A Brief Classical Interlude

While it has become nearly impossible to find nice, clean copies of jazz and rock albums at thrift stores or in the dollar bins at used record stores, I regularly come across pristine copies of classical LPs selling for next to nothing.  Even though I don't listen to a lot of classical music these days, I often will pick up a few titles just because it's hard to resist like-new pressings on venerable labels like Deutsche Grammophon, Angel, Mercury Living Presence, ECM, or Harmonia Mundi. 

One of my recent thrift shop finds

In a recent trip to drop off some donations at our local thrift store, I stopped (as I always do) to see what LPs they had.  I rarely find anything interesting; the selection is nearly always a pile of scratched up 1960s soundtracks, along with the collected works of Barbra Streisand and Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.  However, this time there was a pretty large cache of like-new classical titles.  Since they were only fifty cents apiece, I didn't really look too closely at the titles, but just bought the whole bunch, about 25 LPs.  

I spend about 85% of my listening time playing jazz records.  The other 15% of the time I play classic rock, vocals, and R&B, with some international music and a few soundtracks thrown in.  Many years ago, I used to listen frequently to classical music.  I have a particular fondness for Vivaldi, and have dozens of LPs of his work, including a bunch of obscure Eastern Bloc releases on the Hungaroton, Supraphon, and Electrocord labels that I picked up when we were working at the U.S. Embassy in Romania back in the 1980s. 

Though I was never a serious classical music collector, I enjoyed learning more about the major composers and their music.  Over the years, however, I pretty much stopped listening to classical music and eventually moved the 500 or so classical LPs in my collection to overflow shelves in the garage to make room for more jazz.

When I got my recent thrift shop haul home, I couldn't resist cleaning a few and having a listen.  I hadn't bothered checking all the albums at the store, but I'm happy to report that nearly all of them are in like-new condition, with clean vinyl, original poly-lined inner sleeves, and nice sharp jackets.  As a bonus, I discovered that seven of the titles are works by Vivaldi.  I assumed that the LPs all came from the same collector, and my hunch was confirmed when I saw that nearly all of the jackets had the same small sticker on the front that says "Sound Guard," (above) together with a date from 1982.  Hmmm.

Sound Guard's space-age formula

According to a vintage ad for Sound Guard that I found online, the formula behind the product was originally developed by Ball Bros. of Denver as a space-age (literally) lubricant for use on NASA satellites.  Sound Guard was a consumer off-shoot which was said to put a microscopic coating on vinyl records to protect the surface from wear and reduce static buildup.  Though Sound Guard is now defunct, other similar products that claim to protect the vinyl surface are still around, including LAST and Gruv-Glide.  I have used both LAST and Gruv-Glide from time to time, but don't have strong feelings about them.  As far as I can hear, they don't degrade the sound, but whether or not they protect the record or decrease wear, I couldn't say.

Another common thread with the classical albums I found was that nearly all of the titles are recordings of small ensembles, including such things as Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, Rossini's String Sonatas, Vivaldi's Bassoon Concerti, String Concerti by Telemann, Schumann's Works For Cello And Piano, and Quartets by Mendelssohn.  Nary a symphony in the bunch, which is fine with me as I tend to prefer smaller ensembles as well.  Finally, about half the titles were released on the Musical Heritage Society label.

MHS's familiar green and silver label

The Musical Heritage Society (MHS) was a subscription record club founded in 1962 in New York.  I was a member of the club for several years in the 1970s.  Like the major-label record clubs, they would mail out a notice promoting the new monthly release, and if you didn't want the title you had to send back a post card telling them not to send it.  I suspect that they made most of their money from people who forgot to send in the card.  The difference between MHS and the major label record clubs like RCA or Columbia, was that MHS specialized in classical music (although they did release a few jazz titles in later years).  

A major draw for MHS releases was that they were popularly priced.  As I recall, they were a dollar or two less than major-label classical titles.  MHS was able to keep costs down because they didn't record their own content (at least initially).  They licensed recordings from small European classical labels -- particularly Erato of France.  Erato (and other similar classical labels) kept their costs down by recording works for smaller ensembles (much cheaper than hiring an entire orchestra), including first-rate groups such as the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, I Solisti Veneti, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Munich, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, and the London Mozart Players.  

Despite the budget price, MHS releases were well made with quality masters from studios such as Masterdisk, and plating and pressing by high-end plants such as Europadisk.  At least to my ears, the sound quality is excellent, with flat, quiet surfaces, heavy-weight vinyl, and nice touches such as poly-lined dust sleeves.  The covers were simple -- generally black text on white cardboard stock with a period engraving or drawing as cover art (right).

Even though the European ensembles are not always household names, the performances are first-rate.  For example, one of my Vivaldi finds (Bassoon Concerti, right) was performed by the London Mozart Players (LMP).  I confess that I had never heard of the London Mozart Players.  But after a bit of research, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they have been around for more than 70 years.  The ensemble was founded in 1949 by director Harry Blech, and their debut performance that same year featured a young violinist named Neville Marriner (Sir Neville, CBE, CH to his friends).  The London Mozart Players are extremely active in musical education and outreach, and maintain a full calendar of UK and international concerts.

Regardless of the genre of the music, I always enjoy reading the liner notes and learning more about the composer or the musicians on a particularly recording.  One of the first LPs I listened to from my classical haul was a UK Decca release of Rossini's String Sonatas (top photo).  It was originally recorded in 1967 and performed by the celebrated Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner -- the same young whippersnapper, who, 18 years earlier, played violin in the London Mozart Players' debut concert.  Rossini is, of course, primarily known as a composer of operas, including The Barber of Seville and William Tell.  Since I'm not a big opera fan, I really didn't know much about his work.  So I was fascinated to read in the liner notes that Rossini composed the sonatas on the album in 1804, when he was twelve years old.  Yikes.

Enjoy the music!