before iTunes and CDs

[rg]

the attached scan of a reel-to-reel tape shows the packaging for a recording released by New York City Ballet.

the cover art shows Diana Adams and Jonathan Watts in GOUNOD SYMPHONY.

perhaps there was also a release on LP?

color publicity photos were less prevalent at this time, so 4-color reproductions such as this one offer 'colorful' alternatives to the usual black-and-white pictures.

(there is no date on the packaging, but the notes indicate the release was sometime after 1948.)

[Mel Johnson]

As I recall, there was, in the late 50s, LPs made by Robert Irving and the NYCB Orchestra of "Pas de Dix" (Glazunov), "Glinka Pas de Trois", and another work I cannot recall now on Kapp Records. I seem to remember a pairing on vinyl of the Gounod Symphony and the Bizet Symphony #1 in C, but not whether that was Irving or not.

(Edited to add: I remember the former recording well, as I rehearsed to it a lot, I posted before I looked at the inserted pix, so I guess it was Irving, but I remember another, too, on Columbia.)

[Quiggin]

Thanks for the great photo. The cover looks a bit like the format of the old Kapp LPs you occasionally find in record bins. Does the tape play?

I liked these liner notes -- from what I could make out:

In the sheer joy of making music, Bizet expanded everything he had borrowed. Each of his movements is much longer than the corresponding one of Gounod. Gounod’s little fugue consists chiefly of a rather formal expositiion; Bizet adds a whole set of strettos written in the most natural manner. Gounod uses a rustic drone[?]bass in his scherzo; Bizet colors it with a bit of local realism by actually reproducing the peculiar scale of a bagpipe. And the melodies -- they sing and dance in the most original way in this precocious work. In following his model Bizet did not lose his own personality.

Howard Shanet

[carbro]

rg, is there an autograph in the upper, right-hand corner? I can't make it out.

[rg]

let me know if a larger-res. scan of the notes would be of interest.

i don't have a tape recorder of this scale so i have no idea if the tape plays, it looks 'clean' and clear to my untrained, naked eye but whether it would give clean sound, etc. i cannot say.

[rg]

no, not an autograph, the owner, i presume, wrote: "Auto Reverse"

[carbro]

no, not an autograph, the owner, i presume, wrote: "Auto Reverse"

Ha-ha! Thanks!