1.
His Master's Voice
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His Masters Voice, abbreviated HMV, is a famous trademark in the music and recording industry and was for many years the unofficial name of a large British record label. The name was coined in the 1890s as the title of a painting of a dog named Nipper, in the original painting, the dog was listening to a cylinder phonograph. The trademark image comes from a painting by English artist Francis Barraud and it was acquired from the artist in 1899 by the newly formed Gramophone Company and adopted by the Victor Talking Machine Company in the United States. According to contemporary Gramophone Company publicity material, the dog, a terrier named Nipper, had belonged to Barrauds brother. When Mark Barraud died, Francis inherited Nipper, with a cylinder phonograph, Francis noted the peculiar interest that the dog took in the recorded voice of his late master emanating from the horn, and conceived the idea of committing the scene to canvas. In early 1899, Francis Barraud applied for copyright of the painting using the descriptive working title Dog looking at. The image was first used on the companys catalogue dated December 1899, Victor used the image more aggressively than its UK partner, and from 1902 most Victor records had a simplified drawing of Barrauds dog-and-gramophone image on their labels. Magazine advertisements urged record buyers to look for the dog, in British Commonwealth countries, the Gramophone Company did not use the dog on its record labels until 1909. The following year the Gramophone Company replaced the Recording Angel trademark in the half of the record labels with the Nipper logo. The company was not formally called HMV or His Masters Voice, Records issued by the company before February 1908 were generally referred to as G&Ts, while those after that date are usually called HMV records. This image continued to be used as a trademark by Victor in the U. S. Canada, and Latin America, and then by Victors successor, in Commonwealth countries it was used by subsidiaries of the Gramophone Company, which ultimately became part of EMI. The trademarks ownership is divided among different companies in different countries, the name HMV is used by a chain of music shops owned by HMV, mainly in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan. In 1921 the Gramophone Company opened the first HMV shop in London, in 1929 RCA absorbed Victor, and with it a major shareholding in the Gramophone Company, which Victor had owned since 1920. In 1931 RCA was instrumental in the creation of EMI, which continued to own the His Masters Voice name, in 1935 RCA sold its stake in EMI but continued to own Victor and the rights to His Masters Voice in the Americas. HMV continued to distribute RCA recordings until RCA severed its ties with EMI in 1957, RCA Victors Japanese subsidiary, the Victor Company of Japan, became independent, and today they still use the Victor brand and Nipper in Japan only. In 1968, RCA introduced a logo and restricted the use of Nipper to the album covers of Red Seal Records. The trademark was reinstated to most RCA record labels in the Western Hemisphere beginning in late 1976 and was again widely used in RCA advertising throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. The dog reappeared for a time on RCA television sets and was used on the RCA CED videodisc system
2.
Nipper
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Nipper was a dog who served as the model for a painting titled His Masters Voice. Nipper was born in 1884 in Bristol, England, and died in September 1895 and he was a mixed-breed dog and probably part Jack Russell Terrier, although some sources suggest that he was a Smooth Fox Terrier, or part Bull Terrier. He was named Nipper because he would bite the backs of visitors legs, Nipper originally lived with his owner, Mark Henry Barraud, in the Princes Theatre where Barraud was a scenery designer. When Barraud died in 1887, his brothers Philip and Francis took care of the dog, Nipper himself died of natural causes in 1895 and was buried in Kingston upon Thames in Clarence Street, in a small park surrounded by magnolia trees. As time progressed the area was built upon, and a branch of Lloyds Bank now occupies the site, on the wall of the bank, just inside the entrance, a brass plaque commemorates the terrier that lies beneath the building. On 10 March 2010, a road near to the dogs resting place in Kingston upon Thames was named Nipper Alley in commemoration of this resident. In 1898, three years after Nippers death, Francis Barraud, his last owner and brother of his first owner, painted a picture of Nipper listening intently to a wind-up Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph. Thinking the Edison-Bell Company located in New Jersey, USA, might find it useful, he presented it to James E. Hough, who promptly said, Dogs dont listen to phonographs. On May 31,1899, Barraud went to the Maiden Lane offices of The Gramophone Company with the intention of borrowing a brass horn to replace the original black horn on the painting. Manager William Barry Owen suggested that if the artist replaced the machine with a Berliner disc gramophone, the company would buy the painting. The image became the trademark of the Victor and HMV record labels, HMV music stores. The trademark was registered by Berliner for use in the United States on July 10,1900. The slogan His Masters Voice, along with the painting, was sold to The Gramophone Company for 100 pounds sterling -50 pounds for the copyright and 50 pounds for the painting itself. We had a phonograph and I often noticed how puzzled he was to make out where the came from. It certainly was the happiest thought I ever had, the original oil painting hung in the EMI board room in Hayes, Middlesex, for many years. The iconic image of a mixed fox/bull terrier, Nipper, looking into a phonograph became an symbol of quality. Nipper lives on through the names, he even appeared in ads on television with his son. Real dogs continue to play the roles of Nipper and Chipper, Nipper continues to be the mascot of HMV stores in countries where the entertainment retailer has the rights to him
3.
Eldridge R. Johnson
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Johnson was born in Wilmington, Delaware on February 18,1867 to Asa S. Johnson and Caroline Reeves Johnson. Upon his mother’s death in 1869 he was sent to live with his mother’s sister and her husband on their farm in northern Kent County near Smyrna, Asa remarried, and at age ten young Johnson moved to Dover to live with his father and stepmother. Thus, in 1883 Johnson was apprenticed to J. Lodge & Son, in 1888, his apprenticeship was completed and Johnson became a machinist at the recently established Scull Machine Shop in Camden, New Jersey. Later that year, John W. Scull died suddenly, Johnson became foreman and manager, while Sculls father continued on as owner. At the time of his death, John W. Scull had been working on the development of a bookbinding machine, Johnson completed the design of the machine but shortly thereafter decided to head west to seek his fortune. He ultimately made it as far west as Washington State, by 1891 he had returned to Philadelphia. During Johnson’s absence, Scull had been unable to market the bookbinding machine. Upon Johnson’s return east, Scull proposed a partnership, in 1894, Johnson bought out Scull’s share of the company and the Eldridge R. Johnson Manufacturing Company was born. In addition to the manufacture of wire stitching and bookbinding machines, Johnson’s shop executed a variety of jobs involving steam models. A customer named Henry Whitaker brought a manually driven, hand-cranked Berliner Gramophone, developed by Emile Berliner, into Johnson’s shop, Johnson did so, but Whitaker found the result unsatisfactory. Of his initial introduction to the gramophone Johnson later wrote that “the little instrument was badly designed and it sounded much like a partially educated parrot with a sore throat and a cold in the head. But the little wheezy instrument caught my attention and held it fast, I became interested in it as I had never been interested before in anything. It was exactly what I was looking for. ”In the summer of 1895, while cylinder phonographs had been equipped with clockwork motors for some time, the disc playing gramophone presented a number of design challenges in this regard. Foremost was the drag that the needle and soundbox created when applied to the edge of the disc. This required that the motor provide sufficient torque at start up while retaining a constant speed, representatives of the Berliner company were satisfied with Johnson’s design, and within a year Johnson had begun producing motors for Berliner. Johnson continued to refine the motor during this period, externalizing the motor, Johnson also spent a winter in Philadelphia collaborating on various gramophone refinements with Alfred C. Clark, the most significant of these was a vastly improved soundbox, along with Johnson’s new motor, the Clark-Johnson soundbox became the foundation for Berliner’s Improved Gramophone of 1897. At about this time, Johnson began experimenting with recording and disc duplicating technologies under a cloud of secrecy, Berliner’s process for creating master records involved covering a zinc disc with an acid-resistant fatty coating and then scratching the coating away with a recording stylus
4.
Emile Berliner
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Emile Berliner, originally Emil Berliner, was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for inventing the flat disc phonograph record, Berliner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1851 into a Jewish merchant family. Though raised in a Jewish family, he became an agnostic. He completed an apprenticeship to become a merchant, as was family tradition, while his real hobby was invention, he worked as an accountant to make ends meet. To avoid being drafted for the Franco-Prussian War, Berliner migrated to the United States of America in 1870 with a friend of his fathers, in whose shop he worked in Washington, D. C. He moved to New York and, living off temporary work, such as doing the paper route and cleaning bottles, after some time working in a livery stable, he became interested in the new audio technology of the telephone and phonograph, and invented an improved telephone transmitter. The patent was acquired by the Bell Telephone Company, in America, Thomas Edison and Berliner fought a long legal battle over the patent rights. Berliner subsequently moved to Boston in 1877 and worked for Bell Telephone until 1883, emile Berliner became a United States citizen in 1881. Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial engine, a helicopter. In 1886 Berliner began experimenting with methods of sound recording and he was granted his first patent for what he called the Gramophone in 1887. By 1890 a Berliner licensee in Germany was manufacturing a toy Gramophone and five-inch hard rubber discs, but because key US patents were still pending they were sold only in Europe. Berliner meant his Gramophone to be more than a mere toy and he began marketing seven-inch records and a more substantial Gramophone, which was, however, still hand-propelled like the smaller toy machine. The difficulty in using early hand-driven Gramophones was getting the turntable to rotate at a steady speed while playing a disc. The US Berliner Gramophone Company shut down in mid-1900 and Berliner moved to Canada, the Berliner Gramophone Co. of Canada was chartered on 8 April 1904 and reorganized as the Berliner Gramophone Co. in 1909 in Montreals district Saint Henri. Berliners other inventions include a new type of loom for mass-production of cloth, a tile. Moore, also a Scientist and Inventor, as his assistant, Berliner obtained automobile engines from the Adams Company in Dubuque Iowa. This car used air cooled three or five cylinder rotary engines which were developed in-house by Fay Oliver Farwell, Berliner and Farwell adapted them for use in perfecting “machines” produced for vertical flight. His realizations allowed him to move away from the heavy in-line engines to lighter rotary models and it was these experiments that led to the formal creation of the Gyro Motor Company in 1909
5.
RCA
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RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. General Electric took over the company in late 1985 and split it up the following year, after World War I began in August 1914, radio traffic across the Atlantic Ocean increased dramatically after the western Allies cut the German transatlantic telegraph cables. In 1917 the government of the United States took charge of the owned by the major companies involved in radio manufacture in the United States to devote radio technology to the war effort. All production of equipment was allocated to the U. S. Army, U. S. Navy, U. S. Marine Corps. The War Department and the Navy Department sought to maintain a monopoly of all uses of radio technology. The wartime takeover of all radio systems ended late in 1918, the war ended in November of that year. The ending of the governments monopoly in radio communications did not prevent the War. On 8 April 1919, naval Admiral W. H. G. Bullard, the proposal presented by the government was that if GE created an American-owned radio company, then the Army and Navy would effect a monopoly of long-distance radio communications via this company. This marked the beginning of a series of negotiations through which GE would buy the American Marconi company, the Army and the Navy granted RCA the former American Marconi radio terminals that had been confiscated during the War. Admiral Bullard received a seat on the Board of Directors of RCA for his efforts in establishing RCA, the result was federally-created monopolies in radio for GE and the Westinghouse Corporation and in telephone systems for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. The first chief officer of RCA was Owen D. Young. RCAs incorporation papers required that a majority of its stock be held by American citizens, as the years went on, RCA either took over, or produced for itself, a large number of patents, including that of the superheterodyne receiver invented by Edwin Armstrong. Over the years, RCA continued to operate international services, under its subsidiary RCA Communications, Inc. GE used RCA as its retail arm for radio sales from 1919, Westinghouse also marketed home radios through RCA until 1930. In 1929, RCA purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and this included a majority ownership of the Victor Company of Japan. The new subsidiary then became RCA Victor, with Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the Nipper His Masters Voice trademark. This trademark is used by the British music & entertainment company HMV. RCA began selling the first electronic turntable in 1930, in 1931, RCA Victor began selling 33⅓ rpm records
6.
RCA Records
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RCA Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. It is one of SMEs three flagship labels, alongside Columbia Records and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, rock, hip hop, R&B, blues, jazz, the companys name is derived from the initials of the labels former parent company, the Radio Corporation of America. It is the second oldest recording company in US history, after sister label Columbia Records, RCAs Canadian unit is Sonys oldest label in Canada. It was one of only two Canadian record companies to survive the Great Depression, kelly, Enrique Iglesias, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, Kesha, Miley Cyrus, Giorgio Moroder, Jennifer Hudson, DAngelo, Pink, Tinashe, G-Eazy, Pitbull, Zayn and Wizkid. In 1929, the Radio Corporation of America purchased the Victor Talking Machine Company, then the worlds largest manufacturer of phonographs and phonograph records. The company then became RCA Victor but retained use of the Victor Records name on their labels until the beginning of 1946 when the labels were finally switched over to RCA Victor. With Victor, RCA acquired New World rights to the famous Nipper His Masters Voice trademark, in Shanghai, China, in 1931, RCA Victors British affiliate the Gramophone Company merged with the Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI. This gave RCA head David Sarnoff a seat on the EMI board, in September 1931, RCA Victor introduced the first 33⅓ rpm records sold to the public, calling them Program Transcriptions. In the depths of the Great Depression, the format was a commercial failure, during the early part of the depression, RCA made a number of attempts to produce a successful cheap label to compete with the dime store labels. The first was the short-lived Timely Tunes label in 1931 sold at Montgomery Ward, in 1932, Bluebird Records was created as a sub-label of RCA Victor. It was originally an 8-inch record with a blue label. In 1933, RCA reintroduced Bluebird and Electradisk as a standard 10-inch label, another cheap label, Sunrise, was produced. The same musical couplings were issued on all three labels and Bluebird Records still survives eight decades after Electradisk and Sunrise were discontinued, RCA also produced records for Montgomery Ward label during the 1930s. Besides manufacturing records for themselves, RCA Victor operated RCA Custom which was the leading record manufacturer for independent record labels, RCA Custom also pressed record compilations for The Readers Digest Association. RCA sold its interest in EMI in 1935, but EMI continued to distribute RCA recordings in the UK, RCA also manufactured and distributed HMV classical recordings on the RCA and HMV labels in North America. During World War II, ties between RCA and its Japanese affiliate JVC were severed, the Japanese record company is today called Victor Entertainment and is still a JVC subsidiary. From 1942 to 1944, RCA Victor was seriously impacted by the American Federation of Musicians recording ban, virtually all union musicians could not make recordings during that period
7.
Camden, New Jersey
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Camden is a city in Camden County, New Jersey. Camden is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the 2010 United States Census, the city had a population of 77,344. Camden is the 12th most populous municipality in New Jersey, the city was incorporated on February 13,1828. On March 13,1844, Camden became a county seat in New Jersey, the city derives its name from Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. Camden is made up of twenty different neighborhoods. By the end of the nineteenth century Camden began to industrialize with the foundation of the Campbell Soup Company by Joseph Campbell, other companies such as the New York Shipbuilding Corporation and the Victor Talking Machine Company opened their operations and helped Camden move into an industrial economy. At the beginning of the twentieth century Camdens population consisted mostly of European immigrants, german, British, and Irish immigrants, as well as African Americans from the south made up the majority of the city in the mid nineteenth century. Around the turn of the twentieth century Italian and Eastern European immigrants had become the majority of the population, the city was consistently prosperous throughout the Great Depression and World War II. After World War II Camden manufacturers began closing their factories and moving out of the city, Camdens cultural history has been greatly affected by both its economic and social position over the years. With the loss of manufacturing jobs came a decline in population numbers. Suburbanization also had an effect on the drop in population, Civil unrest and crime became common in Camden with the decline in population. In 1971, civil unrest reached its peak with riots breaking out in response to the death of Horacio Jimenez, Camdens industrial and post-industrial history gave rise to distinct neighborhoods and cultural groups that have affected the status of the city over the course of the 20th century. Over the years Camden has made attempts to restore its economic stature. In the 1980s Mayor Randy Primas campaigned for the city to two different nuisance industries, a prison and a trash-to-steam incinerator. Despite opposition from Camden residents, the Riverfront State Prison was opened in 1985, with the addition of the trash-to-steam plant Camden has faced numerous air and water pollution issues. Camden is also the home of a treatment facility. In the 1970s, dangerous pollutants were found in the wells from which many Camden citizens received their household water and these pollutants decreased property values in Camden and caused health problems among the citys residents. Pollution is an issue that local nonprofits are trying to solve
8.
Phonograph
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The phonograph is a device invented in 1877 for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound. In its later forms it is called a gramophone. To recreate the sound, the surface is rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it. In later electric phonographs, the motions of the stylus are converted into an electrical signal by a transducer. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, while other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edisons phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder. A stylus responding to sound vibrations produced an up and down or hill-and-dale groove in the foil, in the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its system, the stylus or needle. The disc phonograph record was the dominant audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century, from the mid-1980s on, phonograph use on a standard record player declined sharply because of the rise of the cassette tape, compact disc and other digital recording formats. Records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles and DJs, vinyl records are still used by some DJs and musicians in their concert performances. Musicians continue to release their recordings on vinyl records, the original recordings of musicians are sometimes re-issued on vinyl. Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world, in more modern usage, the playback device is often called a turntable, record player, or record changer. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, the term phonograph was derived from the Greek words φωνή and γραφή. The similar related terms gramophone and graphophone have similar root meanings, the roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph, telegraph, and telephone. In British English, gramophone may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, the term phonograph was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records. Gramophone generally referred to a wind-up machine, after the introduction of the softer vinyl records, 33 1⁄3-rpm LPs and 45-rpm single or two-song records, and EPs, the common name became record player or turntable. Often the home record player was part of a system that included a radio and, later, from about 1960, such a system began to be described as a hi-fi or a stereo. In American English, phonograph, properly specific to machines made by Edison, was used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others
9.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
10.
Nipper Building
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The Nipper Building is a colloquial name for The Victor condominiums, and formerly, Building 17, RCA Victor Company, Camden Plant. The structure is a building located in Cooper Grant neighborhood of Camden, Camden County, New Jersey. For many years Camden was the headquarters of the Victor Talking Machine Company, originally a Victrola cabinet factory, the building was converted into luxury apartments and retail space in 2004. The Nipper Building, now known as The Victor, was constructed during 1909-1916, by the architectural. Francis Barraud, an unknown British artist, painted a picture of his brothers dog, Nipper, the alert Fox Terrier, became the best known dog in the world. The Radio Corporation of America absorbed the Victor Company in 1929 and the acquisition included the Camden manufacturing plant, the four stained glass windows in the buildings tower depicting the Nipper trademark were originally installed in 1915 and were illuminated at night. In 1968, RCA introduced a new logo and de-emphasized both the Victor and Nipper trademarks. The windows were removed from the tower in 1969 and replaced with RCAs new logo painted on sheets of plywood. Beginning in 1976, partly in response to demand, the Nipper trademark was reinstated to many RCA products. On April 10,1979, RCA held a ceremony in Camden dedicating four new stained glass windows, identical to the originals and these windows were damaged by neglect and vandals after General Electric, which had absorbed RCA in 1986, vacated the building in the 1990s. The damaged windows were replaced after the building was acquired by Dranoff Properties, during the 1970s and 1980s some parts of the building were used by the RCA Government Communications Systems Division, for the development of computer systems for the U. S. intelligence community. The Nipper Building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, after manufacturing ceased in 1992, the building became vacant, vandalized and a general eyesore to the surrounding area and was in danger of demolition. Most of the dozens of old RCA Victor buildings at the Camden site had already been razed. In 1997, the building was listed on Preservation New Jerseys Ten Most Endangered sites list, utilizing the Investment Tax Credit, the structure was converted into a complex featuring a mix of 341 upscale loft apartments with outstanding views of the Philadelphia skyline. The restoration was completed in August 2003 at a cost of $65 million, approximately 80% of the projects funding came from private sources, namely through Dranoff Properties, Fleet Bank and Related Capital. Remaining funding came from public sources including the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, the New Jersey Redevelopment Authority
11.
Queen Victoria
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Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
12.
Enrico Caruso
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Enrico Caruso was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe. Caruso also made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, all of these recordings, which span most of his stage career, remain available today on CDs and as downloads and digital streams. Enrico Caruso came from a poor but not destitute background, born in Naples in the Via San Giovannello agli Ottocalli 7 on 25 February 1873, he was baptised the next day in the adjacent Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. His parents originally came from Piedimonte dAlife in the Province of Benevento, in the Province of Caserta in Campania, called Errico in accordance with the Neapolitan language, he would later adopt the formal Italian version of his given name, Enrico. This change came at the suggestion of a singing teacher, Caruso was the third of seven children and one of only three to survive infancy. There is a story of Carusos parents having had 21 children,18 of whom died in infancy. However, on the basis of research, biographers Pierre Key, Francis Robinson. Caruso himself and his brother Giovanni may have been the source of the exaggerated number, Carusos widow Dorothy also included the story in a memoir that she wrote about her husband. She quotes the tenor, speaking of his mother, Anna Caruso, twenty boys and one girl – too many. Carusos father, Marcellino, was a mechanic and foundry worker, initially, Marcellino thought his son should adopt the same trade, and at the age of 11, the boy was apprenticed to a mechanical engineer who constructed public water fountains. Caruso later worked alongside his father at the Meuricoffre factory in Naples, at his mothers insistence, he also attended school for a time, receiving a basic education under the tutelage of a local priest. He learned to write in a script and studied technical draftsmanship. During this period he sang in his church choir, and his voice showed enough promise for him to contemplate a career in music. Caruso was encouraged in his musical ambitions by his mother. To raise cash for his family, he work as a street singer in Naples. Aged 18, he used the fees he had earned by singing at an Italian resort to buy his first pair of new shoes and his progress as a paid entertainer was interrupted, however, by 45 days of compulsory military service. He completed this in 1894, resuming his voice lessons upon discharge from the army
13.
Record press
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A record press is a machine for manufacturing vinyl records. It is essentially a hydraulic press fitted with thin nickel stampers which are negative impressions of a master disc, labels and a pre-heated vinyl patty are placed in a heated mold cavity. Two stampers are used, one for each of side of the disc, the record press closes under a pressure of about 150 tons. The process of compression molding forces the hot vinyl to fill the grooves in the stampers, in the mid 1960s Emory Cook developed a system of record forming wherein the mold pressure was replaced by a vacuum. In this technique the mold cavity was evacuated and vinyl was introduced in micro-particle form, the particles were then flash-fused instantaneously at a high temperature forming a coherent solid. Cook called this disc manufacturing technology microfusion, a small pressing plant in Hollywood also employed a similar system which they maintained fused the particles more evenly throughout the disc thickness calling their product polymax. Both claimed the resultant disc grooves exhibited less surface noise and greater resistance to deformation from stylus tip inertia than convention pressure molded vinyl discs
14.
Shellac
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Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes and dissolved in ethanol to make liquid shellac, Shellac functions as a tough natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odour-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. Shellac was once used in applications as it possesses good insulation qualities. Phonograph and 78 rpm gramophone records were made of it until vinyl long-playing records from the 1950s onwards, Shellac comes from shell and lac, a calque of French laque en écailles, lac in thin pieces, later gomme-laque, gum lac. Most European languages have borrowed the word for the substance from English or from the German equivalent Schellack. Shellac is scraped from the bark of the trees where the female lac bug, Kerria lacca, though these tunnels are sometimes referred to as cocoons, they are not literally cocoons in the entomological sense. This insect is in the superfamily as the insect from which cochineal is obtained. The insects suck the sap of the tree and excrete sticklac almost constantly, the least coloured shellac is produced when the insects feed on the kusum tree. The number of lac bugs required to produce 1 kilogram of shellac has variously been estimated as 50,000,200,000, or 300,000. The root word lakh is a South Asian unit for 100,000 and presumably refers to the numbers of insects that swarm on host trees. The raw shellac, which contains bark shavings and lac bugs removed during scraping, is placed in canvas tubes and this causes the shellac to liquefy, and it seeps out of the canvas, leaving the bark and bugs behind. The thick, sticky shellac is then dried into a sheet and broken into flakes, or dried into buttons, then bagged. The end-user then crushes it into a powder and mixes it with ethyl alcohol before use, to dissolve the flakes. Liquid shellac has a shelf life, so is sold in dry form for dissolution before use. Liquid shellac sold in stores is often marked with the production date. Some manufacturers have ceased labeling shellac with the date but the production date may be discernible from the production lot code. Alternatively, old shellac may be tested to see if it is still usable, Shellac that remains tacky for a long time is no longer usable. Storage life depends on temperature, so refrigeration extends shelf life
15.
Overtone
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An overtone is any frequency greater than the fundamental frequency of a sound. Using the model of Fourier analysis, the fundamental and the overtones together are called partials, harmonics, or more precisely, harmonic partials, are partials whose frequencies are integer multiples of the fundamental. These overlapping terms are used when discussing the acoustic behavior of musical instruments. The model of Fourier analysis provides for the inclusion of inharmonic partials, when a resonant system such as a blown pipe or plucked string is excited, a number of overtones may be produced along with the fundamental tone. In simple cases, such as for most musical instruments, the frequencies of these tones are the same as the harmonics. Examples of exceptions include the drum, – a timpani whose first overtone is about 1.6 times its fundamental resonance frequency, gongs and cymbals. The human vocal tract is able to produce highly variable amplitudes of the overtones, called formants, most oscillators, from a guitar string to a flute, will naturally vibrate at a series of distinct frequencies known as normal modes. The lowest normal mode frequency is known as the fundamental frequency, often, when an oscillator is excited by, for example, plucking a guitar string, it will oscillate at several of its modal frequencies at the same time. So when a note is played, this gives the sensation of hearing other frequencies above the lowest frequency, timbre is the quality that gives the listener the ability to distinguish between the sound of different instruments. The timbre of an instrument is determined by which overtones it emphasizes and that is to say, the relative volumes of these overtones to each other determines the specific flavor or color of sound of that family of instruments. The intensity of each of these overtones is rarely constant for the duration of a note, over time, different overtones may decay at different rates, causing the relative intensity of each overtone to rise or fall independent of the overall volume of the sound. A carefully trained ear can hear these changes even in a single note and this is why the timbre of a note may be perceived differently when played staccato or legato. A driven non-linear oscillator, such as the folds, a blown wind instrument, or a bowed violin string will oscillate in a periodic. This generates the impression of sound at integer multiple frequencies of the known as harmonics, or more precisely. Thus, in music, overtones are often called harmonics, depending upon how the string is plucked or bowed, different overtones can be emphasized. However, some overtones in some instruments may not be of an integer multiplication of the fundamental frequency. High quality instruments are built in such a manner that their individual notes do not create disharmonious overtones. This is illustrated by the following, Consider a guitar string and this dead length actually varies from string to string, being more pronounced with thicker and/or stiffer strings
16.
Sibilants
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Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, chip, and jump, and the second consonant in vision. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in words are. More specifically, the sounds, as in chip and jump, are affricates, Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting ones attention. In the alveolar hissing sibilants and, the back of the forms a narrow channel to focus the stream of air more intensely. With the hushing sibilants, such as English, and, the tongue is flatter, because all sibilants are also stridents, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. However, the terms do not mean the same thing, the English stridents are /f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/. The English sibilants are a high pitched subset of the stridents. The English sibilants are /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, /f/ and /v/ are stridents, but not sibilants, because they are lower in pitch. Non-sibilant fricatives and affricates produce their characteristic sound directly with the tongue or lips etc. however, there is a great deal of variety among sibilants as to tongue shape, point of contact on the tongue, and point of contact on the upper side of the mouth. For example, a laminal denti-alveolar grooved sibilant occurs in Polish, the main distinction is the shape of the tongue. Most sibilants have a running down the centerline of the tongue that helps focus the airstream. Because of the prominence of these sounds, they are the most common and they occur in English, where they are denoted with a letter s or z, as in soon or zone. Alveolo-palatal, with a convex, V-shaped tongue, and highly palatalized and these sounds occur in English, where they are denoted with letter combinations such as sh, ch, g, j or si, as in shin, chin, gin and vision. Retroflex, with a flat or concave tongue, and no palatalization and these sounds occur in a large number of varieties, some of which also go by other names. The subapical palatal or true retroflex sounds are the very dullest, the latter three post-alveolar types of sounds are often known as hushing sounds because of their quality, as opposed to the hissing alveolar sounds. The alveolar sounds in fact occur in several varieties, in addition to the sound of English s, Palatalized. Palatalized alveolars are transcribed e. g. and occur in Russian, lisping, Alveolar sibilants made with the tip of the tongue near the upper teeth have a softer sound reminiscent of the lisping sound of English think. In these dialects, the sibilant is the normal pronunciation of the letters s and z, as well as c before i or e
17.
Royalty payment
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A royalty is a payment made by one party, the licensee or franchisee to another that owns a particular asset, the licensor or franchisor for the right to ongoing use of that asset. A royalty interest is the right to collect a stream of future royalty payments, license agreements can be regulated, particularly where a government is the resource owner, or they can be private contracts that follow a general structure. However, certain types of agreements have comparable provisions. When a government owns the resource in question, the transaction is subject to legal. In the United States, fee simple ownership of the mineral is possible by a private individual, local taxing authorities may impose a severance tax on the unrenewable natural resources extracted from within their authority. The Federal Government receives royalties on production on federal lands, managed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, an example from Canadas north is the federal Frontier Lands petroleum royalty regime. In this manner risks and profits are shared between the government of Canada and the petroleum developer and this attractive royalty rate is intended to encourage oil and gas exploration in the remote Canadian frontier lands where costs and risks are higher than other locations. In many jurisdictions oil and gas royalty interests are considered property under the NAICS classification code. As a standard example, for every $100 bbl of oil sold on a U. S. federal well with a 25% royalty, the U. S. government does not pay and will only collect revenues. All risk and liability lie upon the operator of the well, Royalties in the forestry industry are called stumpage. An intangible asset such as a patent gives the owner an exclusive right to prevent others from practicing the patented technology in the country issuing the patent for the term of the patent. The right may be enforced in a lawsuit for monetary damages and/or imprisonment for violation on the patent, patent rights may be divided and licensed out in various ways, on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. The license may be subject to limitations as to time or territory, a license may encompass an entire technology or it may involve a mere component or improvement on a technology. In the United States, reasonable royalties may be imposed, both after-the-fact and prospectively, by a court as a remedy for infringement. 0%, however, the range extended from 0% to 50%. All of these agreements may not have been at arms length, in license negotiation, firms might derive royalties for the use of a patented technology from the retail price of the downstream licensed product. In the Arab countries, it may be found, that a royalty as a percentage of sales may be difficult to transact, a flat fee may be preferred as percentages may be interpreted as percentage of profit. Trade marks are words, logos, slogans, sounds, or other expressions that distinguish the source, origin. Trade marks offer the public a means of identifying and assuring themselves of the quality of the good or service and they may bring consumers a sense of security, integrity, belonging, and a variety of intangible appeals
18.
RCA Red Seal Records
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RCA Red Seal Records is a classical music record label founded in 1902 by Eldridge R. Johnson and owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Led by the great tenor Enrico Caruso, then just at the beginning of his worldwide fame, carusos first records, made by the Gramophone Company in Italy in 1902, earned prestige as well as profits for the company and its affiliates. The introduction of recording in 1925 allowed reproduction of instrumental and orchestral music with greatly improved fidelity. In 1929, the Victor Talking Machine Company was purchased by the Radio Corporation of America, eventually becoming RCA Victor and, in 1968, nearly all of Toscaninis recordings were issued on the Red Seal label, most of them with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra spent nearly 35 years with RCA Victor, stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra made Red Seal recordings exclusively from 1917 until 1940. Eugene Ormandy made his first recordings with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1934, Ormandy and the Philadelphians returned to RCA in 1968, after spending 23 years with Columbia Records. Leonard Bernstein also made his first recordings for RCA Victor, in 1950 RCA began issuing vinyl LPs, because they were losing artists and sales due to the companys resistance to adopting the new format. In 1954, RCA began experimenting with stereophonic recording, the first RCA Victor Stereo Orthophonic reel to reel tapes were issued in 1955. When stereo LP records first appeared in 1958, RCA introduced their highly regarded Living Stereo recordings, during this period RCA was consistently seen as producing some of the finest-sounding recordings then available. In 1968, RCA introduced a logo, de-emphasized the Victor name and His Masters Voice trademarks. The following artists, conductors, and orchestras have all made Red Seal recordings, some recordings were made for other overseas companies but were distributed in the USA on the Red Seal label. Many have also recorded or may be recording for other labels. The RCA Gold Seal mid-priced label was launched in 1975 and mainly consisted of reissues of Living Stereo recordings previously issued on the Red Seal label, later, many older Red Seal recordings from the 78 RPM and early LP era were reissued under the Gold Seal moniker. RCA Victor Gold Seal released complete sets of recordings by Arturo Toscanini, Fritz Kreisler and Sergei Rachmaninoff, many Red Seal recordings were reissued on the budget-priced RCA Victor Silver Seal label. Issues in this series were released on CD and cassette only, RCA Camden RCA Victrola List of record labels Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings
19.
Jascha Heifetz
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Jascha Heifetz was a Russian born violinist. Many consider him to be the greatest violinist of all time, born in Wilno, Russian Empire, he moved as a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He had a long and successful performing and recording career, after an injury to his right arm, Heifetz was born into a Russian Jewish family in Wilno, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Reuven Heifetz, son of Elie, was a violin teacher. While Jascha was an infant, his father did a series of tests and this convinced him that Jascha had great potential, and before Jascha was two years old, his father bought him a small violin, and taught him bowing and simple fingering. At five years old, he started lessons with Leopold Auer and he was a child prodigy, making his public debut at seven, in Kovno playing the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn. In 1910 he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to study under Leopold Auer and he played in Germany and Scandinavia, and met Fritz Kreisler for the first time in a Berlin private house, in a private press matinee on May 20,1912. The home was that of Arthur Abell, the pre-eminent Berlin music critic for the American magazine, among other noted violinists in attendance was Fritz Kreisler. After the 12-year-old Heifetz performed the Mendelssohn violin concerto, Abell reported that Kreisler said to all present, Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch, the conductor was very impressed, saying he had never heard such an excellent violinist. Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling by rail to the Russian far east and then by ship to the United States, arriving in San Francisco. On 27 October 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the United States, at Carnegie Hall in New York, fellow violinist Mischa Elman in the audience asked Do you think its hot in here. Whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the seat, imperturbably replied. As he was aged 16 at the time, he was perhaps the youngest person elected to membership in the organization. Heifetz remained in the country and became an American citizen in 1925, in 1954, Heifetz began working with pianist Brooks Smith, who would serve as Heifetzs accompanist for many years until he chose Dr. Ayke Agus as his accompanist. He was also accompanied in concert for more than 20 years by Emmanuel Bay, another immigrant from Russia, Heifetzs musicianship was such that he would demonstrate to his accompanist how he wanted passages to sound on the piano, and would even suggest which fingerings to use. After the seasons of 1955–56, Heifetz announced that he would sharply curtail his concert activity, in 1958, he tripped in his kitchen and fractured his right hip, resulting in hospitalisation at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, and a near fatal staphylococcus infection. He was invited to play Beethoven at the United Nations General Assembly, by 1967, Heifetz had considerably curtailed his concert performances
20.
Fritz Kreisler
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Friedrich Fritz Kreisler was an Austrian-born violinist and composer. One of the most noted violin masters of his or any other day, like many great violinists of his generation, he produced a characteristic sound which was immediately recognizable as his own. Although it derived in many respects from the Franco-Belgian school, his style is reminiscent of the gemütlich lifestyle of pre-war Vienna. Kreisler was born in Vienna, the son of Anna and Samuel Kreisler, of Jewish heritage, he was however baptised at the age of 12. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory and in Paris, where his teachers included Anton Bruckner, Léo Delibes, Jakob Dont, Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr. Joseph Massart, and Jules Massenet. While there, he won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome gold medal at the age of 12, competing against 40 other players, all of whom were at least 20 years of age. He made his United States debut at the Steinway Hall in New York City on November 10,1888 and he then returned to Austria and applied for a position in the Vienna Philharmonic, but was turned down by the concertmaster Arnold Rosé. As a result, he left music to study medicine and he spent a brief time in the army before returning to the violin in 1899, when he gave a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. It was this concert and a series of American tours from 1901 to 1903 that brought him real acclaim, in 1910, Kreisler gave the premiere of Sir Edward Elgars Violin Concerto, a work commissioned by and dedicated to him. He served briefly in the Austrian Army in World War I before being discharged after he was wounded. He arrived in New York on November 24,1914, and he returned to Europe in 1924, living first in Berlin, then moving to France in 1938. Shortly thereafter, at the outbreak of World War II, he settled again in the United States. He lived there for the rest of his life, giving his last public concert in 1947, on April 26,1941, he was involved in a serious traffic accident. Struck by a truck while crossing a street in New York, in his later years, he suffered from not only some hearing loss but also sight deterioration due to cataracts. Kreisler died of a condition aggravated by old age in New York City in 1962. He was interred in a mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx. Kreisler wrote a number of pieces for the violin, including solos for encores, such as Liebesleid, some of Kreislers compositions were pastiches ostensibly in the style of other composers. They were originally ascribed to earlier composers, such as Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini and Antonio Vivaldi, when critics complained, Kreisler replied that they had already deemed the compositions worthy, The name changes, the value remains, he said
21.
Victor Herbert
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Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor and he was also prominent among the tin pan alley composers and was later a founder of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. In the early 1880s, Herbert began a career as a cellist in Vienna, Austria, Herbert and his opera singer wife, Therese Förster, moved to the U. S. in 1886 when both were engaged by the Metropolitan Opera. In the U. S. Herbert continued his career, while also teaching at the National Conservatory of Music. His most notable compositions were his Cello Concerto No.2 in E minor, Op.30, which entered the standard repertoire. He led the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1898 to 1904 and then founded the Victor Herbert Orchestra, Herbert began to compose operettas in 1894, producing several successes, including The Serenade and The Fortune Teller. Some of the operettas that he wrote after the turn of the 20th century were more successful, Babes in Toyland. Modiste, The Red Mill, Naughty Marietta, Sweethearts and Eileen, after World War I, with the change of popular musical tastes, Herbert began to compose musicals and contributed music to other composers shows. While some of these were well-received, he never achieved the level of success that he had enjoyed with his most popular operettas. Herbert was born in Dublin, Ireland to Protestants Edward Herbert and his grandfather was the Irish novelist, playwright, poet and composer Samuel Lover. The Lovers welcomed a steady flow of musicians, writers and artists to their home, Herbert joined his mother in Stuttgart, Germany in 1867, a year after she had married a German physician, Carl Schmidt of Langenargen. In Stuttgart he received a liberal education at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium. Herbert initially planned to pursue a career as a medical doctor, although his stepfather was related by blood to the German royal family, his financial situation was not good by the time Herbert was a teenager. Medical education in Germany was expensive, and so Herbert focused instead on music and he initially studied the piano, flute and piccolo but ultimately settled on the cello, beginning studies on that instrument with Bernhard Cossmann from age 15 to age 18. He then attended the Stuttgart Conservatory, after studying cello, music theory and composition under Max Seifritz, Herbert graduated with a diploma in 1879. Even before studying with Cossmann, Herbert was engaged professionally as a player in concerts in Stuttgart and his first orchestra position was as a flute and piccolo player, but he soon turned solely to the cello. By the time he was 19, Herbert had received engagements as a soloist with several major German orchestras. He played in the orchestra of the wealthy Russian Baron Paul von Derwies for a few years and, Herbert joined the court orchestra in Stuttgart in 1881, where he remained for the next five years
22.
Ignacy Jan Paderewski
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Ignacy Jan Paderewski, GBE was a Polish pianist and composer, politician and spokesman for Polish independence. He was a favorite of audiences around the world. His musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media and he was the prime minister of Poland and also Polands foreign minister in 1919, and represented Poland at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. He served 10 months as prime minister, and soon thereafter left Poland, Paderewski was born to Polish parents in the village of Kuryłówka, Litin uyezd in the Podolia Governorate of the Russian Empire. The village today is part of the Khmilnyk raion of Vinnytsia Oblast in Ukraine and his father, Jan Paderewski, was an administrator of large estates. His mother, Poliksena, née Nowicka, died months after Paderewski was born. From his early childhood, Paderewski was interested in music while living at the estate near Żytomir. However, soon after his fathers arrest in connection with the January Uprising, after being released, Paderewskis father married again and moved to the town of Sudylkov, near Shepetovka. Initially, he took lessons with a private tutor. At the age of 12, in 1872, he went to Warsaw and was admitted to the Warsaw Conservatory, after graduating in 1878, he was asked to become a tutor of piano classes at his alma mater, a position he accepted. In 1880, Paderewski married a student at the conservatory Antonina Korsakówna. The following year, their son was born handicapped, Antonina never recovered from childbirth. Paderewski decided to devote himself to music, he left his son in the care of friends, a chance meeting in 1884 with a famous Polish actress, Helena Modrzejewska, set him on a course of a career as a virtuoso pianist. Modrzejewska arranged for a concert and appearance together in Krakóws hotel Saski to raise funds for Paderewskis further piano study. The scheme was a success and he moved to Vienna. After three years of diligent study and an appointment in Strasbourg arranged for by Leschetizky, Paderewski made his concert debut in Vienna in 1887. He soon gained popularity and his subsequent appearances were major successes. His brilliant playing created a furor that reached to almost extravagant lengths of admiration, a large part of his great success stemmed from his stage presence and his striking looks
23.
Sergei Rachmaninoff
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Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian pianist, composer, and conductor of the late-Romantic period, some of whose works are among the most popular in the classical repertoire. Born into a family, Rachmaninoff took up the piano at age four. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1892 and had composed several piano, in 1897, following the critical reaction to his Symphony No. 1, Rachmaninoff entered a depression and composed little until successful therapy allowed him to complete his enthusiastically received Piano Concerto No.2 in 1901. After the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia and resided in the United States, in 1942, Rachmaninoff moved to Beverly Hills, California. One month before his death from advanced melanoma, Rachmaninoff acquired American citizenship, the piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoffs compositional output, and through his own skills as a performer he explored the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Rachmaninoff was born at an estate in the Novgorod province in north-western Russia. It is unclear if he was born in the estate of Oneg, near Veliky Novgorod, or Semyonovo, near Staraya Russa, the Rachmaninoffs had strong musical and military leanings. The composers grandfather on the line, Arkady Alexandrovich, was a musician. His father, Vasily Arkadyevich Rachmaninoff, was an army officer and he married Lyubov Petrovna Butakova, the daughter of a wealthy army general who gave her five estates as part of her dowry. The couple had three sons and three daughters, Rachmaninoff being their fourth child, Rachmaninoff began piano and music lessons organised by his mother at the age of four. She became impressed with her sons musical ability to recite passages from memory without playing a wrong note. Rachmaninoff later dedicated Spring Waters, Song No.32 to Ornatskaya, in 1882, Rachmaninoffs father had to auction off their Oneg estate due to his financial incompetence—the familys five estates had been reduced to one. Rachmaninoff described his father as a wastrel, a gambler, a pathological liar. The family moved to a flat in Saint Petersburg. When Rachmaninoffs course of lessons with Ornatskaya neared its end, she arranged for him to music at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. That year, his sister Sofia died of diphtheria and his left the family, with their approval. In 1885, Rachmaninoffs sister Yelena died of pernicious anemia at eighteen and she was an important musical influence to Rachmaninoff who introduced him to the works of Tchaikovsky
24.
Arturo Toscanini
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Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for detail and sonority. He was at times the music director of La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, and won a scholarship to the music conservatory. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh, for example, his diet consisted almost completely of fish. When he became successful, he never ate anything that came from the sea and he joined the orchestra of an opera company, with which he toured South America in 1886. Carlo Superti and Aristide Venturi tried unsuccessfully to finish the work, in desperation, the singers suggested the name of their assistant Chorus Master, who knew the whole opera from memory. The public was taken by surprise, at first by the youth and sheer aplomb of this unknown conductor, for the rest of that season, Toscanini conducted eighteen operas, all with absolute success. Thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19, upon returning to Italy, Toscanini set out on a dual path for some time. He continued to conduct, his first appearance in Italy being at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, on November 4,1886, in the world premiere of the revised version of Alfredo Catalanis Edmea. This was the beginning of Toscaninis lifelong friendship and championing of Catalani, however, he also returned to his chair in the cello section, and participated as cellist in the world premiere of Verdis Otello under the composers supervision. The composer was impressed when Toscanini consulted him personally about Verdis Te Deum. Verdi said that he had left it out for fear that certain interpreters would have exaggerated the marking, gradually, Toscaninis reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority and skill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade, he consolidated his career in Italy, entrusted with the premieres of Puccinis La bohème. In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert and he exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work, conducting 43 concerts in Turin in 1898. By 1898, Toscanini was Principal Conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908, returning as Music Director and he brought the La Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour in 1920/21, during which he made his first recordings. Outside Europe, Toscanini conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as well as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and he toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic in 1930. At each performance, he and the orchestra were acclaimed by critics, Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth, and the New York Philharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there
25.
La Scala
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La Scala is an opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was known as the Nuovo Regio Ducale Teatro alla Scala. The premiere performance was Antonio Salieris Europa riconosciuta, most of Italys greatest operatic artists, and many of the finest singers from around the world, have appeared at La Scala during the past 200 years. The theatre is regarded as one of the opera and ballet theatres in the world and is home to the La Scala Theatre Chorus, La Scala Theatre Ballet. The theatre also has a school, known as the La Scala Theatre Academy. La Scalas season traditionally opens on 7 December, Saint Ambroses Day, all performances must end before midnight, and long operas start earlier in the evening when necessary. La Scala also hosts the Accademia dArti e Mestieri dello Spettacolo and its goal is to train a new generation of young musicians, technical staff, and dancers. A fire destroyed the theatre, the Teatro Regio Ducale, on 25 February 1776. The neoclassical architect Giuseppe Piermarini produced a design but it was rejected by Count Firmian. A second plan was accepted in 1776 by Empress Maria Theresa, the new theatre was built on the former location of the church of Santa Maria alla Scala, from which the theatre gets its name. The church was deconsecrated and demolished, and over a period of two years the theatre was completed by Pietro Marliani, Pietro Nosetti and Antonio and Giuseppe Fe. The theatre had a total of 3,000 or so seats organized into 678 pit-stalls and its stage is one of the largest in Italy. Building expenses were covered by the sale of palchi, which were decorated by their owners. La Scala soon became the preeminent meeting place for noble and wealthy Milanese people, in the tradition of the times, the platea had no chairs and spectators watched the shows standing up. The orchestra was in sight, as the golfo mistico had not yet been built. Above the boxes, La Scala has a gallery—called the loggione—where the less wealthy can watch the performances, the gallery is typically crowded with the most critical opera aficionados, known as the loggionisti, who can be ecstatic or merciless towards singers perceived successes or failures. As with most of the theatres at that time, La Scala was also a casino, conditions in the auditorium, too, could be frustrating for the opera lover, as Mary Shelley discovered in September 1840, At the Opera they were giving Otto Nicolais Templario. La Scala was originally illuminated with 84 oil lamps mounted on the palcoscenico, to prevent the risks of fire, several rooms were filled with hundreds of water buckets
26.
Milan
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Milan is a city in Italy, capital of the Lombardy region, and the most populous metropolitan area and the second most populous comune in Italy. The population of the city proper is 1,351,000, Milan has a population of about 8,500,000 people. It is the industrial and financial centre of Italy and one of global significance. In terms of GDP, it has the largest economy among European non-capital cities, Milan is considered part of the Blue Banana and lies at the heart of one of the Four Motors for Europe. Milan is an Alpha leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, design, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism. Its business district hosts Italys Stock Exchange and the headquarters of the largest national and international banks, the city is a major world fashion and design capital, well known for several international events and fairs, including Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair. The city hosts numerous cultural institutions, academies and universities, with 11% of the national total enrolled students, Milans museums, theatres and landmarks attract over 9 million visitors annually. Milan – after Naples – is the second Italian city with the highest number of accredited stars from the Michelin Guide, the city hosted the Universal Exposition in 1906 and 2015. Milan is home to two of Europes major football teams, A. C. Milan and F. C. Internazionale, the etymology of Milan is uncertain. One theory holds that the Latin name Mediolanum comes from the Latin words medio, however, some scholars believe lanum comes from the Celtic root lan, meaning an enclosure or demarcated territory in which Celtic communities used to build shrines. Hence, Mediolanum could signify the central town or sanctuary of a Celtic tribe, indeed, the name Mediolanum is borne by about sixty Gallo-Roman sites in France, e. g. Saintes and Évreux. Alciato credits Ambrose for his account, around 400 BC, the Celtic Insubres settled Milan and the surrounding region. In 222 BC, the Romans conquered the settlement, renaming it Mediolanum, Milan was eventually declared the capital of the Western Roman Empire by Emperor Diocletian in 286 AD. Diocletian chose to stay in the Eastern Roman Empire and his colleague Maximianus ruled the Western one, immediately Maximian built several monuments, such as a large circus 470 m ×85 m, the Thermae Herculeae, a large complex of imperial palaces and several other buildings. With the Edict of Milan of 313, Emperor Constantine I guaranteed freedom of religion for Christians, after the city was besieged by the Visigoths in 402, the imperial residence was moved to Ravenna. In 452, the Huns overran the city, in 539, the Ostrogoths conquered and destroyed Milan during the Gothic War against Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. In the summer of 569, a Teutonic tribe, the Lombards, conquered Milan, some Roman structures remained in use in Milan under Lombard rule. Milan surrendered to the Franks in 774 when Charlemagne took the title of King of the Lombards, the Iron Crown of Lombardy dates from this period
27.
The Memphis Blues
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The Memphis Blues is a song described by its composer, W. C. It was self-published by Handy in September 1912 and has been recorded by many artists over the years, subtitled Mr. Crump, The Memphis Blues is said to be based on a campaign song written by Handy for Edward Crump, a mayoral candidate in Memphis, Tennessee. Handy claimed credit for writing Mr. Crump, but Memphis musicians say it was written by Handys clarinetist, Paul Wyer. Many musicologists question how much Mr. Crump actually shared with The Memphis Blues, since the words, taken from an old song, Mama Don low. Many think Mr. Crump was probably the song as Mr. Crump Dont Like It. Handy first published the song as an instrumental and he immediately sold it to the music publisher Theron Bennett, who took it to New York to attempt to promote it. Handy later claimed he had been robbed, in any case, Bennett convinced George Honey Boy Evans to use it for his Honey Boy Minstrels. Bennett hired a songwriter, George A. Norton, to write lyrics for it. Bennett published it a later, but still the sheet music did poorly. Bennetts 1913 publication advertises it as Founded on W. C, Handys World Wide Blue Note Melody. It wasnt until Victor Recording Companys house band and Columbias house band recorded the song in 1914 that The Memphis Blues began to do well, harry James recorded a version in 1942. Blues Traveling, The Holy Sites of Delta Blues, putting Popular Music in its Place
28.
Original Dixieland Jass Band
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The Original Dixieland Jass Band was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their Livery Stable Blues became the first jazz single ever issued, the group made the first recordings, and claimed authorship, of many jazz standards, the most famous being Tiger Rag. In late 1917 the spelling of the name was changed to Original Dixieland Jazz Band. The band consisted of five musicians who had played in the Papa Jack Laine bands, an integrated group of musicians who played for parades, dances. ODJB billed itself as the Creators of Jazz and it was the first band to record jazz commercially and to have hit recordings in the new genre. Band leader and cornetist Nick LaRocca argued that ODJB deserved recognition as the first band to record jazz commercially and they then assembled trombonist Eddie Edwards, pianist Henry Ragas, and cornetist Frank Christian. Shortly before they were to leave, Christian backed out, on March 3,1916 the musicians began their job at Schillers Cafe in Chicago under the name Steins Dixie Jass Band. The band was a hit and received offers of higher pay elsewhere, LaRocca and Nunez had personality conflicts, and on October 30 Tom Browns Band and ODJB agreed to swap clarinetists, bringing Larry Shields into the Original Dixieland Jass Band. The band attracted the attention of theatrical agent Max Hart, who booked the band in New York City, at the start of 1917 the band began an engagement playing for dancing at Reisenwebers Cafe, on Columbus Circle, in Manhattan. While a couple of other New Orleans bands had passed through New York City slightly earlier, shortly after arriving in New York, a letter dated January 29,1917, offered the band an audition for the Columbia Graphophone Company. The session took place on Wednesday, January 31,1917, nothing from this test session was issued. The band then recorded two sides for the Victor Talking Machine Company, Livery Stable Blues and Dixieland Jass Band One-Step, on February 26,1917 and these titles were released as Victor 18255 in May 1917, the first issued jazz record. The bands recordings, first marketed as a novelty, were a surprise hit, musician Joe Jordan sued, since the One Step incorporated portions of his 1909 ragtime composition That Teasin Rag. The record labels subsequently were changed to Introducing That Teasin Rag by Joe Jordan, a court case dispute over the authorship of Livery Stable Blues resulted in the judge declaring the tune in the public domain. Numerous jazz bands were formed in the wake of the success of ODJB that copied and replicated its style, also bands were brought from Chicago and California in an attempts to join the jazz craze. Established musicians and bandleaders such as Wilbur Sweatman started billing their groups as jass or jazz bands, earl Fuller, bandleader at a competing New York venue, was ordered by management to form a jass band. In 1918, the song When You Hear That Dixieland Jazz Band Play by Shelton Brooks and it was a tribute to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, who were featured on the cover. Durante was very impressed with the band and invited them to play at a called the Alamo in Harlem where Jimmy played piano
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Livery Stable Blues
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Livery Stable Blues is a jazz composition copyrighted by Ray Lopez and Alcide Nunez in 1917. It was recorded by the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York City at its studio at 46 West 38th Street on the 12th floor – the top floor, the Original Dixieland Jass Band was a group of white musicians from New Orleans. The ODJB made test recordings for Columbia on January 30,1917, on February 26 the ODJB recorded Livery Stable Blues for the Victor label. Dixieland Jass Band One-Step was recorded in the same session, Victor executives quickly released the record, which became an instant hit. The record was a big hit, and was possibly the first popular recording to sell a million copies. It established jazz as popular music and spawned demand for small bands in New York and Chicago. Both sides of the record were originally labeled as compositions by members of the band, however, two other New Orleans musicians, Nunez and Lopez, beat the ODJB in registering a copyright on the tune. Alcide Nunez had been clarinetist with the ODJB until a few months earlier, trumpeter Ray Lopez had worked with most of the ODJB musicians in New Orleans, especially in the bands of Papa Jack Laine. The members of the ODJB published the piece copyrighted as their own composition under the alternative title Barnyard Blues, the two parties and their respective publishers sued each other. The case resulted in the judge declaring neither party had copyright over the work, that it was based on a pre-existing melody, the judge also expressed doubt that musicians unable to read or write music could be said to have composed anything. Meanwhile, a lawsuit arose from one of the strains of Dixieland Jass Band One-Step being almost identical to the 1909 Joe Jordan number That Teasin Rag. Later pressings of the record added Jordan as co-composer and he was awarded a share of the royalties, later pressings of Livery Stable Blues omitted the phrase Composed and played by from the original pressings. After Victors release became a hit, Columbia had the back to record again. The Original Dixieland Jass Band published the music for the composition under the alternate title of Barnyard Blues with Leo Feist in New York listing Nick LaRocca as the composer. The sheet music cover contained a reference to the Victor release of Livery Stable Blues,18255, Alcide Nunez and Ray Lopez published sheet music with Roger A. Graham in Chicago listing themselves as the composers, on their rival sheet music cover they refer to the same Victor release, Victor Record No.18255. In a second issue of the music, Marvin Lee added lyrics to the Nunez and Lopez version. Musically, Livery Stable Blues is a New Orleans style twelve-bar blues and it starts with a four-bar introduction, followed by three distinct themes played in succession, each repeated twice
30.
Nathaniel Shilkret
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Nathaniel Shilkret was an American composer, conductor, clarinetist, pianist, business executive, and music director. Shilkret was born in New York City to a family of Austrian immigrants. His father played a number of instruments, and made certain that Nat, older brother Lew Shilkret was a fine pianist, but also worked in the insurance industry. Younger brother Jack Shilkret had a career that paralleled Nathaniels career, he played clarinet and piano, recorded extensively, Shilkret was a child prodigy, touring the country with the New York Boys Orchestra from the ages of seven to thirteen as their clarinet soloist. He was also a rehearsal pianist for Walter Damrosch, playing for stars that included dancer Isadora Duncan and he joined the Foreign Department of the Victor Talking Machine Company around 1915, and soon was made manager of the department. In 1926 he became director of music for Victor. He made thousands of recordings, possibly more than anyone in recording history and his son Arthur estimated the sales of these records was of the order of 50 million copies. He was the conductor of choice for many of Victors innovative recordings, the premiere recording of George Gershwins symphonic poem An American in Paris, in 1929, was one of five conducted by Shilkret that eventually earned Grammy Awards. Between his conducting for records and for radio, virtually every musical star of the day performed under the baton of Nathaniel Shilkret and his orchestra members included Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Mike Mosiello and Del Staigers. George Gershwin, Jascha Heifetz, Mischa Elman and Andrés Segovia all played under his direction, the lists of popular singers and foreign artists that played under his direction are just as impressive. He composed and arranged thousands of pieces and he composed the theme song Lady Divine for the Academy Award winning film The Divine Lady in 1929. He also composed the theme song Some Sweet Day for the film Children of the Ritz in the same year and his Concerto for Trombone was premiered in 1945 by Tommy Dorsey, playing with the New York Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Leopold Stokowski. The piece was unavailable to the public from the mid-1950s until Scottish trombonist Bryan Free rescued it from anonymity in the beginning of the 21st century and it was re-premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Pops, under the direction of Skitch Henderson, with Jim Pugh as soloist. Since its revival, the Concerto for Trombone has been performed about sixty times in the United States, Canada, Shilkret left RCA Victor in mid-1935, but continued to record occasionally for the company. His last recording released on the Victor label was the American Banjo Album recorded in October 1946 and this album was reissued shortly after the Victor issue as one side of an LP under the Aztec label. Shilkret moved to Los Angeles in late 1935 and there contributed music scores and musical direction for a string of Hollywood films for RKO, Walter Lantz Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His films included Mary of Scotland, Swing Time, The Plough and the Stars and he also received an Oscar nomination for his work scoring the film version of Maxwell Andersons stage drama Winterset. Due to an abdominal operation for cancer removal, he did not conduct for most of 1941
31.
Microphone
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A microphone, colloquially nicknamed mic or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Several different types of microphone are in use, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a wave to an electrical signal. Microphones typically need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be recorded or reproduced, in order to speak to larger groups of people, a need arose to increase the volume of the human voice. The earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megaphones, some of the first examples, from fifth century BC Greece, were theater masks with horn-shaped mouth openings that acoustically amplified the voice of actors in amphitheatres. In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke was the first to experiment with an other than air with the invention of the lovers telephone made of stretched wire with a cup attached at each end. German inventor Johann Philipp Reis designed an early sound transmitter that used a strip attached to a vibrating membrane that would produce intermittent current. Better results were achieved with the transmitter design in Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bells telephone of 1876 – the diaphragm was attached to a conductive rod in an acid solution. These systems, however, gave a poor sound quality. The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the carbon microphone and this was independently developed by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, the carbon microphone is the direct prototype of todays microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries. Thomas Edison refined the carbon microphone into his carbon-button transmitter of 1886 and this microphone was employed at the first ever radio broadcast, a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. In 1916, E. C. Wente of Western Electric developed the next breakthrough with the first condenser microphone, in 1923, the first practical moving coil microphone was built. The Marconi Skykes or magnetophon, developed by Captain H. J. Round, was the standard for BBC studios in London and this was improved in 1930 by Alan Blumlein and Herbert Holman who released the HB1A and was the best standard of the day. Also in 1923, the microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F. Olson. Over the years these microphones were developed by companies, most notably RCA that made large advancements in pattern control. With television and film technology booming there was demand for high fidelity microphones, electro-Voice responded with their Academy Award-winning shotgun microphone in 1963. During the second half of 20th century development advanced quickly with the Shure Brothers bringing out the SM58, digital was pioneered by Milab in 1999 with the DM-1001. The latest research developments include the use of optics, lasers and interferometers
32.
Western Electric
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Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that served as the primary supplier to AT&T from 1881 to 1996. The company was responsible for technological innovations and seminal developments in industrial management. It also served as the agent for the member companies of the Bell System. In 1856, George Shawk purchased an engineering business in Cleveland. On December 31,1869, he partners with Enos M. Barton and, later the same year. In 1872 Barton, and Gray moved the business to Clinton Street, Chicago, Illinois, in 1875, Gray sold his interests to Western Union, including the caveat that he had filed against Alexander Graham Bells patent application for the telephone. Western Electric was the first company to join in a Japanese joint venture with foreign capital, in 1899, it invested in a 54% share of the Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Western Electrics representative in Japan was Walter Tenney Carleton, in 1901, Western Electric secretly purchased a controlling interest in a principal competitor, the Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company, but was later forced by a lawsuit to sell. On July 24,1915, employees of the Hawthorne Works boarded the SS Eastland in downtown Chicago for a company picnic, the ship rolled over at the dock and over 800 people died. In 1920, Alice Heacock Seidel was the first of Western Electrics female employees to be given permission to stay on after she had married and this set a precedent in the company, which previously had not allowed married women in their employ. Miss Heacock had worked for Western Electric for sixteen years before her marriage, if the women at the top were permitted to remain after marriage then all women would expect the same privilege. How far and how fast the policy was expanded is shown by the fact that a few years later women were given maternity leaves with no loss of time on their service records. In 1925, ITT purchased the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Brussels, Belgium, the company manufactured rotary system switching equipment under the Western Electric brand. Early on, Western Electric also managed an electrical equipment distribution business, Bell Telephone Laboratories was half-owned by Western Electric, the other half belonging to AT&T. Western Electric used various logos during its existence, starting in 1914 it used an image of AT&Ts statue Spirit of Communication. In 1915, Western Electric Manufacturing was incorporated in New York, New York, as an owned subsidiary of AT&T, under the name Western Electric Company. AT&T and Bell System companies were rumored to employ small armies of inspectors to check household line voltage levels to determine if non-leased phones were in use by consumers. Western Electric telephones were owned not by end customers but by the local Bell System telephone companies—all of which were subsidiaries of AT&T, each phone was leased from the phone company on a monthly basis by customers who generally paid for their phone as part of the recurring lease fees
33.
Victor Orthophonic Victrola
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The Victor Orthophonic Victrola, first demonstrated publicly in 1925, was the first consumer phonograph designed specifically to play electrically recorded discs. The combination was recognized instantly as a step forward in sound reproduction. Electrical recording was developed by Western Electric, although an electrical process was developed by Orlando R. Marsh. Western Electric demonstrated their process to record manufacturers, who were unwilling to adopt it because they realized it would make their entire existing record catalogs obsolete. However, parched revenues caused by the new medium of radio forced Victor and Columbia to give in, the design of the Orthophonic was informed by progress in telephony and transmission-line theory. It was developed by two Western Electric researchers, Joseph Maxfield and H. Harrison, the design was released by Victor as the Orthophonic. Its first public demonstration was front-page news in The New York Times, john Philip Sousa Gentleman, that is a band. This is the first time I have ever heard music with any soul to it produced by a talking machine. The new instrument is a feat of mathematics and physics and it is not the result of innumerable experiments, but was worked out on paper in advance of being built in the laboratory. The new machine has a range of from 100 to 5,000 frequencies, or five, the phonograph tone is eliminated by the new recording and reproducing process. A Wanamakers ad from October 31,1925, invited people to come to Wanamakers Salon of Music, blinking unbelieving eyes and promising you will never forget it if you live to be one hundred. The Orthophonics set the standard in sound reproduction, backed by advertising which rightly claimed that their sound was vastly superior to any other machine, they sold very well. As part of a publicity blitz, Victor designated November 2,1925 as Victor Day and, list prices ranged from $95 to $300 depending on cabinetry. $375 Victrolas with Radiola incorporated a five-tube Radiola tuned radio frequency receiver with orthophonic reproduction, dance music enthusiasts were not initially impressed, and indeed liked the tonal coloration of existing acoustic discs, it was classical music that sold the new device. The Orthophonic became recognized as a status symbol, Victor Talking Machine Company, Electrical recording era Youtube video, Victor Orthophonic Vicrola, Credenza model, playing No More Worryin by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra
34.
Billy Murray (singer)
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William Thomas Billy Murray was one of the most popular singers in the United States in the early decades of the 20th century. While he received star billing in Vaudeville, he was best known for his work in the recording studio. Billy Murray was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Patrick and Julia Murray, immigrants from County Kerry and his parents moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1882, where he grew up. He became fascinated with the theater and joined a vaudeville troupe in 1893. He also performed in minstrel shows early in his career, in 1897 Murray made his first recordings for Peter Bacigalupi, the owner of a phonograph company in San Francisco. As of 2010 none of Murrays Bacigalupi cylinder records are known to have survived, in 1903 he started recording regularly in the New York City and New Jersey area, when the nations major record companies as well as the Tin Pan Alley music industry were concentrated there. In 1906 he recorded the first of his duets with Ada Jones. He also performed with Aileen Stanley, the Haydn Quartet, the American Quartet, nicknamed The Denver Nightingale, Murray had a strong tenor voice with excellent enunciation and a more conversational delivery than common with bel canto singers of the era. On comic songs he often deliberately sang slightly flat, which he helped the comic effect. Although he often performed romantic numbers and ballads which sold well, his comedy, Murray was a devoted baseball fan, and he is said to have played with the New York Highlanders in exhibition games. He also supposedly sometimes called in sick to recording sessions in order to go to the ballpark, Murrays popularity faded as public taste changed and recording technology advanced, the rise of the electric microphone in the mid-1920s coincided with the era of the crooners. His hammering style, as he called it, essentially yelling the song into a recording horn, did not work in the electrical era. Though his singing style was less in demand, he continued to recording work. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the music from his days was considered nostalgic. He did voices for animated cartoons, especially the popular follow the bouncing ball sing-along cartoons, in 1929, Murray and Walter Scanlon provided the voices for the Fleischer short animation film Finding His Voice, produced by Western Electric. Murray made his last recordings for Beacon Records on February 11,1943 with Jewish dialect comedian Monroe Silver and he retired the next year to Freeport, Long Island, New York, because of heart problems. He died at nearby Jones Beach of an attack in 1954 at the age of 77. Murray had married three times, the first two ending in divorce and he was survived by his third wife, Madeleine, and is buried in the Cemetery of the Holy Rood in Westbury, New York
35.
Henry Burr
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Henry Burr was a Canadian singer, radio performer and producer. He was one of the first singers to make popular recordings and one of the most prolific recording artists of all time. A tenor, he performed as a soloist and in duets, trios and his most famous collaboration was with the Peerless Quartet. Born in the town of St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, Harry McClaskey was the son of a candy and tobacco store owner. His mother was the former Ida Connors and he was the youngest of four children and his vocal talents were recognized early and by the age of 5 he was performing publicly in St. Stephen. The family had moved to Saint John by this time, perhaps doubting that he could make a career in music, he later attended Mt. Allison Academy in Sackville, New Brunswick, and afterwards worked for his father. On April 14,1901, he appeared at the house in Saint John in his first notable concert with the Scottish soprano Jessie MacLachlan. On September 30,1901 he was discovered by the Metropolitan Opera baritone Giuseppe Campanari who was in Saint John to perform at the St. John Opera House, Campanari insisted that McClaskey go to New York for musical training. Emboldened by Campanaris endorsement, McClaskey ventured to New York in 1902 and he eventually rose to tenor soloist for the choir. His teachers included John Dennis Meehan and Kate Stella Burr, from whom he would adopt his name in her honor. It was around 1902 that he started to make recordings with Columbia Records and he arrived at a particularly opportune time for Columbia, as their star tenor, George J. Gaskin, was in the final years of his career. Burr started recording for Edison Records in November 1904 under the name Irving Gillette, disagreements with company executives resulted in his no longer recording for Edison after October 1914. He first recorded with Victor on January 4,1905, on April 7,1905 he recorded Egbert Van Alstynes In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree which proved to be popular. It was also recorded by Billy Murray the same year, Burr proved to be a successful artist, recording thousands of songs for various labels under various names. He would record with Leeds Talk-O-Phone and the American Record Company as well and his recordings also appear on International Record Company and department store labels such as Vim Records. In 1906, Burr joined the Columbia Male Quartet, which was recording for the Columbia Record Company and they were later renamed the Peerless Quartet when they moved to the Victor label. When Stanley died in 1910, Burr took over management of the group and it continued on as a popular recording and live group until 1928, when it disbanded. Burr was also a member of the Metropolitan Trio and the Manhattan Mixed Trio, in 1921, he contributed music to a summertime review called The Broadway Whirl
36.
Monroe Silver
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Monroe Silver was an American actor and singer who was also a comedian and monologist using a Jewish dialect-accent in his performances. For various record labels, he recorded 78rpm discs of parodies like Cohen on the Telephone, Joe Hayman first recorded the monologue Cohen on the Telephone in London in July 1913 for Regal Records and released in the U. S. by Columbia Records. Lee De Forest recorded Silver doing Cohen on the Telephone for the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, the film premiered as Monroe Silver, Famed Monologist with 17 other Phonofilm short films at the Rivoli Theater in New York City on 15 April 1923. This film is now in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress, from 1925 to 1935, Silver appeared on The Goodrich Silvertown Orchestra radio show. With Silvers Jewish/Yiddish accent, words like What are you doing, came out as Vot arrr you doink. Some performers like Barney Bernard and Louis Mann tried to imitate him in the early 1920s, while Silver himself adapted the monologues of British vaudevillian Joe Hayman, Silver made many recordings with Billy Murray, as an Irish and Jewish dialect combo Casey and Cohen. Their last recording together was on February 11,1943 for Beacon Records, a caricature of Silver appears in the Talkartoon Swing You Sinners. Jewish humor Corenthal, Michael G. Cohen on the Telephone, Jewish Humor and Dialect Silver, Monroe, Monroe Silvers Famous Cohen on the Telephone and Over One Hundred Original Jokes, Stories, Etc
37.
Rudy Wiedoeft
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Rudolph Rudy Cornelius Wiedoeft was a U. S. saxophonist. Born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of German immigrants, at a young age Wiedoeft started playing with his orchestra, first using a violin. He relocated to New York City and switched to saxophone, then still an unusual instrument and his main instrument was the C melody saxophone, a variety which was immensely popular from the 1910s until about 1930. He also played and recorded sometimes using E-flat alto and B-flat soprano saxophones as well and his style was noted for very rapid runs of well-articulated notes in between long legato phrases in a ragtime influenced style. The rapidly articulated notes were made possible by the techniques of double-tonguing and triple-tonguing, similar to those used by brass players. He was also known for his style of vibrato, which was very wide during the years of his playing. During his earlier years, Wiedoefts use of vibrato was quite spare, Wiedoeft employed several other sound effects, such as slap tonguing and laughing through his horn, and alongside his very distinguishable vibrato, became a part of his musical repertoire. While he incorporated elements of early jazz into his playing. Some of his compositions were successes, notably Valse Erica, Valse Llewellyn, Saxema, Saxophobia. He remained a popular entertainer into the 1920s and performed regularly by radio. He worked for a while in Rudy Vallees band, then for a while in France, from the mid-1930s on, he essentially stopped playing and was involved in several mining investments that were not successful. Rudy and his wife Mary Wiedoeft had a difficult relationship partially due to difficulties of maintaining their rather flamboyant lifestyle, during 1937, he was nearly killed when he was stabbed by his wife. The couple reconciled, however, and during the same year and he died in Flushing, New York during 1940 from cirrhosis of the liver. Before 1920, the Holton Instrument Company adapted features from existing production model saxophones, however, it is doubtful Wiedoeft actually performed with such instruments. Several of Wiedoefts siblings also became musicians, the most famous being West coast bandleader Herb Wiedoeft
38.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
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He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884, by Emperor Alexander III, although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a career in Russia at that time. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovskys training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy, Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. This resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the countrys national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovskys career, despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovskys life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has also been considered a major factor. Tchaikovskys sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, there is a debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause of death. While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed, some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. Others dismissed Tchaikovskys music as lacking in elevated thought, according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C, schonberg, and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a town in Vyatka Governorate in the Russian Empire. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines and his grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, served first as a physicians assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Viatka. His great-grandfather, a Ukrainian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, Tchaikovskys mother, Alexandra Andreyevna, was the second of Ilyas three wives,18 years her husbands junior and French on her fathers side. Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to an area of Russia also meant a need for entertainment. Of Tchaikovskys six siblings, he was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly, alexandras marriage to Lev Davydov would produce seven children and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult, especially during his years of wandering. One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, whom the composer would nickname Bob, in 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai. By the age of six, he had become fluent in French, Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovskys work from this period, which includes his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes
39.
Frederick Stock
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Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer, most famous for his 37-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Jülich, Germany, Stock was given his musical education by his army bandmaster father. After graduating from the conservatory in 1890, Stock joined the Municipal Orchestra of Cologne as a violinist, in 1895, Stock met with Theodore Thomas, founder and first music director of the then fledgling Chicago Symphony Orchestra, who was to have a decisive impact on his future. Thomas, who was then visiting Germany in search of recruits for his new Chicago orchestra, auditioned Stock, Thomas soon realized, however, that his new violist was also a very talented conductor and, in 1899, Stock was promoted to assistant conductor. After Thomas death on January 4,1905, Stock succeeded him as music director and that year, he wrote a symphonic poem Eines Menschenlebens Morgen, Mittag und Abend, dedicated to Theodore Thomas and the Members of the Chicago Orchestra. The work was first performed on April 7 and 8,1905, the orchestras board of trustees had first approached Hans Richter, Felix Weingartner and Felix Mottl to succeed Thomas. But the boards executive committee met on April 11,1905, trustees voted that the Orchestra should now be known as The Theodore Thomas Orchestra. Under Stocks direction, the Chicago Symphony became one of Americas top orchestras,21 was commissioned for the orchestras 50th anniversary, Josef Suk, William Walton, Arthur Benjamin, George Enescu, and many others. But Stocks most memorable recordings were of Romantic repertory by Schubert, Schumann, Weber, Goldmark, Stocks 37-year tenure as head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was surpassed in America only by Eugene Ormandys lengthy directorship of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soon after Stocks death in Chicago on 20 October 1942, Désiré Defauw was chosen as his successor and he remained at the CSO during Defauws tenure, and was a mentor of Chicago composer Leon Stein
40.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, based in Chicago, was formed by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The Symphony makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure in 2010, the CSO is one of five American orchestras commonly referred to as the Big Five. Since Thomas, the orchestra has had ten music directors, including Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, from 2010 to the present, the incumbent conductor is Riccardo Muti. In 1890 Charles Norman Fay, a Chicago businessman, invited Theodore Thomas to establish an orchestra in Chicago, under the name Chicago Orchestra, the orchestra played its first concert October 16,1891 at the Auditorium Theater. It is one of the oldest orchestras in the United States, along with the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Hall, now a component of the Symphony Center complex, was designed by Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham and completed in 1904. Maestro Thomas served as director for thirteen years until his death shortly after the orchestras newly built residence was dedicated December 14,1904. The orchestra was renamed Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1905 and today, in 1905, Frederick Stock became music director, a post he held until his death in 1942. The orchestra was renamed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1913, subsequent music directors have included Désiré Defauw, Artur Rodziński, Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner, Jean Martinon, Georg Solti, and Daniel Barenboim. His contract has been renewed for five years, through the 2020 season. Many of these guests have also recorded with the orchestra, carlos Kleiber made his only symphonic guest appearances in America with the CSO, in October 1978 and June 1983. The three principal guest conductors of the orchestra have been Carlo Maria Giulini, Claudio Abbado, the CSO holds an annual fundraiser, originally known as the Chicago Symphony Marathon, more recently as Radiothon and Symphonython, in conjunction with Chicago radio station WFMT. As part of the event, from 1986 through 2008, the released tracks from their broadcast archives on double LP/CD collections. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra maintains a home at Ravinia in Highland Park. The CSO helped to inaugurate the first season of the Ravinia Festival in August 1936 and has been in residence at the Festival every summer since, as of 2005, James Conlon holds the title of Ravinia music director. The Chicago Symphony has amassed an extensive discography, recordings by the CSO have earned 62 Grammy Awards from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. These include several Classical Album of the Year awards, awards in Best Classical Performance in vocal soloist, choral, instrumental, engineering and orchestral categories. On May 1,1916, Frederick Stock and the orchestra recorded the Wedding March from Felix Mendelssohns music to A Midsummer Nights Dream for what was known as the Columbia Graphophone Company
41.
San Francisco Symphony Orchestra
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The San Francisco Symphony, founded in 1911, is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in the Citys Hayes Valley neighborhood, the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization. Its current music director is Michael Tilson Thomas, who has held the position since September 1995, among various awards and honors for the orchestra are an Emmy Award and 15 Grammy Awards in the past 25 years. The orchestras first concerts were led by conductor composer Henry Hadley, there were sixty musicians in the Orchestra at the beginning of their first season. The first concert included music by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, there were thirteen concerts in the 1911–1912 season, five of which were popular music. Hertz helped to refine the orchestra and arranged for the Victor Talking Machine Company to record it at their new studio in Oakland in early 1925. Hertz also led the orchestra during a number of broadcasts, including on the The Standard Hour. The series began in 1926 when the orchestra faced bankruptcy, Standard Oil of California paid the orchestras debts, the first broadcast aired on the NBC Pacific Network, on October 24,1926. and the broadcasts continued for more than 30 years. After Hertzs retirement in 1930, the orchestra was led by two conductors, Basil Cameron and Issay Dobrowen, the French maestro Pierre Monteux, who had conducted the world premiere of Igor Stravinskys The Rite of Spring, was hired to restore the orchestra. Monteux succeeded to the point where NBC began broadcasting some of its concerts, in 1949, Monteux invited Arthur Fiedler to lead summer pops concerts in the Civic Auditorium. Fiedler also conducted the orchestra at concerts in Sigmund Stern Grove in San Francisco. Fiedlers relationship with the orchestra continued until the mid-1970s, stokowski made a series of RCA Victor recordings with the orchestra in 1952 and 1953. In 1954 the board hired the young Spanish maestro Enrique Jordá as music director, surviving eyewitness and newspaper accounts describe him as having youthful enthusiasm, energy, and charm. Jordá sometimes conducted so vigorously that his baton flew from his hand, szells comments, along with growing dissatisfaction among musicians and the public, led the symphony board to dismiss Jordá. In the fall of 1963, the Austrian conductor Josef Krips became music director and he quickly became known as a benevolent autocrat, and would not tolerate sloppy playing. He soon began to refine the performance of the musicians, particularly of the standard German-Austrian repertoire. One of his innovations was a tradition on New Years Eve, A Night in Old Vienna. Similar concerts continued into the 2000s, though the format has changed in recent years, Krips would not make recordings with the orchestra, insisting they werent ready
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Alfred Hertz
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Alfred Hertz was a German conductor. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, as a child, he contracted infantile paralysis and walked with a cane after that. Hertz first came to prominence conducting Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, some of the performances he conducted were experimentally recorded by the Mets librarian Lionel Mapleson on what are now known as the Mapleson Cylinders and later issued on LP. He first came to San Francisco as a conductor of the Metropolitan Opera during its 1906 tour and was present when the city was devastated by earthquake, in 1913 he conducted the Berlin Philharmonics first recording session, in excerpts from Parsifal. He later became director of the San Francisco Symphony, a post he held from 1915 to 1930, receiving praise. Longtime San Francisco violinist David Schneider noted, in his history of the orchestra, Hertz led the San Francisco Symphonys first recordings, for the Victor Talking Machine Company, released from 1925 to 1930. The recordings have been remastered and were issued for the first time on CD by Pristine Classical. Hertz also conducted the orchestra in its first radio broadcasts, beginning in 1926, after 1930, Hertz guest conducted the orchestra, including The Standard Hour radio broadcasts on NBC. Hertz spent much of life in Berkeley, California, but died in San Francisco. Writes Roussel, No one who attended that season would ever forget the visit of its conductor, or the things he did with the orchestra
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Serge Koussevitzky
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Serge Alexandrovich Koussevitzky was a Russian-born conductor, composer and double-bassist, known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. Koussevitzky was born into a Jewish family of musicians in Vyshny Volochyok, Tver Governorate, about 250 km northwest of Moscow. His parents taught him violin, cello, and piano, at the age of fourteen he received a scholarship to the Musico-Dramatic Institute of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, where he studied double bass with Rambusek and music theory. He excelled at the bass, joining the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra at the age of twenty, in 1894, in 1902 he married the dancer Nadezhda Galat. The same year, with Reinhold Glières help, he wrote a concerto for the double bass. In 1905, Koussevitzky divorced Nadezhda and married Natalie Ushkova, the daughter of a wealthy tea merchant. He soon resigned from the Bolshoi, and the moved to Berlin. The concert included Sergei Rachmaninoffs Piano Concerto No,2, with the composer at the piano. Among the composers published by Koussevitzky were Rachmaninoff, Alexander Scriabin, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, and Nikolai Medtner. During the period 1909 to 1920 he continued to perform as soloist in Europe, and in Russia he and his orchestra toured towns along the Volga River by riverboat in 1910,1912, the programs included many new works. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, he accepted a position as conductor of the newly named State Philharmonic Orchestra of Petrograd, in 1920, he left the Soviet Union for Berlin and Paris. In Paris he organized the Concerts Koussevitzky, presenting new works by Prokofiev, Stravinsky, in 1924 he took a post in the United States, replacing Pierre Monteux as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. However, he continued to return to Paris in the summers to conduct his Concerts Koussevitzky until 1929, in 1941 he and his wife became United States citizens. Koussevitzkys appointment as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra was the beginning of an era for the ensemble that would continue until 1949. Over that 25-year period, he built the ensembles reputation into that of a leading American orchestra, in the early 1940s, he discovered a young tenor named Alfred Cocozza, and provided him with a scholarship to attend Tanglewood. With the Boston Symphony he made recordings, most of which were well regarded by critics. His students and protégés included Leonard Bernstein, Eleazar de Carvalho, Samuel Adler, Bernstein once received a pair of cufflinks from Koussevitzky as a gift, and thereafter wore them at every concert he conducted. Koussevitzkys second wife Natalie died in 1942, and he created the Koussevitzky Music Foundations in her honor, in late 1947, he married Olga Naumova, Natalies niece
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Boston Symphony Orchestra
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The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the Big Five, founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Bostons Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood. Andris Nelsons is the current music director of the BSO, Bernard Haitink currently holds the title of conductor emeritus of the BSO, and Seiji Ozawa has the title of BSO music director laureate. The BSO was founded in 1881 by Henry Lee Higginson and its first conductor was George Henschel, who was a noted baritone as well as conductor, and a close friend of Johannes Brahms. Wilhelm Gericke served twice, from 1884 to 1889 and again from 1898 to 1906, according to Joseph Horowitzs review of correspondence, Higginson considered 25 candidates to replace Gericke after receiving notice in 1905. He decided not to offer the position to Gustav Mahler, Fritz Steinbach and he was conductor until 1908 and again from 1912 to 1918. The music director 1908–12 was Max Fiedler and he conducted the premiere of Ignacy Jan Paderewskis Symphony in B minor Polonia in 1909. He vowed never to return, and conducted only in Europe. The BSOs next two titled conductors were French, Henri Rabaud, who took over from Muck for a season, the orchestras reputation increased during the music directorship of Serge Koussevitzky. One million radio listeners tuned in when Koussevitzky and the orchestra were the first to perform a concert for radio broadcast. Those network radio broadcasts ran from 1926 through 1951, and again from 1954 through 1956, the orchestra continues to make regular live radio broadcasts to the present day. The Boston Symphony has been involved with Bostons WGBH Radio as an outlet for its concerts. They also gave the premiere of Béla Bartóks Concerto for Orchestra, other BSO commissions have included John Coriglianos Symphony No.2 for the 100th anniversary of Symphony Hall. Hans Werner Henze dedicated his Eighth Symphony to the orchestra, although Koussevitsky recommended his protégé Leonard Bernstein to be his successor after he retired in 1949, the BSO awarded the position to the Alsatian maestro Charles Munch. Munch had made his Boston conducting debut in 1946 and he led orchestra on its first overseas tour, and also produced their first stereo recording in February 1954 for RCA Victor. In 1952, Munch appointed the first woman to hold a chair in a major U. S. orchestra, flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer. Erich Leinsdorf became music director in 1962 and held the post until 1969, William Steinberg was then music director from 1969 to 1972. Steinberg was ill and ailing according to composer/author Jan Swafford, the committee eventually chose Seiji Ozawa, who became Music Director in 1973 and held the post until 2002, the longest tenure of any Boston Symphony conductor
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New York Philharmonic
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It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly referred to as the Big Five. The Philharmonics home is David Geffen Hall, known as Avery Fisher Hall until September 2015, founded in 1842, the orchestra is one of the oldest musical institutions in the United States and the oldest of the Big Five orchestras. Its record-setting 14, 000th concert was given in December 2004, the New York Philharmonic was founded in 1842 by the American conductor Ureli Corelli Hill, with the aid of the Irish composer William Vincent Wallace. The orchestra was called the Philharmonic Society of New York. It was the third Philharmonic on American soil since 1799, and had as its intended purpose, the first concert of the Philharmonic Society took place on December 7,1842 in the Apollo Rooms on lower Broadway before an audience of 600. The concert opened with Beethovens Symphony No, the musicians operated as a cooperative society, deciding by a majority vote such issues as who would become a member, which music would be performed and who among them would conduct. At the end of the season, the players would divide any proceeds among themselves, after only a dozen public performances and barely four years old, the Philharmonic organized a concert to raise funds to build a new music hall. The centerpiece was the American premiere of Beethovens Symphony No,9, to take place at Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan. About 400 instrumental and vocal performers gathered for this premiere, which was conducted by George Loder, the chorals were translated into what would be the first English performance anywhere in the world. However, with the expensive US$2.00 ticket price and a war rally uptown, the audience was kept away. Although judged by some as an odd work with all those singers kept at bay until the end, during the Philharmonics first seven seasons, seven musicians alternated the conducting duties. In addition to Hill, Timm and Étienne, these were William Alpers, George Loder, Louis Wiegers and this changed in 1849 when Theodore Eisfeld was installed as sole conductor for the season. Eisfeld, later along with Carl Bergmann, would be the conductor until 1865 and that year Eisfeld returned to Europe, and Bergmann continued to conduct the Society until his death in 1876. Leopold Damrosch, Franz Liszts former concertmaster at Weimar, served as conductor of the Philharmonic for the 1876/77 season, but failing to win support from the Philharmonics public, he left to create the rival Symphony Society of New York in 1878. Upon his death in 1885, his 23-year-old son Walter took over, Carnegie Hall would remain the orchestras home until 1962. The Philharmonic in 1877 was in financial condition, caused by the paltry income from five concerts in the 1876/77 season that brought in an average of only $168 per concert. At first the Philharmonics suggestion offended Thomas because he was unwilling to disband his own orchestra, because of the desperate financial circumstances, the Philharmonic offered Theodore Thomas the conductorship without conditions, and he began conducting the orchestra in the autumn of 1877. He left in 1891 to found the Chicago Symphony, taking thirteen Philharmonic musicians with him, another celebrated conductor, Anton Seidl, followed Thomas on the Philharmonic podium, serving until 1898
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