Stokowski 'Accidental Stereo' (1929) - Stravinsky 'Rite of Spring'

Leopold Stokowski gave the US Premiere of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' in 1922, made the first American recording of the work in 1929, and conducted the US Ballet Premiere in 1930 with Martha Graham as The Chosen One. He also featured an abridged version of the score in Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' in 1940. This upload marks the centenary of the ballet's first performance in Paris in 1913.

In the early 1980s, two record collectors, Brad Kay and Steven Lasker, discovered that in a few cases two copies of the same 78rpm disc, dating from the late 1920s and early 1930s, sounded slightly different. Furthermore, when the pair of discs were played simultaneously and synchronised, a binaural effect was achieved. It was known that two turntables were used when making 78rpm discs, the second being a safety back-up to the first. Usually the same microphone set-up fed each turntable. However, it seems that occasionally a different mike was used for the second turntable and placed near the first one in the studio. It is possible that the engineers were trying out two different makes of mike in the same session to see what kind of results could be achieved when one was compared to the other.

In any event, Brad Kay did a great deal or research and came up with enough 'accidental stereo' 78rpm sides to form the basis of a Los Angeles radio programme in 1985 that featured samples of 'binaural' recordings made by Stokowski, Eugene Goossens, Elgar and Koussevitzky. Here from that radio show are two sides from Stokowski's 78rpm set of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring', recorded in 1929 by the Philadelphia Orchestra. They are the beginning and ending of the first part of the ballet. The score was then still very new to the players so some allowances do have to be made in respect of orchestral ensemble. The video touches on the 'Fantasia' segment, the costumes used in Diaghilev's original 1913 production, and modern productions including that by the Bejart Company.

It should be noted that the powers-that-be at EMI disputed the two-microphones claim and maintained that the same microphone always fed each turntable. Nevertheless, as will be heard, for whatever technical reason, this doesn't sound like the same mono track simply coming from two speakers!

Please note that the 1933 Elgar 'accidental stereo' "Cockaigne" Overture final side has also been uploaded here, as have Koussevitzky in part of Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique' Symphony and Goossens conducting some of Massenet's 'Le Cid', so look for those too!