By the ungracious condescension of His Grouch the Archgrump

Beethoven Piano Trio in Bb Op.97 ‘Archduke’
Loveridge-Martin-Hooton Trio
rec. 1958/59?
World Record Club T[P] 36

Grumble. Mumble. Wumble! Mutter. Splutter. Whinge. Grizzle. Grouse. Kvetch. Rouspète. Râle.

On the other hand, what a nice chap who sold me this via eBay. Very happy. Thank you.

The sleeve says ‘T 36’ but the labels say ‘TP 36’ – anyone know why? The labels also say, rather charmingly, ‘First issued 1939’! As it happens, I have seen the WRC supplement for June-July 1959 which lists this LP. I don’t know of a stereo issue; the Club was already putting out stereo records but only of orchestral music, as far as I can make out.

Iris Loveridge is quite well represented on CD, by a 3-CD set of Bax’s piano music and a mixed recital of Moeran and Gordon Jacob, all on Lyrita. There’s an excellent article about her by Rob Barnett on Musicweb International. Loveridge also made other LPs and 78s.

Florence Hooton currently has just one CD to her name, also on Lyrita, of ’cello music by Bax and Jacob. She appears on many 78s, in different trios (one with Frederick Grinke) and duos (one with Gerald Moore). On CHARM, you can hear her playing Sammartini and – wait for it – Webern’s String Trio! (Unfortunately, she has been spelled ‘Hooteon’ in CHARM’s metadata for the Webern.) I found a short obituary in a music journal, which told me that she died aged 75 in 1988, a highly respected teacher, and had studied with Emanuel Feuermann.

In 1938 Hooton married the Canadian-born violinist David Martin, who is written up by Giles Bryant in the wonderfully useful Canadian Encyclopedia. From that, I learn that Martin studied with Kathleen Parlow, led the Philharmonic String Trio and after the War founded his own String Quartet and Piano Trio. Martin made 78s and LPs with all groups, as well as with the Boyd Neel String Orchestra; a fair number have been reissued on CD.

I really like this record. The sound is a little iffy: at the start the piano is too recessed and almost sounds like a Graf or Beethoven’s own Broadwood. But I love the sound Loveridge gets from it: it has a gentle, plummy quality which makes me suspect it’s an old-fashioned, less famous make, possibly British? The recorded balance is not ideal (not easy, recording piano trios, I know) and, on my otherwise nice copy of this LP, there is distortion on some peaks at the end.

This is excellent music-making of the second rank, the kind of thing the self-appointed arbiters (arbiter?) of taste at RMCR don’t want you to hear, still less enjoy. By ‘second rank’, I only mean in comparison to international stars. The performance really comes into its own in the slow movement, where Loveridge achieves a serene, generous calm. After a well managed transition, the finale is unruffled but purposeful, rather than hectic. Yet there is power in reserve.

It’s also the kind of performance, I imagine, one might have heard at, say, the South Place Sunday Concerts in the 1950s. I recently went to the Concerts’ home for many decades, the Conway Hall, for the first time, I’m ashamed to say, to hear Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ and two other piano trios played with passionate commitment by a young ensemble led by a friend, the gifted and versatile Australian violinist Madeleine Easton.

The ‘Ghost’ slightly showed up its neighbours, even Mendelssohn’s Op.66. And with the ‘Archduke’, we’re in yet another league. What a work. This is what it’s all about, eh? In a sense, I’m only here because of the ‘Archduke’. In 1982, helping to decorate my parents’ house during the university summer holidays, I listened non-stop to BBC Radio Three and, one day, while I was blow-torching paint from a door frame or a skirting board (or was I sand-papering stair balusters?), someone put on the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals version.

Bingo. Damascus. That was the single experience which opened my ears to the pleasure – not only the value and the interest, the sheer pleasure – of historical recordings. Soon after, I went to the Music Discount Centre, newly opened in Dean Street, and bought the Opal LP transfer. And the rest is grumpiness.

Because I didn’t want to separate the last two movements, only three mono, fully tagged FLACs, in a .rar file, here.

Snarl. Gnash. Fume. Grind. Introspect! Curse. Blast. Seethe…

De la grotte de Grumpy… à Versailles

Fastes et divertissements de Versailles
Volume V: l’instrument soliste
Louis Marchand, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault
Pièces de clavecin
Marcelle Charbonnier (harpsichord)
rec. March 1955, Paris
Philips L1L 0011

Yes, I’ve been grumpier than usual. I’m grumpy pretty much all day, every day. What with the mess in the Cave, the hoohah about internet file-sharing, the crass criminality of some sharers, the bullying obstructionism of some record companies who seem hell-bent on scuppering this wonderful distribution channel, the poisonous pettiness of certain posters on RMCR, the sudden surge of cowboy sellers (I’ve recently bought several shamefully mis-described second-hand CDs), I’m just GRUMPY!

And I’m barely progressing with my work.

Never mind, here’s a lovely divertissement from what I should be doing. This LP contains all the published harpsichord music of these composers. (A big manuscript with more Marchand has since turned up.) It’s the last in a lovely series of luxuriously presented gatefold albums surveying the pomp and pleasures of Versailles, issued ‘under the patronage of the Secretariat of State for Arts and Letters’. Isn’t the cover handsome, illegible colour scheme and all? I just found this very good copy; now I’m missing only Vol.IV, ‘La musique et l’Eglise’.

Vol.I, ‘La musique et les salons’, with a violin concerto by Leclair and sonatas by Francoeur and Blavet, played by Charles Cyroulnik with Charbonnier and Maurice Hewitt and his Chamber Orchestra, has been transferred to CD by the excellent French label Forgotten Records. Otherwise I’d have done it. You can never have too much of all of these three composers.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about Marcelle Charbonnier, except that I like her playing very much. In her hands, the Chacone [sic] of Marchand’s first book is especially majestic and moving. Please feel free to point me to a biography or obituary. And to tell me what she was playing on – the LP doesn’t say but, again, I like it. I’ve no idea why the first book was mastered louder than the second; I’ve left the relative levels as they were.

Here are the LP’s title listings and English sleeve notes:

LOUIS MARCHAND 1669-1732

PIÈCES POUR CLAVECIN
LIVRE PREMIER (1702)
Prélude • Allemande • Premiere Courante • Deuxième Courante • Sarabande • Gigue • Chacone • Gavotte en rondeau • Menuet

LIVRE SECOND (1703)
Prélude • Allemande • Courante • Sarabande • Gigue • Gavotte • Menuet • Menuet en rondeau

‘The most illustrious keyboard virtuoso of his day, Louis Marchand was born in Lyons, France in 1669. At the age of fourteen, he was already a more accomplished musician than his father, a famous organist in Lyons. After working in Nevers and Auxerre, he came to Paris in 1689 and was appointed organist at the College des Jésuites (now the Lycée Louis-le-Grand) on the Rue Saint-Jacques. His reputation was so great that he was asked to become the organist at three others [sic, bless] churches. Finally, in 1706 he was called to the Royal Chapel at Versailles.

‘In 1714, after some unpleasantness with his wife, who had his salary confiscated [so unlike Madame Grumpy!], he left France for a concert-tour in Germany. He met Bach in Dresden, but did not dare compete with him. Bach, however, esteemed Marchand highly and made copies of some of his works.

‘He returned to Paris in 1716 and became organist at the Chapelle des Cordeliers. He remained at this post until his death in 1732 although he never accepted pay for his work there, living entirely on the proceeds of his concerts and his teaching activities.

‘In 1702 and 1703 he had published his harpsichord pieces, which show some influence of Chambonnières. They are brilliantly and elegantly written, but perhaps Marchand used them merely as frameworks for his remarkable improvisations.’

(Each book consists of a single suite; the LP’s German text says the first is in D, the second in C. Modern reference works seem to date them both to 1702.)

LOUIS-NICOLAS CLÉRAMBAULT
1679-1749

PIÈCES POUR CLAVECIN
SUITE EN UT MAJEUR (1704)
Prélude • Allemande • Courante • Première sarabande •
Deuxième sarabande • Gavotte • Gigue • Premier menuet• Deuxième menuet

SUITE EN UT MINEUR (1710?)
Prélude • Allemande • Courante • Sarabande • Gigue

“The famous Clérambault found melodies and expressions which were completely new and which cause him to be considered the one, true model.” Thus one of Clérambault's contemporaries judged this composer, while another made these comments: “Clérambault's health was not strong, but he was lively and playful in character. His talent was not obscured by caprice. He was a good father, a good husband, a good friend.”

‘Clérambault, whose father was one of the King's Twenty-Four Violins, had an early start in music. He was made organist first at Saint Jacques in Paris and, later, simultaneously at Saint-Louis de Saint-Cyr and Saint-Sulpice, as well “Surintendant” for Madame de Maintenon.

‘Besides a book of pieces for harpsichord, he left one for organ, some French cantatas, and some sonatas which show the influence of Corelli, whose music was so fashionable in the last decades of the seventeenth century.

‘The two Harpsichord Suites recorded here are subtly charming and show the great mastery attained by their composer. The Preludes are still in the style of notation used by Louis Couperin (that is, the[re] are no definite time-values assigned to the notes). It is interesting that in those pieces showing the most advanced stylization of the original dance-forms, Clérambault made frequent use of odd-numbered, unsymmetrical periods, as for example in the two Allemandes, the Courantes, and the Gigue of the Second Suite.’

(Again, modern sources date Clérambault’s Premier livre de pièces de clavecin to 1704 – no idea why Philips put 1710, which is the date of his Livre d’orgue. You can download the original 1704 edition from IMSLP. The second suite is oddly laid out.)

Each Suite is a single, fully-tagged mono FLAC file. All four are wrapped up in a single .rar archive, which you can download here.

I’ve also been grumpy because I bought some interesting old baroque LPs from a dealer in the US, some of which turned out to be fake stereo and others to be too dirty even for Grumpy, so I won’t foist them on you. I’m on the hunt for the mono originals. But there is other good stuff lying around here, which I hope to share with you (I even know where it is, since I had a bit of a tidy).

This is partly for a harpsichordist friend. No idea if he’ll like it.

The Kindness of Strangers, Part 10

Miriam Escofet, Olive Tree II, 2009
gouache on paper, 50 x 60 cm

Actually, not strangers but the parents of my dear friend, the artist Miriam Escofet. Kindness, though, definitely: recently Mr. and Mrs. Escofet gave me several old LPs they have no space for. The very first one I listened to when I got home pleased me so  much, I’m sharing it here.

Johann Kuhnau Musical Representation
of some Biblical Stories (1700) –
I ‘The Combat Between David and Goliath’,
IV ‘Hezekiah Mortally Ill and Restored to Health’,
III ‘The Marriage of Jacob’

Fritz Neumeyer (harpsichord),
Fritz Uhlenbruch (narrator)
Archiv APM 14 026, rec. 15 & 16-Oct-53

The cover is printed in Spanish because Mr. Escofet bought the LP in his native Catalunya, before he and his family left for Britain in the late 1970s. I found his LP collection most interesting, ranging from medieval music (I took quite a bit) to jazz (sorry, not my thing). His daughter Miriam remembers the house always being filled with interesting and enchanting sounds – a bit like the Cave, perhaps, only less dark, tidier and sweeter-smelling, I’m sure.

José Escofet, Harvest [detail], 1997
oil on canvas on panel, 96 x 122 cm

One reason I decided to share this Kuhnau LP is that, even though I like his vocal concertos, I’ve never enjoyed the Biblical Sonatas until now – if you’ve had the same difficulty, I hope this helps! I dutifully listened again to the better-known versions by Gustav Leonhardt, which are about as much fun as Sunday with Edmund Gosse’s father. Leonhardt reads, as far as I can tell, all of Kuhnau’s interminable narration – whatever his other talents, this ain’t his Fach (or indeed his native language). Uhlenbruch seems to have been a musicologist rather than an actor but, wisely, he cuts to the chase; and I like his archaic German and odd phonology (didn’t they pronounce umlauts in 1700?). Leonhardt occasionally speaks over Kuhnau’s music: bad, bad idea. And his narration is recorded somewhat off-mic, in a slightly reverberant acoustic, which robs it of immediacy and involvement.

Leonhardt plays the Fourth Sonata, about Hezekiah’s illness, on an organ, which goes well with Kuhnau’s use of the ‘Passion’ chorale, here titled ‘Ach Herr, mich armen Sünder’. He also chooses the organ for the First Sonata, about David and Goliath; but it’s a rather polite one and Neumeyer’s beefy but colourful Neupert harpsichord blows it away, especially at the start, when Kuhnau depicts Goliath’s blustering challenges to the Israelites (‘pochen und trotzen’).  A review of the Archiv disc in the November 1963 Gramophone is mostly and rightly favourable. It also states that it had been available for some time, on another label – that last bit seems unlikely, but maybe someone can confirm or scotch this?

The LP itself was in pretty good condition, despite some deposits of gunge from the cheapo polythene inner which seems to have been standard with Spanish LPs; I’ve only done the usual Brian Davies. I had to go easy on the narration – speech does not take aggressive de-clicking well – and what sounds like some groove-wear remains. There was no index card in the sleeve, so I can’t reproduce the texts, which would probably have been in Spanish anyway. I’m sure you can find them somewhere on the web? The stories are from I Samuel 17:1-58 & 18:1-8; II Kings 20:1-19 plus Isaiah 38:1-22; and Genesis 19. Apparently.

Three mono FLAC files, fully tagged, in a .rar file here.

José Escofet, Forbidden Fruit [detail], 2009
oil on canvas, 85 x 74 cm

José Escofet and his daughter Miriam are both artists and they have kindly allowed me to post some of their work here. There is more on their websites, which I urge you to visit (links above). They draw on the same kind of long, deep tradition, rich in memory and meaning, to which Kuhnau contributed. I am lucky to know them and Mrs. Escofet, too, who also trained as an artist and is no less remarkable and generous than the rest of her family.

Miriam Escofet, José Escofet, 2007
oil on canvas on board,  50 x 40 cm
Selected for the BP Portrait Award 2007 exhibition
at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Screwier than Archimedes

Anon. and Sermisy arr. Attaingnant and Gervaise
Chambonnières, Daquin, Grigny,
Dandrieu, Rameau, Balbastre
Claude Jean Chiasson
(harpsichord by Chiasson, after classical models)
Lyrichord LL 19 (recorded 1951?, New York?)

‘Displacement!’ - just to remember the word, I had to get out of the Cave and go to the supermarket, that’s how addle-pated I am these days. I should have been working on the thesis – instead, I spent much of today cleaning up this beautifully preserved 1951 LP and trying to identify the contents.

I haven’t succeeded in all cases. Except for ‘Tant que vivray’, which any fule kno is by Sermisy, I didn’t try to pin down the pieces arranged by Attaingnant and Gervaise, as they published so many. Though I’m not sure which of Attaingnant’s three versions of Sermisy’s chanson this is. Nor could I place Daquin’s La Mélodieuse, as I didn’t find a listing of his many pièces de clavecin. If you can help, that would be grand. The first Gervaise piece should be easy, it’s so familiar. Everything else I managed to nail. Quite proud of finding the Dialogue by Grigny, one of two organ pieces here – the other is Balbastre’s noël ‘Joseph est bien marié’.

This is not the sort of harpsichord recital you could buy nowadays – far too eclectic and wide-ranging. Here’s what Chiasson himself wrote on the sleeve:

‘The reign of the harpsichord coincides with the period of France as a great nation, and of Paris as the artistic center of Europe [so it went south after 1791! Attaboy!]. With the advent of François I to the throne in 1515, the Renaissance of the arts in France was in full swing. Paris in the Sixteenth Century became the world center of music printing and publishing, ranking well above Lyons, Amsterdam and Nuremberg. The main publishers of music were Ballard, Le Roy and Atteignant, who between the years 1530 and 1549 produced many beautifully designed volumes of chansons, madrigals, instrumental pieces and keyboard works.

‘From the point of view of the performing artist, great research is necessary in the study of the old "Danseries" before determining the correct notes to be played, not to mention the problems of phrasing, tempo, and the general spirit of these little masterpieces. Sharps and flats are frequently missing, and enormous care must go into deciding where they should be added. The cold matter of the mere printed notes must be warmed, infused with breath, life and color, by the individual interpreter. It is precisely this open, free quality which makes this music such a joy to prepare.

‘It would be impossible in a single program to give a comprehensive idea of the rich mine of harpsichord music bequeathed to us by the great composers of three centuries. The program-builder is confronted with such a bewildering array of masterpieces, such a diversity of styles, that to select a general group to fit into the time limits of an LP recording is a difficult matter indeed. The present program was designed to cover the ground in as balanced a way as possible.’

Chiasson did a fine job, recording several pieces which are still not often heard today. One thing I specially like is that he segues many of the pieces, even those by different composers, as if playing this programme through in one sweep (maybe he did?), so that I had to start some tracks right up against the music and leave other items yoked together.

I also like his gutsy gusto in the Renaissance danseries, though maybe ‘Tant que vivray’ lacks a little lyricism. He’s pensive in the lovely Chaconne by Chambonnières, grand in Rameau’s unmeasured Prélude in a minor and tender in some of the more delicate, quintessentially French rondeaux (again, Chambonnières’ is a winner). Occasionally he’s a little rhythmically routine and four-square, a common trait in the age of the ‘sewing-machine’ style; and trills can be a tad shapeless. But there are breath, life and color here aplenty.

Here’s what the sleeve said about Chiasson: ‘Pianist, organist, harpsichordist and scholar, Claude Jean Chiasson has devoted many years to the interpretation of early keyboard music, especially of France. In addition to his multiple musical activities, which include extensive concert tours, Mr. Chiasson has for the past twenty years been active in the reconstruction of the harpsichord, refining and modifying his designs after the great school of the Ruckers, Couchet and Taskin. The instrument used for this recording represents the finest example to come from his workshop. At one time director of the Sunday Concerts for the Fine Arts Museum in Boston, Mr. Chiasson now makes his home in New York City and divides his time between concert tours and the building of harpsichords.’

Yes, the 1950s weren’t all Cage and Kerouac.

The recording is a little bright and brash. I’ve done nothing beyond the usual ClickRepair (nowadays, I also do basic low-frequency denoising) and some detailed retouching.

Thirteen mono, fully-tagged FLACs in a .rar file here.

It could have been worse – I could have spent the time moving LPs from one stalagmite to another. Or washing pants.

Uninspired?

Mozart Piano Concerto in A K.414
Heinz Scholz (fortepiano by Anton Walter, c.1780,
from Mozart’s Birthplace, Salzburg)
Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Bernhard Paumgartner
Archiv 13 021 (rec. 1-2 September 1952,
Festspielhaus, Salzburg)

The reviewers were right, for once – this is a somewhat routine interpretation (see reviews in The Gramophone of  this issue and reissue, recoupled with Sonata K.311, see earlier Grumpy-post). Though they preferred it to Neumeyer’s Sonata, which I don’t.

But most emphatically not a routine production! It’s surely the first recording of a Mozart concerto on a period instrument – and not just any period instrument but Mozart’s own Walter, from the Birthplace museum in Salzburg. You’ll find plenty about the instrument on the web. According to this 10-inch disc’s ‘archive card’, the poor old dear was  hauled onto the stage of the Festspielhaus for this recording! The sound is better, I feel, than the second Gramophone review makes out; I wonder how much ‘help’ they gave the fortepiano, which is pretty quiet.

Note that the better-known (and, frankly, better) Haydn Society recording of K.453 in G by Ralph Kirkpatrick and the Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra under Alexander Schneider, though earlier (rec. March 1951, New York, I gather), was made on a modern instrument built by Challis. You can hear that recording by courtesy of fellow-blogger Lawrence Austin or via the British Library’s Archival Sound Recordings site.

The next recording of K.414 on a period instrument was only in 1969, by Jörg Demus and the Collegium Aureum (issued in the UK and reviewed in 1975), an LP that has not been reissued, I believe.

So who was Heinz Scholz? As far as I can ascertain this was his only recording. He did some fingering for Schott’s ‘Wiener Urtext’ edition of the Sonatas. It’s not an uncommon name but was/is he related to keyboard-builder and restorer Martin Scholz, who worked in Germany and Switzerland?

Anyway, it can’t have been easy to record on the Walter; as I remember, András Schiff’s recordings on it were a little dull. Like me, in fact, at the moment.

Three mono FLACs, fully tagged, in a .rar file, here.

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien

François Couperin Pièces de clavecin
Claude Jean Chiasson
(harpsichord by Robert Conant, 1950)
Lyrichord LL 12 (recorded c.1950-51)

Having been driven way beyond grumpiness by a recent tantrum of mean-minded musical myopia on RMCR, I’ve been wondering why it is that I enjoy this LP (which I found in a charity shop in Clapham recently) and want to wave it about outside the Cave, even though I know Chiasson is not the ‘best’ harpsichordist on record.

And then I remembered the dictum which is today’s title and realised that it crystallises my feelings in this post. (I didn’t know it was Voltaire’s.) I’m not a philosopher of ethics or aesthetics, though I care deeply about both and frequently ponder them in a half-arsed way. I’m not a historian – more an anorak – though how we got here has always fascinated me. But I’ll try to explain.

Voltaire’s words, as so often, have many meanings. Two seem relevant here. First, by setting our sights only on the best, we often miss the good. There are good moments on this LP, for me L’Arlequine and the Passacaille especially. Would my life be poorer if I had never heard this? Yes, dammit, a little bit. And we shouldn’t throw away little good bits unless we’re happy to be wasteful.

(I also preach a sort of converse of Voltaire’s far deeper idea: only by experiencing the good and even the not-so-good do we learn to appreciate the best. At school and university, they made us read only Homer and Virgil, a pointlessly narrow syllabus which left me preferring defixiones (Roman curses) and late, ‘decadent’ poets like Ausonius: ‘Amnis ibat inter arva valle fusus frigida…’ – grand! Anyway, of the ‘greats’, my favourite was Ovid, the Mozart of Classical verse.)

Second, I think there’s a more literal meaning to Voltaire’s mot: the best can hound the good out of existence. Adulation of Argerich and reverence for Rachmaninoff can turn into laziness or unwillingness to give an unknown artist a hearing. One unexpectedly lovely phrase on a record or in a broadcast – I’m happy to have listened. It doesn’t have to be a transcendent, red-label, monogrammed experience every time.

Right, that was the aesthetical and ethical bit; now for the historical bit. I believe the drive for perfection in recorded performances is a complicated phenomenon, with many causes and feedbacky loops. I’ve now heard enough old records and read enough about how they were made to know that only the biggest companies and the biggest artists bothered about perfection – or could afford to.

This remained true well into the period when this LP was made. Would a small independent label like Lyrichord spend days getting Chiasson to get this recital perfect? Probably not. Could Chiasson afford to take days off from his life as a musician? I don’t know how successful he was but I doubt it. Surely, like thousands of musicians on 78s and early LPs, he went into the  studios and did what he could on the day. He’s a bit deliberate in places but he also shows deep absorption and love for the music. Is that reason to throw him away?

Another reason to want to hear Chiasson is that he recorded with Hugues Cuenod. There are interesting dribs and drabs about him on the net, such as this account of ‘The Harpsichord in America 1884–1946’. Has anyone written a decent history of the harpsichord revival?

Get the 5, fully tagged mono FLACs in a .rar file here.

And then head over to RMCR and and stick up for humane values and grown-up good manners.

This one’s a thank you to you, Benoît, for your exemplary uploads and kind support.

The Kindness of Strangers, part 9

H.M.V. model 101 portable, Leffe brune

This was my paternal grandfather’s gramophone. Prompted by kind comments left at the Cave-mouth, I ventured out with my box brownie to snap it and one of my favourite drinks. Not my Grampy’s, though – I think he preferred India pale ale, after golf, down at The Cricketers, which is all a bit too English for me.

La Grumpy is the real beer drinker round these parts – preferably with pop-corn in front of Columbo (RIP). We love Leffe, both blonde and brune (hmm – there’s a motto in there somewhere). Unlike 2ndviolinist, we have never tried Radieuse (sorry to hear about the supply problems in Austin TX) or indeed any of the other brews. Thanks for the tip.

And we have never tried Westmalle, Corsendonck or Affligem – but with Satyr’s recommendation, we must! Perhaps with some Ockeghem or Ghizeghem. I have drunk Chimay but I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember much about it. It’s a bit pricey round here – at least three rabbit-skins a bottle. Another beer which I love and which we used to be able to buy, until the man with the clipboard faxed headquarters, is Jenlain, from brasserie Duyck. It’s also been a while since I’ve seen Fischer Tradition, from Alsace, a curiously nutty delight.

Dear Doug, since you’ve asked so kindly, I can’t refuse your request. I can’t actually play 78s myself, either, at the moment. I don’t have thorn needles for this thing, although I know a man who does; and it seizes up in colder temperatures.

The dubs from 78s on this blog are kindly made for me by collectors such as Paul Steinson, Raymond Glaspole and Jolyon. I have a modern variable-speed turntable with 78 rpm but not the right styli or pre-amp. I am lusting after the KAB EQS MK12 - should I get it (when I can afford it)? But I must finish this PhD first!

Dear Benoît, I hope to have another nice upload for you very soon. Thank you for your own contributions, which far surpass mine.

P.S.: Blogger still won’t let me leave comments on my own blog, so thank you for putting me right about the model.