The Goodall Mastersingers

[Mandryka]

It does at least carry the information Recorded live at Sadler's Wells: 10 February 1968. This was also the date of the live broadcast, but that was in mono: apart from early radio/TV experiments, none of Radio 3 was in stereo until 1971. And I don't believe that the performance was ever repeated after stereo came in: shortly after the live relay from the Wells the company moved to the Coliseum, from where the production (this time without the cuts) was broadcast again: unlike the 68, this version (sadly lacking Alberto Remedios) is still in the archives and has been repeated, certainly in part and possibly complete.

So if the Chandos release is stereo, that means either that the Beeb engineers were experimenting with it even though the results could only go out in mono, and Chandos had access to the ostensibly lost master tapes, or alternatively that the original mono recording has been processed into mock-stereo; both possibilities seem rather unlikely. So perhaps I'm wrong about there having been a post-1971 repeat.

Who replaced Remedios on the second broadcast?

[JimD]

Sorry this is off topic (didn't want to start another Goodall thread) but...according to Wikipedia Goodall conducted the premiere of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne, However but I also find at various places that it was Ernst Ansermet. Anyone know which is correct?

[Bert Coules]

Who replaced Remedios on the second broadcast?

An Australian tenor called Connell Byrne, who sadly wasn't a patch on Remedios. The broadcast was of a performance late in the Coliseum run: Remedios had repeated the role in the earlier ones. According to Humphrey Carpenter's excellent book The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the Third Programme and Radio Three, several producers and executives were seriously annoyed that the broadcast couldn't be made before Byrne took over.

[tom_960]

Norman Bailey is the greatest Sachs I have ever heard: I am lucky enough to have ...a loving performance from Bayreuth under Krombolch.

Please allow me to be a nerd for a moment. The wonderful performance database on the Bayreuth website tells me that Bailey played Sachs there in 1969 under Berislav Klobucar, and in 1970 under Hans Wallat. There is no indication that Jaroslav Krombholc ever conducted at Bayreuth. But thank-you, Chris, for causing me to find this touching memoir of JK: http://www.musicweb-international.co.../Krombholc.htm

[Ferretfancy]

Mandryka

Just a small point, but although the BBC were rather late in introducing stereo broadcasting, The Zenith GE multiplex had been adopted well before 1968, and I remember sitting in on a couple of trial experiments in stereo in late 1958 at the Camden Theatre. The famous Mahler 8 under Horenstein was recorded in 1959, but as far as I know the stereo tapes were not heard until the reissue on CD. I left radio to go to film department in 1960, and I remember buying my first stereo tuner a couple of years later.
Bws.
Ferret

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've listened to some of it on headphones, and it still sounds like mono to me.

[perfect wagnerite]

It's a while since I listened to it, but IIRC the first act is in stereo, the rest in mono. There is a notable difference in quality between the first act and the rest, so I'd guess they were sourced separately.

[Gordon]

Re Ferret's posting: Just a small point, but although the BBC were rather late in introducing stereo broadcasting, The Zenith GE multiplex had been adopted well before 1968..... I remember buying my first stereo tuner a couple of years later.

I can concur with Ferret on that. I was at the BBC Research dept in the summer of 1966 and one of my jobs among many others was doing quality control listening on boxes full of stereo tapes played on EMI BTR3 stereo recorders specially modified for BBC studio use [the control knobs for instance] and LS5s. There was loads of stuff from the RFH etc and from Maida Vale with the BBCSO. I can't listen to Siegfried's Rhine Journey now without all that coming back to me!! You can be sure that the BBC were capable of recording in stereo at external venues in the late 60s.

I also remember getting a stereo receiver in about 1968/69 [it was a Heathkit assemble yourself job and very good it was too, after I'd tweaked it in the lab] when I had been at work for a year after college. I lived in Wembley and Harrow then and remember stereo broadcasts.

There is a book called "On Air" about BBC transmission and it says that the 1st stereo test transmission was in 1958 from Wrothem using 2 VHF transmitters and was also done using VHF and TV transmitters at weekends and late at night. The Zenith GE was put on trial in 1962 and used for regular transmissions beginning at Wrotham in July 1966. Sutton Coldfield and Holme Moss followed in 1968 and Rowridge IoW in 1971. One of the problems was maintaining the GPO land lines adequately for stereo so the BBC built a network of its own microwave stations using video equipment which fed the transmitters and these links were converted to digital in the mid 70s. BBC research papers from 1967/70 describe the basis of this system.

Off topic a bit I know, but in view of the fuss over DAB take up, you may be interested in this: mono FM started in 1955. It took 10 years to get to 30% take up even though the transmitters were in place all over the country by then. 99% coverage [mono] was said to have been achieved in 1972, 18 years later, but take up was not yet 99%. DAB started in the autumn of 1995 and has 30+% take up - I leave you to do the arithmetic.

Recent planning studies have shown that "robust" FM stereo coverage currently reaches 95% of the population and BBC DAB will reach 94% by the end of this year.

[Chris Newman]

Please allow me to be a nerd for a moment. The wonderful performance database on the Bayreuth website tells me that Bailey played Sachs there in 1969 under Berislav Klobucar, and in 1970 under Hans Wallat. There is no indication that Jaroslav Krombholc ever conducted at Bayreuth. But thank-you, Chris, for causing me to find this touching memoir of JK: http://www.musicweb-international.co.../Krombholc.htm

Hi Tom,
That will teach me to go upstairs and check on the shelf (I never learn :doh. Mind you both names require some tongue-twisting. Thank you for the quotation about JK. That is lovely even if he was the wrong chap.

By the way here is the link to the Bayreuth recording of Norman Bailey under Klobucar (got it right this time):

http://operadepot.com/members/?page_id=300

bws
Chris.

[Roslynmuse]

I enjoyed the WNO youtube clip, particularly as I saw Goodall conduct Valkyrie in Liverpool in February or March 1984 - exactly the time when these rehearsals were being filmed. I well remember the start of Act I - as a friend said, the energy of the storm music seemed to be the result of Goodall being plugged in to the mains! The visuals were less gripping than the playing and singing - Brunnhilde appeared to be warming herself next to a cosy flame effect electric heater at the end of Act III...