound and play it back. Mapleson was apparently enchanted by the acoustic device and on March 21, 1900 his friend, the cellist and composer Leo Stern, provided him with an additional component: a recording and playback device by Gianni Bettini . In March 1900 Mapleson was able to persuade the soprano Marcella Sembrich to record her interpretation of Johann Strauss' " Spring Voices " with these devices.

The following year Mapleson had the idea to put the recording device in the prompter box of the Metropolitan Opera. In his first attempt, he recorded an aria by the opera singer Nellie Melba during a performance of Massenet's Le Cid on January 16, 1901. He repeated his recordings during other opera performances, always using the prompter, but often had unsatisfactory recording results. After a short break and with the beginning of the 1901–1902 season, he therefore continued his recording activities from the theater train of the Metropolitan Opera. This time he used a huge recording funnel, which was better able to pick up the sounds of the singers and orchestra positioned below it. From 1901 to 1903 he was able to record parts of many opera performances. The morning after his recording sessions, he invited the respective artists to listen to their performances. His recording activities lasted until the end of the 1902–1903 season. From this point on, Mapleson either lost interest in the recordings or was forbidden by the management of the Metropolitan Opera to continue his recording activities. However, some phonograph cylinders from orchestral rehearsals or concerts from 1904 still exist.

Initial release

Until the 1930s, Lionel Mapleson's recorded phonograph cylinders were used exclusively for private purposes. It wasn't until 1937 that William H. Seltsam , director of the International Record Collectors Club (IRCC), became aware of the existence of Mapleson's phonograph cylinders through an article in The New Yorker magazine . He met with Mapleson a few months before his death on December 21, 1937. Mapleson provided Strange with two of his phonograph drums with the request that they be converted to record on a trial basis and published. Strange re-recording of the phonograph drums was successful and after Mapleson's death, Strange was able to borrow 120 phonograph drums from his estate to publish them as IRCC recordings. By the time William H. Seltsams died, the International Record Collectors Club was able to publish around 60 records as single or long-playing records.

Re-releases

By 1962, with the assistance of collectors, all extant Mapleson phonograph cylinders became the property of The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound , a division of the New York Public Library . In 1985 the library, under the direction of David Hall, transferred all existing phonograph cylinders to six LPs, which were published - supplemented by a 72-page brochure with translations and extensive historical and biographical notes.

A number of phonograph cylinders have been re-released on CD by Romophone and Marston record labels as part of broader anthologies dedicated to individual singers.

A comprehensive but unauthorized CD transfer of the phonograph cylinders was published in 1987 by the British company Symposium Records (catalog number: Symposium 1284). For this re-release, Symposium used recordings from the International Record Collectors Club (IRCC).

meaning

Despite their different sound quality - some of the rollers are quite audible, others are almost inaudible - the phonograph rollers have great historical value due to their unique sound. Because they document singers in an opera house with a full orchestra before the First World War . Other contemporary recordings only include singers accompanied by a piano or a small orchestra, recorded in a commercial recording studio. The Mapleson Cylinders are also the only known recordings of a number of famous singers and conductors who have never recorded commercially. These include the legendary tenor Jean de Reszke, the soprano Milka Ternina and the conductor Luigi Mancinelli.

Because of their cultural significance to the United States , the Mapleson Cylinders were added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress on January 27, 2003 . The reason given by the National Recording Preservation Board is :

"These cylinders preserve a special window on the spontaneous artistry of this era and are the only known extant recordings of some performers, including Jean de Reszke."

"These phonograph cylinders keep a special view of the stage art of this time and are the only known recordings by some artists, including Jean de Reszke."

- National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress

literature

  • Rose Heylbut, Aimé Gerber: Backstage at the Opera. Arno, New York 1973.
  • Paul E. Eisler: The Metropolitan Opera: The First Twenty-Five Years, 1883-1908. North River Press 1984.
  • Ira Glackens: The Mapleson Collection. In: The Gramophone. XVI / 186, November 1938, p. 264 ff.
  • David Hall: The Mapleson Cylinder Project at the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. New York Public Library: A Preliminary Report. In: Association for Recorded Sound Collections: Journal. XIII / 3 1981.
  • William H. Strange: Metropolitan Opera Annals: A Chronicle of Artists and Performances. New York 1947.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j The Mapleson Cylinders - Program Notes beidigilib.nypl.org. Retrieved September 22, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ Rose Heylbut and Aimé Gerber: Backstage at the Opera . Arno, New York 1973, p. 152-53 .
  3. ^ Russell Maloney: The Talk of the Town: "Librarian" . In: The New Yorker . December 28, 1935, p. 12 ( newyorker.com ).
  4. ^ The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. Retrieved October 3, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Jane Boutwell: The Talk of the Town: "The Mapleson Cylinders" . In: The New Yorker . December 9, 1985, p. 36 ( newyorker.com ).
  6. ↑ Romophone. discogs.com, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Marston. discogs.com, accessed October 3, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Mapleson Cylinders in the National Recording Registry. Retrieved October 3, 2017 .
  9. ^ Lionel Mapleson cylinder recordings of the Metropolitan Opera. (1900-1903). on loc.gov.