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Edison Cylinder Phonograh |
This recording was made by the rather short-lived Russell Hunting
Company. It included only eleven numbers. Later in 1907, most of
the same artists appeared on another,
more-complete recording of the same opera made by the Odeon company.
Until 1999, no copies of the recording were known, aside from a few
cylinders that had been dubbed onto Pathé records and issued
in 1908-9. Then, an acquaintance of Sullivan recordings specialist Roger
Wild found two sets of the cylinders, one with nine of the eleven, and
the other with ten of the eleven from the original set. The only cylinder
missing was #946 (see below), containing the Act I finale (or a portion
of it). The ten surviving
cylinders have now been re-issued on CD coupled with another very rare
recording, the 1907 Pathé Yeomen.
Bruce Miller obtained a copy of the original souvenir brochure issued by the
Russell Hunting Record Co., Ltd., "Descriptive List of 'Sterling' 'Special'
Gold-Moulded Records of Gilbert and Sullivan's Opera 'H.M.S. Pinafore'."
Given the brochure's comment about cylinder #946, it is especially a pity
that no copies have been found:
It is unnecessary for us to point out the enormous difficulties we
have had to contend with in producing this number. However, we feel
satisfied that the result of our energies have been crowned with success.
The Russell Hunting Company
Russell Hunting, an American entrepreneur, was influential in the
early years of the recorded music industry, and Bruce Miller sent
me the following excerpt from From Tinfoil to Stereo, by
Oliver Read and Walter L. Welch, second edition, 1977, pages 144/145:
As early as 1901, a brilliant young entertainer and pioneer recordist had
gone to England to employ the valuable experience he had gained in
working in all the recording laboratories of America. He was well known
to owners of all kinds of talking machines as "Michael Casey." He was
as well known in a way, as "Bing" Crosby is today. He was so well
known that his endorsement of a product was considered an
advantage....
Hunting until shortly before this had been the editor of the Phonoscope...
shortly after his arrival in England [he] was made recording director for
Edison-Bell.
Another emigré from the United States about this time was to become an
even more famous person eventually — in fact to the extent of being
knighted for his accomplishments in the industry--Louis Sterling....
Mr. Sterling resigned from British Zonophone in November 1904 and in
December registered the Sterling Co., Ltd., to manufacture and deal in
phonographs, gramophones, talking machines, etc.... The following
announcement was made in Talking Machine News, of London, in the
February 1905 issue:
The Sterling Record Co., of which Louis Sterling is managing
director, have taken extensive premises for the manufacture of
gold molded [cylinder] records at Bishop Road, Cambridge Heath E.
- - - the recording department to be under the management of
Mr. Russell Hunting....
In view of the breadth of their past experience this switch of Sterling and
Hunting back to cylinders [from discs] would seem to indicate their doubt
as to the ultimate supremacy of the disc over the cylinder. That Hunting
was not a silent partner, or a shrinking violet, may be gleaned from the
following announcement made only two months later;
'The Sterling Record Co. has changed its name to Russell Hunting
Co., Ltd, but the new gold molded record will be known as the
Sterling Record.'
By the following January, an advertisement of the new company in the
Talking Machine News stated that one million records had been sold in
twenty-two weeks. A short time later it was announced that retail
outlets had been created in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand."
Bruce says:
The authors go on to state that the company reached its peak of the
business in 1907 [when this recording was made], but the company
failed to issue its regular announcement of new Sterling records in
July 1908. Hunting had touched off a price war with the other cylinder
manufacturers, and it was his company which ultimately folded. Sterling
and Hunting were no longer connected with the Russell Hunting Company by
the previous May, and the company finally was liquidated in 1912.
Hunting later became a Pathé
executive and was probably involved with importing Pathé discs
into England. This would explain why several of the cylinders were later
re-issued on that label (see the issue history below). Bruce continued:
In 1924 he was among Pathé's
consultants, and was one of two people, then employed by Pathé
in America, who alerted Louis Sterling (then manager and owner of
English Columbia) to secret developments concerning the new Bell
Telephone-Western Electric experiments in the new electrical recording
process. At that point it had been offered only to Victor. The Bell
people had no record pressing facilities of their own, so when it came
time to make pressings from their electrically recorded masters to
demonstrate to Victor, they used the Pathé plant in New Jersey.
When Sterling received the records on December 24, 1924, he
immediately sailed for New York and convinced the Bell crowd to make a
license offer as well to Columbia. The American Columbia company was
at that time bankrupt, in receivership, and in no position to undertake
such an agreement. So Sterling got a loan from an American bank and
bought American Columbia. In this way he averted a Victor monopoly in
the electrical process, both in the USA and in England.
Howard Friedman was able to elaborate on Hunting's dates with Pathé:
Read and Welch (p. 196) say,
"Hunting was sent to New York City in 1910 to outfit a factory and recording
laboratory preparatory to launching Pathé disc machines and records."
Also, on p. 150 they say "in October [1908] the Talking Machine News carried
a story that Russell Hunting, who had been in charge of the recording department of
Pathé-Freres, was now appointed Director-General of all the recording
departments of the company, located at Paris, London, Milan, Brussells, Amsterdam,
St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa and Rostoff."
Review by Michael Walters
Michael Walters submitted the following review of the CD reissue and
also discussed several of the performers:
I was certainly impressed by the sound quality. For the first time I can
really believe the claim of cylinder-makers of the time, that the cylinder
gave much better sound than contemporary discs.
This set of cylinders is certainly fascinating to listen to, though I felt
the sleeve notes were a little over generous to the soloists' performances.
Nor did I agree that the announcements were necessarily those of the
soloist in question. Ada Florence, I think, announces herself, but the
announcer for Walter Hyde and and Harry Dearth seemed to me to be the same
person. The notes comment on Walter Hyde sounding stentorian and forte
at all times, and not youthful. Hyde was, in fact, the most distinguished
singer to have recorded G&S at this early period.
Walter Hyde (1875-1951) studied at the RCM and made his debut in My Lady
Molly (for which he recorded an aria for Odeon Records). In 1908 he sang
Pinkerton in Madam Butterfly and was a noted Siegmund in Die Walküre.
He sang this role at his Met. debut in 1910. He created roles in The Vicar
of Wakefield, A Village Romeo and Juliet and The Perfect Fool.
He also sang Walther and Parsifal.
On cylinder 942,
Florence sings "I'm called Little Buttercup" quite well, but there is
little characterisation. It sounds like a person singing a standard ballad
from the score.
On cylinder 945, the mysterious "M. Anderson" is, unusually,
not mentioned in the spoken introduction. The song seems not just fast, but
rushed. The singer is forced to sing it so fast (presumably to get it all
on to the cylinder) that he snatches and grabs at the music. I don't find
it a viable interpretation of the song; the best I can say is that I admire
his musianship in getting through it.
On cylinder 948,
"Never mind the why and wherefore," I am pretty sure that the Captain is Hyde
and Sir Joseph may be Pike. I based this on the fact that the main
characteristic of Pike's singing is that he hasn't any vocal colour. The
Captain sings with a lot of vocal colour. The Sir Joseph sings with far
less, but he also has some odd vowel sounds that I didn't think Pike had. A
mystery here.
The casting is very odd indeed, and suggests to me that the cylinders were
not necessarly recorded at the same session, but intermittently, with
whoever happened to be available. Why on earth use two tenors and a
contralto in "Never mind the why and wherefore" to sing parts written
for a soprano and two baritones??!!
On cylinder 950, contrary to the notes, I believe that the Captain and the
Bo'sun are both sung by Harry Dearth. This would make Bernard Turner the
"anonymous" tenor. Of course, I can't prove this, but there was a tenor
called Turner making records at the time. J.R. Bennett 1955, Voices of the
Past: A catalogue of vocal recordings from the English Catalogue,
1898-1925 (Oakwood Press) lists four records by a Mr. Turner (no first
name or voice range given). These are "Sigh no more ladies", "The Minstel
Boy", Excelsior" and "The Fisherman"; the last two being duets with a Mr.
Henry (also no first name or voice range given). Although I know nothing of
"The Fisherman", the first two are usually sung by tenors, and "Excelsior"
is a tenor/baritone duet. That Mr. Henry was a baritone is indicated by the
fact that he also recorded "Down among the dead men", and a baritone solo
and three soprano/baritone duets from San Toy. It therefore seems to me a
possibility that the tenor "Mr. Turner" listed by Bennett was Bernard Turner.
After reading Michael's comments on Walter Hyde, Bruce Miller replied:
One can be a distinguished singer and still be miscast, as Hyde was.
He sounds like what he was: a man who sang heldentenor Wagnerian roles.
He does not sound youthful as Ralph on the recording, at least
as Sullivan appears to have wanted it (judging from various contemporary
reports).
Moreover, he ignored Sullivan's dynamic marks throughout (as does the
chorus). The charitable explanation for this would be that he did so
at the recording engineer's direction, but at any rate his rendition
is stentorian — stylistically wrong for the role.
Michael's comments on the assignment of roles on cylinder 950 were
based on the cast list as printed in the CD notes. After reading
Michael's analysis, Bruce said that he agreed with it, and the cast
list at the top of this page has been thus altered.
There is a further problem with cylinder 950, in that the center section
of the sleeve notes add a third singer, Walter Hyde. This would make sense,
in that there are three principal roles in the passage. But, the brochure
lists only Dearth and Turner, and the basis for including Hyde is unclear.
The CD sleeve notes (not the section Bruce was responsible for)
state: "The announcements of the solos are by the artists; the concerted
items are announced by Russell Hunting." Michael believes, and I agree,
that the same male voice introduces all of the cylinders except for #942,
"I'm called Little Buttercup," on which the voice clearly is Ada Florence.
Bruce also wanted it known that he was not responsible for center section
of the CD notes, listing the contents.
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