damians78s Blog

It’s taken me a little while to complete the first update to my site for 2010. I’ve taken the chance to look both backward and forward. Harking back to some of the anniversaries of 2009, there’s Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture and orchestral versions of the Spring Song and Bee’s Wedding, all conducted by Henry Wood. There’s [...]

A little while ago I bought the new Naxos recording of Edward German’s comic opera “Tom Jones.” At the time I had a vocal score of German’s slightly later concert version in two acts. However, last week, I wandered in to see what was new (but old) in Travis and Emery, London’s best second hand [...]

I’ve now uploaded to my site an improved restoration of Walter Süsskind’s 1958 Pye recording of Handel’s Messiah. My earlier transfer (posted in April) was hampered by a rather damaged set of discs. The new transfer is made from a much better set, and though the sound does crumble and roughen slightly in places, it [...]

I didn’t get round to blogging it, but I updated my website www.damians78s.co.uk about a week ago.
From time to time, the faults or flaws in my restorations of 78s or LPs force me to revisit the transfer in question. In this case, my previous transfer of Walter Süsskind’s late 1950s Pye recording of Handel’s Messiah [...]

Having time off work ill, though depressing and annoying, does mean that I get to listen to a little more music than usual. So I’ve continued to make headway in EMI’s Vaughan Williams collection (now on CD23), and I’ve also listened to the first half of the Zenph re-recording of Rachmaninoff playing his own works. [...]

I’m working on a bunch of early Delius recordings – I had to buy a few Delius scores today to help me manage the side joins (the copy of “In a Summer Garden” used to belong to Sir Charles Groves”). No such assistance with Eugene Goossens’s acoustic recording with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra of [...]

I’ve just made the latest update to my website Damian’s 78s.
This includes Landon Ronald’s acoustic recording of Dvorak’s New World Symphony (a slightly abridged recording made between 1919 and 1922), and several items mentioned in recent posts here: Albert W Ketelbey conducting a medley of Irish jigs, David McCallum snr playing Scottish fiddle pieces, and [...]

As well as the recordings by the likes of Landon Ronald, Percy Pitt, Dan Godfrey and so on who regular visitors to my site will know, I also collect a wide range of other recordings which make it on site from time to time. Among newer recordings to my collection which I’ve just digitised is [...]

For my website, I’m working on Landon Ronald’s acoustic Dvorak New World Symphony, and may follow it with a couple of Daisy Kennedy solos, or maybe some Henry Wood – I have to wait and see where the mood takes me!
Yesterday I listened to the first CD of the latest issue from Marston Records – [...]

I live in London (though I’m originally from the northwest of England), and I teach maths to 16-19 year olds.
Music is hugely important to me, right back from when I learned to play the recorder when at primary school. It wasn’t until my teens that I started collecting LPs. In fact my first three classical [...]