Search - Age of Living Stereo :: Tribute to Jack Pfeiffer

A GREAT introduction to a legendary recording technology!

03/23/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The time was right in the early 1950's when RCA tasked the mild-mannered newcomer, Jack Pfeiffer, to not only bridge the gap between corporate management and its roster of sometimes outrageously ill-tempered classical superstars, but also to develop a commercially-viable recording technology that would send a resounding shock wave throughout the industry. Working on information gained from previous stereo experiments of the 30's and 40's, Pfeiffer knew that he had to make stereo technology not only a practical medium returning optimum results in the studio, but also to get that technology transmitted from the studio to the long-playing record player in the home. This album provides wonderfully-recorded samples from the early 1950's and a booklet relating the search for attaining that goal. Interesting annecdotes abound about Reiner, Stokowski, Horowitz, and others, with many providing a chuckle. This album is a good investment to accompany whatever number of purchases you make of the RCA Living Stereo CD series."

Living Stereo

Miles Hoffmann | Famous Potatoes, United States | 05/13/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Excellent historical recordings from the AGE of Living Stereo-the way recordings should have been done-the quality behind these reecordings, and the teamwork that was involved with these as well.. John Phieffer well deserved the credit due in his efforts in turning around RCA-VICTOR to an audiophile quality production."

A Chance to be there at the Dawn of Modern Recording

Doug - Haydn Fan | California | 04/07/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How does one talk about this issue? Hearing these selections for the first time in 1954 left listeners staggered, astonished, transfixed. The engineers played them to audiences with a giddy delight in sharing what they had captured, dumbfounding illusions of sonic realities. After hearing them one person said it was 'like walking into a great cathedral'; and while this is of course merely an 'artificial' cathedral of sound, and especially orchestra sound, the comparison still sits well.



Included on this CD are a significant number of some of the most important recordings ever made: The first stereo trials by RCA under the leadership of Producers Richard Mohr and the late John 'Jack' Pfeiffer, the dedicatee of this release. Pfeiffer was instrumental in RCA's adopting stereo several years before it was a viable commercial medium. At the end of 1953, after testing out two-track recording systems, he pushed RCA into the extremely expensive policy of making many future recordings with two crews, one for the current monaural recodings and another totally separate crew for stereo recording. This CD offers many listeners a chance to hear the breakthrough in sound captured on tape by those early RCA engineers in the earliest days of stereo.



The results at times are flabbergasting. Right out of the box we can hear what was then a totally novel and breathtaking spaciousness; instruments were positioned around in space just as they might sound from a seat in the auditorium. Unlike the old monaural recordings, the stereo recordings also opened up a new startling palette of richer fuller harmonics, and strikingly realized instrumental timbres. Listen to the 2nd selection on the CD, a February 21st 1954 recording of The Damnation of Faust by Berlioz, recorded in Boston Symphony Hall with the Boston Symphony Orchestra led by Munch, and including a tenor, a baritone, and the combined forces of two choral groups. The performance and the recorded sound combined to quite literally sound the death knell for monaural recordings of symphonies: only the slow transistion of customers to stereo delayed the inevitable. Like color television the advent of stereo recording was a major breakthrough as well as marker in the twentieth century.



Anyone interested in hearing just how fine these first stereo recordings were can now do so with the release of this compilation.



The CD includes a short written tribute to Pfeiffer by his colleague and friend Richard Mohr, as well as a longer written essay by Pfeiffer on "The Age of Living Stereo". There is a list of CD reissues of the "Living Stereo" series included at the end of the CD booklet. Since the release of this tribute in 1996 many of these "Livng Stereo" recordings can now be purchased in improved SACD hybrid transfers at great prices! For example - Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade; Stravinsky: Song of the Nightingale [Hybrid SACD]Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique [Hybrid SACD]





A must purchase for stereo fans, and especially fans of orchestra recording, as well as anyone deeply appreciative of the memorable achievement and impact of these great American pathfinders."