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Arguably,
Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) is the most celebrated singer in
history. Artistically, the Italian tenor's career represented
a watershed in the evolution of vocal art and his voice remains
a beacon against which singers of past and present are most
often compared. On a personal level, Caruso was a man of the
people. He exhibited few if any of the airs and graces associated
with many of his contemporaries and which, by comparison,
are faintly mimicked by the divos and divas of more recent
times.
Caruso's dynamic career and his truly remarkable influence
on opera and song are well documented in the printed word.
And, something of his colorful personality has been captured
in countless photographs, newsreels and two silent films.
More importantly, his great legacy survives in his many studio
recordings, the earliest of which have remained available
in one form or another for a staggering one hundred years!
In this age of "manufactured" obsolescence and passing
fancies his is an accomplishment that cannot and will not
be matched nor repeated.
Caruso's recordings have been exhaustively researched and
studied, more so than any other singer in the history of recorded
sound: Caiden [1946]; Drummond [1946]; Brunn [1949]; Secrist
[1951]; Freestone & Drummond [I960]; Favia-Artsay [1965];
Bolig [1973, 2002]; Sokol [1977]; Moran [1990].
John Bolig's Caruso Records: A History and Discography
[Denver, CO: Mainspring Press, 2002] is the latest "chapter"
in what might be reasonably described as "a work in progress".
Given the academic interest in the years since the singer's
death in 1921, coupled with this particular author's own tenacity
- this will be his second published discography on Caruso
in 30 years - it would seem prudent to opinion that this most
recent endeavor may not necessarily be the last word on the
subject. Unquestionably, it is by far the most comprehensive
work to date, building as it does on the author's 50 years-plus
of inquiry and research and the Herculean efforts of those
that have published before him.
Not coincidentally, the history of researching and documenting
the recorded legacy of Enrico Caruso parallels the evolution
of discography. Following is an interview with John Bolig
conducted by editor of the ARSC Journal Barry R.
Ashpole. The author's new work and discography in general
are discussed.
Where
and when did your search for Enrico Caruso's recordings begin?
The reissues in RCA Victor's red vinyl Heritage Series were
my first exposure to the voice of Caruso and I realized immediately
that I was listening to something very important and very
good. This would have been in the late 1940s and I soon discovered
that copies of the tenor's recordings on the original shellac
78-rpm discs were still readily available.
At the time, I was living in New Haven, CT, and came to realize
that the current RCA Victor catalogs did not necessarily list
all of the recordings by the tenor. I began writing letters
to the company in search of information on titles and quickly
discovered that even RCA Victor did not have a comprehensive
list of Caruso's recorded output.
The first discography I came across was compiled by Jack Caiden
and published in 1946 as an appendix to Dorothy Caruso's book
Enrico Caruso, His Life and Death. It listed 234
recordings. [Editor's note: H.J. Drummond
compiled the discography included in the U.K. edition.]
In the early 1950s, RCA began releasing many of Caruso's recordings
on 45 and 33 1/3-rpm long playing records. I bought them all, but they
did not sound right. They had been altered or enhanced in
some way and what I heard bothered me. I vastly preferred
the original 78s and was determined to acquire every record
listed by Caiden. I was able to add pressings by HMV and Opera
Disc to my collection, none of which were listed in Caiden's
discography.
In 1957, John Secrist compiled what was (at the time) the
definitive Caruso discography and it was published as part
of Francis Robinson's Caruso, His Life in Pictures.
Secrist listed 266 titles; each identified unreleased takes.
It was evident that Caruso had made about 490 recordings in
all and I was intrigued about the records that had not been
published. I again wrote to RCA Victor and, after several
years of correspondence, I was invited to meet with John Pfieffer,
who at the time was responsible for the reissue of Caruso's
recordings. He gave me access to the company's logbooks, and
from that day on I was granted carte blanche to access
the documents and RCA didn't have to answer my letters anymore.
From
a collector's perspective, what are you looking for in a discography?
A discography should meet minimum standards. It should be
complete, each recording treated as a separate entity. The
title listed should be cross-referenced to show alternate
catalog numbers. Anything else listed in the primary logbooks
should be included. I probably wrote twenty different drafts
of my first Caruso discography, each one intended to make
my life as a collector easier.
I received a great deal of encouragement from Larry Witten,
the benefactor who helped create the Historical Sound Recordings
section of the Yale University Music Library. He reviewed
some of the early drafts of my first Caruso discography and
when he donated his collection to Yale he invited me to assist
the library staff in shelving the collection.
I was amazed to find that Yale had no inventory of its phonograph
records. At the time there were no such things. We simply
opened boxes and crates and put records on shelves, and we
taught ourselves how to establish a major collection. I learned
more in two years as a volunteer than one can possibly imagine.
Mr. Witten rewarded my efforts by giving me copies of Caruso
records I needed for my own collection.
What
prompted publication of your first Caruso discography?
In 1970, I moved to Dover, DE, and discovered a museum only
blocks away from where I lived that was dedicated to the career
of Eldridge Reeves Johnson (industry pioneer and founding
president of The Victor Talking Machine Company). I became
acquainted with the curator, Mary Molek, and she implored
me to publish a book about Caruso's records. The Recordings
of Enrico Caruso was published in 1973 (the centennial
of the tenor's birth).
This first discography was a chronological listing of 496
records, cross-referenced, listing playing speeds, recording
dates and considerably more information than had been published
before. It was the first discography of its type and, despite
some minor flaws, it remains a useful reference tool.
The
Recordings of Enrico Caruso
included many features adopted by later researchers and, as
such, is something of a benchmark in this field of research.
But how did this discography differ from earlier efforts to
document the tenor's recorded legacy?
Freestone and Drummond's Enrico Caruso: His Recorded Legacy
(1960) and Favia-Artsay's Caruso on Records (1965)
list and discuss Caruso's published recordings. Each has been
long out of print and neither of them is complete. More Caruso
recordings have been discovered and released since these books
were first published.
I do not have the musical knowledge that those people had
and it is interesting to read their accounts of what they
hear on each record. They frequently disagree and each had
strong opinions about various recordings. Importantly, the
authors had heard Caruso in performance, so they had some
idea of what was missing from the acoustical recordings.
Favia-Artsay, in particular, made an amazing contribution,
listing the correct playing speed for each recording. Using
sheet music and opera scores, she pitched each record and
determined the rpm required to play back the record accurately.
She single-handedly forced collectors to buy variable speed
record players. [Editor's note: Caruso
on Records included a pair of disc stroboscopes to help
set phonograph turntables at the proper speeds: 60 cps and
50cps for use, respectively, in the USA and abroad.]
When new Caruso recordings were discovered I begged her to
revise her book, but she refused because she felt that the
tenor had never approved of the unpublished copies. Aida could
pitch LP records, but she refused to do so.
What
of Caruso's place in the history of vocal art and of his attraction
as a person and as an artist?
This must be decided by others. Anybody who has heard a Caruso
record seems to have an instant realization that there was
something very special about his singing. He doesn't sound
like a tenor, but he surely is. The range of material that
he recorded is rarely attempted by lesser tenors. He used
several different voices when he recorded, and this can best
be heard when listening to his duets and ensemble numbers.
Caruso could roar like a lion or purr like a kitten. The recording
technique used during his lifetime was of decidedly low fidelity.
And, regrettably, we have no idea how he really sounded in
a live performance.
There was a magic moment in the history of recorded sound
and it is sometimes exaggerated or its significance may be
lost on today's listeners. In 1902 there were two competing
record formats - cylinders and discs - and the public had
not decided which it preferred. The record catalogs in 1902
contained very few records, and even fewer by celebrities.
There was very little public demand for record players, but
the industry was on the verge of being able to reliably reproduce
sound and of mass-producing records.
When
Caruso's first ten records were offered for sale in the summer
of 1902, they created a sensation and a demand for record
players. The public decided against cylinder records in favor
of the disc format. The Caruso records were so good that they
actually sounded like music when played.
Caruso became a celebrity and he was very much in demand for
public performance. Other artists, many of whom had refused
to record, changed their minds and signed contracts with recording
companies. And, as a consequence, became more famous, but
none as famous or as popular as Caruso.
The tenor's voice recorded well. He had a gift and the recording
horn was very kind to him.
There
are several biographies and, as noted, almost an equal number
of discographies on Caruso. So, why write another book about
the tenor and his recordings?
The answer is quite simple. Allan Sutton, the publisher at
Mainspring Press, had a rudimentary Caruso discography on
his web site and it received more "hits" than anything
else he had listed at the time. He contacted me and since
I had continued my research there was more information to
add to the 1973 discography, hence the new book.
In Caruso Records: A History and Discography,
the author includes more topics related to the tenor's recordings
and, as a consequence, it consists of considerably more text
than the earlier published edition. The basic discography
is similar to the 1973 version, but includes listings of additional
78s not known at that time. The author also takes the opportunity
to correct errors in spelling and to add dates previously
overlooked.
Bolig also
comments on records that were not recorded at score pitch,
something that Favia-Artsay may not have suspected, points
out the author. His personal bias against 45 and 33-1/3-rpm
long-playing records is reflected by their absence, for which
Bolig makes no apology. He comments: "In my view, there
isn't one record in those formats worth owning. I am, however,
very comfortable with the restorations that were released
on CD by Ward Marston. He's done this work twice: the Pearl
set released in the early 1990s is outstanding, and the set
he is currently working on for Naxos is even better."
The new discography is extensively cross-referenced in several
indexes: titles, catalog numbers, double-sided couplings,
listing of artists who appeared on the recording, etc. There
are several other tables that contain breakdowns by year and
by type of material recorded, and there is an extensive listing
of release dates and catalogs listings for the Victor records.
Bolig also notes examples of records that had errors on the
original labels, e.g.,
the Madama Butterfly duet with Geraldine Farrar is
always listed as "O quanti occhi fisi," but she
never sang the phrase on the recording.
The listing of catalog numbers in Victor catalogs is noteworthy
because it indicates that some of Caruso records were deleted
after a comparatively short life, accounting in part for the
scarcity today of some titles.
Bolig discusses the re-recordings or "re-creations"
of some of Caruso's recordings with a full orchestra. Selected
listings of sheet music are included in the book, together
with comments on Caruso's film appearances and a short discussion
about the recordings of the tenor's children, daughter, Gloria,
and son, Enrico Jr.
You
made one significant and unexpected discovery while working
on The Gramophone & Typewriter Company (G&T) records.
A collector called to tell me that he had a copy of 52378
that appeared different from mine and he wondered if there
were two takes released of the record in question, "Germania:
Studenti, udite." We met and compared our respective
copies. My copy had "Repro" impressed into the record
surface; his did not.
The recordings were one in the same except for that difference.
His was a first edition, mine a stamper II second edition
pressing. I contacted a number of collectors and dealers inquiring
about markings on G&Ts. Some had quite a few copies in
their collections or inventories and a pattern emerged as
I wrote down what they told me. Quite a few of the G&Ts
had the letters "CO." impressed to the right of
the label, but none of them had the symbol on first stamper
pressings. I contacted Peter Martland in England, an expert
on the business of the G&T company, and he mentioned that
he recalled a note - "somewhere" - that G&T
had placed the symbol on records that were made from copied
stampers. But, it was not possible to copy stampers in 1902!
The original wax disc was processed into a stamper and the
wax was destroyed when that was done. When the one and only
stamper was damaged or worn out the artist was usually asked
to return to the studio to make a new version.
The first ten Caruso records (recorded in Milan in April 1902)
were selling so well that G&T figured out a solution to
their problem: it appears they pressed the now-worn stampers
into wax and made a fresh impression of each of them. From
the new impressions, the company made a new stamper. And,
as a consequence, the recordings marked as stamper II (or
higher) do not sound nearly as good as first edition pressings.
There is no other explanation that explains how G&T continued
to press Caruso records. Those marked "CO." confirm
that something of that nature had been done because, in all
other respects, the latter are identical to the first edition
pressings. In other words, the records were not transcribed,
they were not pantographed, nor was a new stamper made by
electroplating a shellac record.
The five-step process developed by Victor was introduced in
Europe in December 1902 and with that process it was possible
to make virtually an infinite number of duplicate stampers.
However, it arrived too late to preserve the first Caruso
G&T records in pristine condition.
Do
any questions remain unanswered?
There are a few. I have not speculated about what private
recordings Caruso may have made or commented on the hoards
of Victor test pressings that have been rumored from time
to time. There are, however, two unusual references found
in the EMI archives that indicate that Caruso may have made
records in London in 1908.
And, several years ago, I discovered a letter in John Secrist's
papers at the Library of Congress in which Frances Alda mentions
that she had two copies of the Carmen duet with Caruso.
One of the two records was in Secrist's collection when he
died, but what of the other copy? I mentioned my suspicion
to a collector who knew Alda's heirs and he followed the lead
for several years until they sold him the soprano's record
collection. The second duet was there and it will be released
by Naxos as part of the new Marston edition.
There have been many rumors that the Farrar/Caruso duets from
Tosca exist. Not true, to the best of my knowledge.
I own half of her record collection and another collector
bought the other half. There were dozens of test pressings
in her collection, but none of them were duets with Caruso.
Any
further gaps in information?
A number of Caruso's G&Ts and Victor recordings were pressed
in Russia during the communist era. I have never seen a complete
list and I have only a handful of the Russian pressings. I
have no idea how many they may have published, or where they
got the stampers.
Is
it reasonable to expect that collectors will ever see a complete
Caruso discography?
Since publication of Caruso Records, I have learned
that B.G. Royal, not Will Gaisberg, recorded four of the November
1902 recordings. The recordings with "-R" embossed
next to the matrix number were his. This is just one example
of new information coming to light "after the fact".
I have also heard from a number of collectors who have Zonofono
records that were pressed by G&T with copied stampers!
The whole issue of copied stampers fascinates me. We know
that G&T had the Zonofono stampers and that they used
them for several years, but it never crossed my mind that
the company would make copies of the stampers. The Zonofonos
are marked with the symbol "CO" at the 9 o'clock
position next to the label. Furthermore, several other G&T
records, by Caruso and other artists, have been reported with
this mark.
And, a record I bought recently is a 1903 pressing by the
Victor Talking Machine Company that is labeled as Gioconda:
Cielo e mar. The catalogue number on the label is 81008,
and that number is also embossed above the label. Also embossed
above the label is catalogue number 5008, and the matrix number
2873-R is inscribed below the label.
The number 5008 was originally assigned to Aida:
Celeste Aida when Victor imported G&T stampers early in
1903. When the company renumbered the 5000 series later that
year it continued to show the earlier number above the label.
Celeste Ai'da was assigned 91007, and Cielo e mar was assigned
91008. This record, which has an incorrect label and the incorrect
catalog number embossed above the label, is Celeste Aida!
On later pressings of Celeste Aida the embossed catalog number
91007 has been repaired, and the first catalog number - 5008
- has been deleted from the record surface.
One can only wonder how many copies of this record with two
major errors were ever sold. If Victor files are accurate,
only 996 copies of 91008, Cielo e mar, were stamped, but at
least one copy was actually another recording.
In
considering discography in general, what are some of the obstacles
or barriers still facing researchers today?
Not many, if one is willing to travel and to work in musty
old libraries. Victor's archives are not as well preserved
as those of EMI, but both companies are taking discography
seriously today. That was not true thirty years ago. And,
there are some collectors who are so generous that one cannot
begin to thank them. There are a few who disappoint me, but
they remain the exception.
One of the finer hours for Caruso collectors was the research
of Martin Sokol that established the recording sequences for
the AICC and Zonofono records. [Editor's note:
See "The 'Pre-Victor' Recordings of Enrico Caruso,"
Antique Phonograph Monthly 1977;5(4):3-12.] Martin's
work rendered my 1973 discography somewhat obsolete because
I had relied on earlier authorities that were wrong.
Another excellent contribution was that of Peter Martland.
He totally revised, and debunked, the importance of Fred Gaisberg
in Caruso's career. [Editor's note: See "Caruso's
First Recordings: Myth and Reality" ARSC Journal
1994;26(2):193-201.] Martland wrote about, and provided proof,
of every aspect of the Caruso G&T sessions in April and
November of 1902, and he also forwarded copies of the tenor's
Victor contracts to me.
The Internet has sped up the exchange of information and the
resolution of differences between collectors and discographers.
Work that would take months now takes hours. For example,
I'm currently working on another project to compile listings
of Victor records between 1900 and 1929, and I received documentation
from several collectors in South America that would have been
impossible 25 years ago.
Any
general comments about the quality of discographical work
today?
I'm not always pleased with the effort expended by some discographers.
In fact, I am embarrassed by some of the hyperbole expressed
by some of them. I greatly admire Caruso, but I refuse to
believe that he was perfect or that I have the right to call
him by his first name.
There are some excellent
Victor artists who have never been studied properly. Emilio
De Gogorza, Marcel Journet, Geraldine Farrar, Louise Homer and
Alma Gluck come to mind. They sold a great many records and
they had thousands of devoted fans. In my view, the work that
has been done on their behalf has been scarce and disappointing.
I recently saw a Gluck discography that was a nice but long
overdue contribution to the literature.
Finding
good restorations of the above artists' recordings is often
nearly impossible. If they had been obscure artists of secondary
importance I would understand why so little work has been
done with those singers, but they were top-of-the-line Victor
artists.
There are some
discographers whose work intrigues me. I have never met Brian
Rust, Alan Kelly or Bill Moran, but I find their work invaluable.
Rust's attention to detail is outstanding, but I wish he had
indexed things more. Kelly's research is remarkable because
he has to piece together information from so many different
sources. My greatest regret is that the work of Fagan and
Moran has not been completed. Another fine example of discography
is Dick Spottswood's opus on ethnic records.
Of the single artist discographies, the McCormack book by
Worth and Cartwright is outstanding. There are so many good
discographies that I hate to single out one or two. Once in
a while I'm totally disappointed. For example, the recent
Billy Murray discography was a worthwhile undertaking that
simply does not meet the test of good discography. And, there
is a listing on 78s by several record companies on the Internet
that is very one-dimensional; merely a "good start"
in my estimation.
Caruso was probably one of the first artists whose recorded
work demanded a discographical effort. And, there are some
replications that aren't very good. I participated in one
of them when I wrote a severely truncated discography that
was included in Michael Scott's The Great Caruso.
Bill Moran published one in which the European records were
listed chronologically, but the Victor records are listed
alphabetically. Sometimes these things are done because of
limitations placed on us by publishers, for example, to fit
the last few pages of a biography, but they aren't particularly
useful and they deserve bad reviews.
I admire The Record Collector and my only criticism
of this publication is that some of their featured artists
were not at all important, and that the authors sometimes
get carried away in their estimations of their hero's true
value. There has to be a measure of objectivity for these
things to be done properly.
Last
words?
I surmise that my optimism concerning the evolution of discography
can be detected from the above comments, but it seems that
for every two steps forward we take one backward. There are
excellent models of good discographies and researchers should
attempt to emulate the best rather than rush into print.
There will be criticism of some aspects of my current book
and I'm not going to be thrilled by that, but I worked hard
to produce a discography that would be useful to collectors
of Caruso's records in their original format. I also tried
to provide information of interest to people who are curious
about his development as an artist and to those interested
in some aspects of the record industry. People who collected
LPs will be disappointed. They can throw them all away and
buy the Naxos CDs produced by Ward Marston. I did. |
