Historic Masters

Taken from the Summer issue of CLASSIC RECORD COLLECTOR. Roger Beardsley Commitment, enthusiasm, joie de vivre: these qualities all characterised Roger Beardsley and would infect those who worked with him on so many projects. His sudden and totally unexpected death has been an awful shock to the wider recording industry and at a very personal level has affected all who knew and worked with him. In the art of transferring  [ Read More ]

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Roger Beardsley, who died in April 2011 aged 63 years. Roger was for many years a most important member of the board of Historic Masters Ltd. He was also known and respected internationally as one of the finest transfer engineers of early recordings. Roger had a deep knowledge of singers and their repertoire coupled with a knowledge of recording  [ Read More ]

With the immediate release of Issue 33 - Historic Masters has reached an important milestone. Including our special boxed sets we have now issued more than five hundred separate recordings. Many of these had never previously been published whilst others are extremely scarce in original form. Apart from the present issue we have also unearthed some other goodies for possible future issue including a test pressing by Genevieve Vix and the  [ Read More ]

THE EIGHT RECORDS IN OUR 33rd ISSUE – September 2010 (Prospectus by Alan Bilgora) HM 207A/B Sigrid Onegin, Contralto (1889-1943) Der Kreuzzug – Schubert-Leitner Sung in German with piano accompaniment by Bruno Seidler-Winkler, Matrix number: 1461s, Issued on DG 043337, Recorded 1919 or 1920 HM 207B Ave Maria — Eugen B.L Onegin Sung in German with piano accompaniment, Matrix number: 1293m, Issued DG 043344, Recorded c.1919 The Swedish contralto Sigrid Onegin  [ Read More ]

The eight records in this issue carry Historic Masters past an important milestone – 500 Issued recordings. Read the issue notes to Issue 33 here. Including our special boxed sets we have now issued more than five hun- dred separate recordings. Many of these had never previously been published whilst others are extremely scarce in original form; overall the advantage of pressing in vinyl rather than on shellac is the  [ Read More ]

Historic Masters Ltd was established in 1983 to continue the series of historic reissues of vocal recordings initiated by the British Institute of Recorded Sound. Since then there have been thirty one regular issues containing five, six or seven records as well as special boxed sets of recordings of Melba, Patti and Tamagno. We have existed for longer than any of our predecessor organizations even though regular manufacture of 78rpm  [ Read More ]

Il Titanico Oricalco The above is the title of a book issued by the City of Turin to honour a favourite native son. A literal translation might be ‘The Trumpet- Toned Titan’. Tamagno was quite simply a phenomenon – for more than thirty years after his stage debut in Turin he was the world’s greatest dramatic tenor. Il Titanico Oricalco is an excellent source of data on a world-wide career  [ Read More ]

Historic Masters discovered some years back that all known shellac records of Tamagno had been made from copy shells rather than the originals. We were able to access the original shells which are held in the DG archive and used these to issue a set of all the 12” recordings. Read the issue notes to Issue 32 here. We have for some time been investigating the possibility of a parallel  [ Read More ]

THE SEVEN RECORDS IN OUR 31st ISSUE – MAY 2009 (Prospectus by Alan Bilgora) HM 200A (and) HM 200B   Paul Franz, Tenor, (1876-1950) Rome Narration pts. 1-2 Tannhususer (Wagner) Matrix numbers; 02954/5v, issued on 2-032014/5. Sung in French with Orchestra and recorded in Paris on 22nd April 1914. Suggested speed; 80 rpm for both sides. His real name was Franbois Gauthier and as a young man he worked as  [ Read More ]

Issue No 31 contains something for all tastes. The artists hail from Great Britain, Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, and Russia, the performances splendid, the music is varied, and the quality of pressings are excellent.