Wagner arr. Stokowski - Wotan's Farewell & Magic Fire Music - Partial Stereo 1932

In 1929, Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra began live radio broadcasts of their concerts. However, Stokowski was dissatisfied with the sound quality and approached Bell Laboratories to find ways of improving the transmissions. This led to a series of experiments with special equipment during the 1931-'32 season on which recordings were made in 'Wide Range'' high fidelity sound alongside early attempts at stereophonic reproduction.

Many hours of recordings were made with some works recorded complete while others survive just as excerpts. The Bell Labs engineers were only interested in testing their equipment, not making records for public release. However, as multiple "takes" were made, it was then possible to assemble complete performances.

Two LPs of a selection of these Bell Laboratories experiments were issued in 1980, having been restored by transferring engineer Ward Marston. The first included music by Berlioz, Weber, Mendelssohn, Scriabin and Mussorgsky. Volume 2 featured the music of Wagner and from it comes "Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music" experimentally recorded on 29 & 30 April 1932. It demonstrated 'high fidelity' monaural sound as well as including several experimental stereo "takes" within Stokowski's full-blooded arrangement.

It remains something of a tragedy that these early experiments didn't lead to the release of commercial stereo recordings in the early 1930s but the 'great depression' at the time would surely have put paid to any idea of their introduction. However, Ward Marston has been working hard in recent years on the surviving Bell recordings and his website goes into detail about his plans to issue them. Please click this link for the full story ...

https://www.marstonrecords.com/pages/future