I grew up listening to LPs but didn't start listening to classical music until the CD era was well under way, so I've never bought classical vinyl. Since the LP format with its 20-minute sides seems particularly ill suited to classical music, I've been wondering: how did the recording industry adapt to that medium in ye olden days? Did the artists play faster or edit scores to make works fit? Did many works just never get recorded because they didn't easily fit onto a LP? If the main work was, say, 30 or 35 minutes, did they just toss in some filler to round it out to 35 or 40?
I had thousands of classical LPs and as I write I am trying to remember what a maximum length would have been. I think around 30 minutes per side. An example is Bruckner's 5th Symphony. A typical timing for the movements is...18 mins, 18 mins, 12 and 22 mins. that could be got onto three sides, but the version I had was on four. Puccini's Turandot on one EMI version was on three sides. That uneven number of sides and no filler was unusual, but not unique.
Gotterdammerung was on six LPs, and the Kleiber Tristan LPs when initially issued had fade outs and fade ins where the flow of music was broken in Act 2; with the relevent music repeated on the fade in. That was at Kleiber's insistance, but it was not liked by the record buyers and I can't think of another modern recording like that.
Solti's Beethoven's 9th was in a box set of two LPs. The final movement usually comes in at 25 to 27 minutes. That would have been on one side.
I can remember comments in Gramophone where an article was about recording sessions that there was occasionally some quite minor adjustments to accommodate a movement or piece to the length of the sides. Some LPs did give short timings overall. The reissue of Leyontine Price's recitals on CD but replicating the LP format contains some 35 minute discs.
I don't think there was any music that was set aside as being problematic. The LP grew out of the 78RPM market and even Wagner operas were accommodated on that format with dozens of turns. I do recall that some LP sets were arranged so that you could stack a long work with side two being on disc two etc. It saved turning the LP over, but I think that method of production died out in the sixties.
Perhaps some others here can give the longest or shortest timing they can recall. I have no idea what current vinal sets provide by way of timing. There would only be a certain amount of compression possible due to the need to have the needle travel between the grooves.
Mike
I don't have classical music LPs, so I don't really know.
I believe it's possible to fit 30 minutes of music on one side of a LP when narrower grooves are used. The price is worse sound quality (weaker bass, higher distortion).
I started listening to classical music when the LP was beginning to be replaced by the CD, but I had several LPs. I had Beethoven's 9th on one LP (re-issue of the 1962 Karajan). That's more than 30 min/side, so the sound quality was not optimal (probably not a big deal on my cheapish equipment). The slow movement had to be split between the sides. The funeral march from the Eroica was also usually split.
I had not Bruckner or Mahler on LP but here many works were issued on two LPs, either 4 sides or three sides and a filler. These works were recorded although probably not quite as frequently as in the last 25 years (although despite/because of the crisis of the recording industry almost everything except opera gets recorded more frequently recently).
Double bar repeats were often skipped (but this was a custom regardless of LP length, they were skipped in live concerts as well).
There were also some fairly short LPs without fillers, eg. Kleiber's Beethoven 5th with one side of ca. 17, the second with 15 or so minutes. In that case one obviously cannot split movements 3 and 4, but some other recordings might have a short ouverture after the symphony bringing the second side to 23-25 min, some cheap issues might also cram the whole piece on one 32 min side with poorer sound.
Thanks Joe, I was trying to remember whether LvB's 9th fitted onto one LP. I seemed to rememeber the Karajan on one in a shop, but I did not buy it until I was onto CDs only.
Pressings could be a problem. I had the Karajan Tristan on LP and went back and forth to EMI with about four pressings of the third LP. It kept clicking in the same places. EMI were getting fed-up and so was I. Especially when the lighter weight LPs were produced, they could warp and that affected the sound. It could depend on how they were stored and they were occasionally warped when new, presumably a transportation issue.
Mike
I am sure that newly issued full price LvB 9th usually would have come on two LPs, either all 4 sides or 3 sides with e.g. the first or 8th symphony on the 4th side. Karajan is also comparably fleet with about 66 min. It might not have been feasible with a 72 min recording. But pieces around 1 hour were borderline cases and often only on one LP (e.g. Mahler 1, 4, some of Bruckner's). One also has to remember that (at least in Germany) this stuff was expensive.
I also remember some cheapo LPs that were so badly warped that one had to be afraid the needle would skip...
I also think that some of the improvements in pressing technology (dmm) could not only be used for better sound/pressing quality, but also to cram more music on one side.
The goal when developing the CD was to be able to fit Beethovens's 9th on a single disc. 72 minutes was set as a goal IIRC. That goal governed some of the technical choices that were made for the redbook CD standard.
I always wondered if this was not an urban legend. Especially because Karajan is supposed to have been involved and he never needed more than 70 min for a 9th, usually less.
And even early CDs could run to 75 min and more (e.g. Klemp's Mahler 2 and Bruckner 5 were on single 79' discs already in 1990) although there were some players who had problems with such long discs and now there are CDs with 82-83 min.
AFAIK they took a survey of recordings and decided on some "sensible" value - not absolutely sure it was 72 minutes but that is stated in the standard even if most players support more. They were operating on the leading edge of technology at the time and space was at a premium on those discs!
Some LPs had a long duration, especially in the later digital years. A couple of examples in my collection:
Svendsen: Symphonies 1+2 / Janssons / EMI 35:08 + 32:52 = 68 mins
Delius: North Country & Florida / Handley /Chandos 37:28 + 28:42 = 66 mins
Beethoven: PC 3+4 / Perahia, Haitink / CBS-Sony 35 + 34 mins = 69 mins
There are also earlier examples of couplings of Chopin PC 1+2, Mahler 10 complete, Shosty 11, etc., on one LP
EDIT: Oh yes, and the Everest label did a good deal of that, such as Wagner operas/Furtwängler, with a very compressed sound and long duration, at least 35 mins per LP side, I think. Yet, a rather limited listening experience as regards details in the music ...
Regardless of playing time, I wish they had decided on a somewhat larger format (like the 7'' vinyl "single") because covers and booklets of CDs are just too tiny.
I suspect that there were also marketing decisions involved: If a CD had run to 90 min by default, it would have replaced a double LP album and customers might have been pissed paying full price for the same unit with only 50 min of music or so. And for about a decade CD and LP existed in parallel and many had accordingly a length of 55-60 min.
Yes, good points that.
Turner, Thanks for that.....much better than relying on my memory.
Some LP sets were so good to llok at, they got me almost drooling. The Kleiber Tristan with the shiny water cover; the CD set had comparitavely little visual impact.
Mike
Quote from: knight66 on November 18, 2015, 01:04:44 AM
Some LP sets were so good to llok at, they got me almost drooling. The Kleiber Tristan with the shiny water cover;
It wasn't water, it was your drool.
I've always heard that 45 minutes is the max that can be fit onto a LP without sacrificing sound quality, so I'm really surprised to learn that some LPs were nearly 70 minutes long! It's surprising cassettes didn't become more popular than LPs in that case.
Quote from: ShineyMcShineShine on November 18, 2015, 03:05:40 AM
I've always heard that 45 minutes is the max that can be fit onto a LP without sacrificing sound quality, so I'm really surprised to learn that some LPs were nearly 70 minutes long! It's surprising cassettes didn't become more popular than LPs in that case.
Cassettes suffered from repeated play. Quality would noticeably decline when replayed many times (and sometimes only a few times). They were a good option for portability, but they were too easily damaged.
Anybody interested in the development of the CD format should read this:
http://www.turing-machines.com/pdf/beethoven.htm
Which suggests the story about Beethoven's 9th was basically a cover.
quite amazed - grew up in the CD era but always had vinyl around at my parents' and started buying some as a teenager on occasion (ain't it somewhat crazy, some reissues in the 90s were OOP on CD but still around on 180g vinyl, so I grumblingly went for those, often missing a bonus track or something that I actually wanted ... some of those turned out to be maybe not bargains but very good deals and the LPs still sound gorgeous today, while the CDs mostly re-appeared again in later editions and I got them to cover the complete material or for more convenient daily listening).
Anyway, the longest LP I remember from back then was Miles Davis' "Water Babies":
http://www.discogs.com/Miles-Davis-Water-Babies/release/66846
I used to hate it when two LPs wouldn't fit onto one of those Maxell XLII-S 90 K7 :)
Quote from: Pat B on November 18, 2015, 06:55:51 PM
Anybody interested in the development of the CD format should read this:
http://www.turing-machines.com/pdf/beethoven.htm
Which suggests the story about Beethoven's 9th was basically a cover.
It is always good to see people still enjoying this basically
Dutch invention.... 8) :D
Q
I remember Furtwangler's La Scala Ring was released in a box set with just 11 LPs. (It was later released on 12 CDs.) I seem to remember the LP version had sides that ran 35 minutes, and the grooves were very shallow.
Quote from: bigshot on November 19, 2015, 09:26:58 AM
I remember Furtwangler's La Scala Ring was released in a box set with just 11 LPs. (It was later released on 12 CDs.) I seem to remember the LP version had sides that ran 35 minutes, and the grooves were very shallow.
Yes, the LP version was by Everest or less likely Murray Hill.
I have the Murray Hill pressing.
Anyway - I seem to remember that 35 min pr. side was an absolute maximum, but it depends on the kind of music on the CD. The grooves at the inner part of the disc is significantly shorter than the outer grooves. As a vinyl disc spins at a constant speed (CAV - Constant Angular Velocity), they had to pack much more information pr. cm as the needled comes closer to the center of the disc, so there was always problems with tracking on the inner grooves. This meant that if you had music with lots of volume you couldn't pack the grooves so tightly as the needle traversed the disc, and so the playing time suffered. With very quiet music you could probably pack 32-35 minutes on a side, but with orchestral music I doubt that you could get more than 25
Quote from: otare on November 19, 2015, 10:25:22 AM
I have the Murray Hill pressing.
Anyway - I seem to remember that 35 min pr. side was an absolute maximum, but it depends on the kind of music on the CD. The grooves at the inner part of the disc is significantly shorter than the outer grooves. As a vinyl disc spins at a constant speed (CAV - Constant Angular Velocity), they had to pack much more information pr. cm as the needled comes closer to the center of the disc, so there was always problems with tracking on the inner grooves. This meant that if you had music with lots of volume you couldn't pack the grooves so tightly as the needle traversed the disc, and so the playing time suffered. With very quiet music you could probably pack 32-35 minutes on a side, but with orchestral music I doubt that you could get more than 25
I take it that you mean that more than 25 mins would reduce sound quality - not that it wasn´t possible have a longer duration with orchestral music
Yes. 25 minutes was quite normal at the end. You could pack the grooves more tightly, but that would reduce the quality. In some cases the needle could "jump" out of the grooves in the innermost grooves.
Quote from: Que on November 18, 2015, 10:56:26 PM
It is always good to see people still enjoying this basically Dutch invention.... 8) :D
Q
https://www.youtube.com/v/QJ882QYzr-M
When first introduced, 12-inch LPs played for a maximum of 45 minutes over two sides. Wiki notes the following, well worth the read : "An extremely limited number of albums would eventually exceed even the 52-minute limitation, with single albums going to as long as ninety minutes in the case of Arthur Fiedler's 1976 LP 90 Minutes with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, made by Radio Shack.[16] However, such records had to be cut with much narrower spacing between the grooves, which allowed for a much smaller amount of dynamic range on the records, and meant that playing the record with a worn needle could damage the record. It also resulted in a much quieter sound. Other notably long albums included the UK version of The Rolling Stones' Aftermath, with each side exceeding 26 minutes in length; Genesis' Duke, with each side exceeding 27 minutes; Bob Dylan's 1976 album Desire, with side two being just shy of thirty minutes; Brian Eno's 1975 album Discreet Music, whose A-side exceeded 30 minutes; Miles Davis' 1972 album Get Up with It, totalling 124:15 min over four sides; Todd Rundgren's 1975 album Initiation, totaling 67:32 min over two sides, and his 1973 album A Wizard, A True Star, whose second side reaches almost thirty minutes; La Monte Young's Dream House 78' 17", whose two sides were each just under 40 minutes (the running time of the album is indeed 78:17 min); and André Previn's Previn Plays Gershwin,, with the London Symphony Orchestra, whose sides each exceeded 30 minutes.[17] Single-LP releases of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony contained over 30 minutes on each side, with the third movement split into two parts. The Greenpeace International Record Project released in 1985 also approaches 40 minutes per side over its two sides. An extremely rare two-disc German pressing restores full sonic clarity and dynamic range lost by the compression to single-disc.
Spoken word and comedy albums, not having a wide range of musical instrumentation to reproduce, can be cut with much narrower spacing between the grooves; for example, The Comic Strip, released by Springtime Records in 1981, has a side A lasting 38:04 min and a side B lasting 31:08 min, for a total of 69:12 min.
In any case, the standard 45-minute playing time of the LP was a significant improvement over that of the previous dominant format, the 78 rpm single, which was generally limited to three to four minutes. At around 14 minutes per side for 10-inch and 23 minutes per side for 12-inch, LPs provided a measured time to enjoy a recording before having to flip discs."
Quote from: Pat B on November 18, 2015, 06:55:51 PM
Anybody interested in the development of the CD format should read this:
http://www.turing-machines.com/pdf/beethoven.htm
Which suggests the story about Beethoven's 9th was basically a cover.
Here is the salient part:
QuoteAccording to the Philips' website with the 'official' history: "The playing time was determined posthumously by Beethoven". The wife of Sony's vice-president, Norio Ohga, decided that she wanted the composer's Ninth Symphony to fit on a CD. It was, Sony's website explains, Mrs. Ohga's favorite piece of music. The Philips' website proceeds:
"The performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, lasted for 66 minutes. Just to be quite sure, a check was made with Philips' subsidiary, Polygram, to ascertain what other recordings there were. The longest known performance lasted 74 minutes. This was a mono recording made during the Bayreuther Festspiele in 1951 and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. This therefore became the maximum playing time of a CD. A diameter of 120 mm was required for this playing time".
Everyday practice is less romantic than the pen of a public relations guru, as at that time, Philips' subsidiary Polygram –one of the world's largest distributors of music– had set up a CD disc plant in Hanover, Germany that could produce large quantities CDs with, of course, a diameter of 115mm. Sony did not have such a facility yet. So if Sony had agreed on the 115mm disc, Philips would have had a significant competitive edge in the music market. Ohga was aware of that, did not like it, and something had to be done. It was not about Mrs. Ohga's great passion for music, but the money and competition in the market of the two partners. The decision regarding diameter/playing time was taken outside of the group of experts responsible for the CD format. So I, a former member of that group, can only guess what happened at the upper floor. But something unforeseen happened: at the last minute we changed the code.
Quote from: Cato on November 19, 2015, 04:03:22 PM
Here is the salient part:
The part you put in red is exactly
not the salient part.
The salient part is the following paragraph, which explains that Philips had already set up a factory to make 115mm discs and that Sony wanted to negate that advantage. Supporting this notion are the paragraph after that, which explains that even after the development of EFM (which could have allowed the disc to be smaller while keeping the same 74 minute capacity), they kept the 120mm diameter, and the paragraph after
that, which explains that regardless of all the redbook parameters, nobody was able to actually manufacture a Furtwangler 1951 CD until years later.
Quote from: ShineyMcShineShine on November 17, 2015, 07:59:38 PM
Did the artists play faster or edit scores to make works fit?
I've never heard of any case of playing faster to fit on an LP, but I understand that was a factor in 78s.
QuoteIf the main work was, say, 30 or 35 minutes, did they just toss in some filler to round it out to 35 or 40?
Quite often, yes. Although, while some posters here are pointing out the longest LP sides, I've run into some very short ones. Karajan's studio Mahler 9th had the 3rd mvt. on one side and nothing else; it ran to 12:44. The de Waart recording of Adams'
Harmonium has a Side 1 which runs only 10:38 - that's probably the shortest side I've ever seen.
Also, with long Mahler movements for example, it was common to split it over sides. The 1st mvt. of the 3rd and finale of the 2nd usually got this treatment.
Quote from: Pat B on November 19, 2015, 01:46:36 PM
https://www.youtube.com/v/QJ882QYzr-M
Oh, well.... :laugh:
Q
An excellent and very good-sounding LP issue from 1960 or 61 was Ormandy/Rostropovich performing Shostakovich Cello Concerto No.1 and Symphony No.1, on the CBS label. The duration of the Cello Concerto is 27m20 and the Symphony is 30 minutes. There are some passages in the Symphony where loud percussive effects alternate with silence, and in these some pre-echo can be heard, if you listen for it.
What does the pre-echo mean? Or rather, what causes it? I've occasionally heard that effect on CD transfers of old material.
The longest I've seen was 40+ minutes per side, on Furtwangler's La Scala Ring cycle; but the sound quality is notoriously low for that set. On the first Solti/Mahler set, the Sixth Symphony's finale fits on a single side at 27+ minutes with good sound quality at high volume. Philips issued Haitink's Das Lied von der Erde (with Janet Baker, James King and the Concertgebouw) on a single LP, with Side 2, containing "The Drunkard in Spring" and "The Farewell", clocking at 35+ minutes with superb sound; but much of that music is very soft playing that takes up much less space on an LP pressing. You can fit many more grooves per inch on an LP if the playing is soft and the cutting needle doesn't vibrate as widely. The same is true if the sound is mostly high frequencies with no bass drum roll or organ pedals.
I always figured 30 minutes for a practical LP side length. 8)
One difference on classical LPs is that classical music records many fewer breaks than non-classical LPs, and breaks take up quite a bit of room on a pressing.
Quote from: ShineyMcShineShine on November 21, 2015, 07:03:31 PM
What does the pre-echo mean? Or rather, what causes it? I've occasionally heard that effect on CD transfers of old material.
Tighly compressed grooves on a LP means that the engravings in ne grrove might influence on the neigboring groove,making a faint "preecho" of what's in the next gröove.
Or wound tapes have magnetic printthrough to the next revolution of tape. That's why tapes should be rewound occasionally.