Beethoven (1944, Stereo): Allegro from Concerto for piano and orchestra No.5 - Gieseking/RO Berlin
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- In the cadenza and some quiet passages you can hear the artillery from outside the RRG-building (2´30"+, 5´40"+). For me this is just unbelievable, a historical document and an impressive testimonial against war.
Historic Stereo-Recording from 1944 with Walter Gieseking as soloist and Arthur Rother and the Großes Berliner Rundfunkorchester. 2009 we can celebrate the 65th anniversary of stereophonic tape recordings. So I thought it might be interesting to upload a few recordings that Mr. Helmut Krüger made at the RRG in Berlin in the early 40´s with the AEG-Telefunken K7 stereo tape recoder (Krüger was nicknamed by his radio colleagues Krüger-Krüger, in witty reference to his habit to record everything in stereo).
After the soviets brought the complete RGG-archive to Moscow in 1945 unfortunately from the hundreds of Stereo recordings only a handful found their way back to Berlin. And in a very bad condition.
The over 60 years old tape was transfered directly to digital equipment w i t h o u t any processing.
This may be the first time I've heard real WWII fighting, and in high quality stereo. It gives me goosebumps.
This combined with hearing one of the greatest concertors played by one of the best pianist brought tears to my eyes
I can't believe this was recorded in 1944. It sounds better than some CDs. Incredible.
That's because Analogue recording is far superior - I bet even this 1944 recording on analogue tape has a much wider frequency range than CD.
This was probably meticulously restored, the tape being from the '40s. But it's a testiment to German engineering.
I bet it doesn't. Do you really believe the microphones, amps and tape recorders used here in 1944 went above 20,000Hz like CD does? Of course not. And let's not even start about dynamic range. Analog recording is by no means superior, it just adds distortion which many find pleasing. That itself is okay, I you prefer what the analog distortion does to the sound by all means listen to analog. But when it comes to pure, unaffected sound quality that is as close as possible to the original performance, it's digital that wins the game. That's why the moniker 'DDD' was such a big deal for the early classical CD's. The real reason many CD's sound terrible is because of the loudness wars, not because there is something inherently wrong with the CD format - quite the contrary. Also analog aficionados are always conveniently forgetting there are many terrible analog recordings as well and analog tends to degrade over time and number of plays.
They should have this version available for download in lossless quality - such as FLAC.
@@BlaBla-jj6sh Your ear decides, not the technology.
The reason for the clarity is because it was one of the first tape recordings, using the Magnetophon.
The AEG / telefunken / Vollmer Recorder K7 or K8 with Tape Bias was as good as modern reel to reel recorders! Mind blowing technology for the 1940s
Magnetophone was around in the 30's They later discovered record bias and the quality was impressive.
@@michaellaprarie9209 Folks, that's why defects in electronics can become a new feature that'll soon revolutionise the world of electronics
@@Schlipperschlopper No, not as good as modern recorders. Or even the earliest Ampexes.
@@craigkopcho7394 -still called a magnetophone after bias was discovered.
Germany's first invention of the single strip 35mm professional color film and then stereophonic audio tape recorder.Wow and at a dark time
Germany has always been the heart of technology in Europe
I absolutely salute them when it comes to magnetic tape recording, but color film? They invented Agfacolor. Hmmphh. WE invented Technicolor!
@@robsemail Who is "we?"
Akalos Americans. Sorry, I sometimes forget this is an international forum.
I think Kodachrome was there in 1936
German engineering was the marvel of the world.
The Germans invented magnetic recording. At the time the tape was rolling at 30 inches per second.
No thanks
@@1327bulldog thwy invented the mp3, so yes, thanks
@@craigkopcho7394 On razor sharp steel tape, no less! 😲
@@NuGanjaTron Not steel, but I know the system you're thinking of. The German system originally used paper tape, but this was found to be impractical for obvious reasons, and was very quickly supplanted by acetate.
Brilliant. Crystal clear as if recorded yesterday.
2:30 5:40 Hearing that artillery go off is one thing. It's even more frightening hearing it go off here in STEREO!
Amazed I haven't seen a youtuber do the story of this recording yet
That video will have millions of views, you know.....
Superb balance, depth and soundstage; that and Gieseking is superb and so is the orchestral part.
Mr. v. Beethoven thanks Satchmo for this compliment.
That the concert was not interrupted with all of that going on outside is astounding.
Such a mental discipline. perfect. if I m in a desperate situation and struggle to concentrate, I listen this video. Thank you all Ludwig, Walter, Orchestra, recorder and publisher of this video with my respects.
imagining a whole orchestra with Gieseking playing piano all the while bombs going off in the distance is really quite a beautiful picture. there is beauty even in war
This is really from 1944 ?? :O The Best Quality!
I downloaded this Track from the Creators Website.
Whenever i hear this Music i get gigantic Goosebumps.
What's the link???
Großartige Aufnahme und außerdem eine technische Glanzleistung der damaligen
Ingenieure und Techniker.
Danke für das Hochladen!
Just wonderful! A superb early Stereo recording and an equally superb performance!
This could be German flak shooting at Allied bombers, probably RAF. There were three main flak towers inside Berlin: At the Zoo station, one in Friederichshain and one in Humboldthain. They had several platforms with both heavier and lighter flak-artillery. Humboldthain is the only one remaining (in parts) today. The rest of the flak were in a ring outside Berlin.
Aircraft firing at one another have a much higher rate of fire and also a more highpitched sound, so that is not an option.
The recording was allegedly made on September 15th 1944 but other data may have been possible (see comment below). At this time there were no artillery shooting at Berlin, as the battle of Berlin was not to begin until Spring 1945.
There are copies on the market of this historic recordning, first as LP-album, then as CDs, which may produce even better clarity.
This recording heard here is as direct-coupled as quality reference as it's possible to take. Any so-called 'remastering' merely subtracts in real terms, as evidenced with re-releases of digital archives where the first-generation Red Book CD releases of same are better sounding (it was the early playback equipment that was poor) than the 'tinkered with' EQ modified recent remastered re-issues where extra 'emphasis' panders to the commercial idioms of today. This 1944 recording has been very well transferred and I doubt could be bettered.
Interesting if it's September the 15th, that was the day that the Tirpitz was hit by tallboy bombs. Could actually mean it was 'relatively' quiet over berlin.
At this time Berlin was getting hammered in 1000 plane raids, day and night. The battle for Berlin was the Russian ground advance.
To bla bla: You certainly are right, if you utter reservations about frequency and dynamic range of tape recordings from 1944. But the microphones - usually Neumann "bottles", condenser with tube pre-amp - were incredibly capable for their time, with a frequency response from 30 till well above 20,000 Hz within very few dB, before 1940. Some ofthese are used still today, also for digital recordings.
Anyway this Reichsrundfunk experiment with its eerie background noise of war IS a milestone in recording history. And, by the way, much better in quality than the BBC recordings made of airplane and anti-aircraft-gun noises made through the London Blitz - admittedly the aim of these recordings was not classical music, anyway...
According to Music & Arts and the German Radio Archive the recording was even made a little bit later, on 23 January 1945 (!).
At the same time, pianist Michael Raucheisen continued his Liedproject for the RRG (until March) with the finest singers of the period. In Leipzig, the Gewandhausorchester recorded also until mid-March 1945 (for example a beautiful Beethoven Symphony 6).
Telefunken "Milk Bottle" condenser Mics were probably used.
Sounds like it was recorded in a "binaral" form with the mics next to each other at the same space distance of the human ears ...about seven inches apart.
Then, this hall has a very good acoustics.
And, NO rear-fill of any kind!
The "Blumlein Pair", still used today.
A wonderful performance and recording!
What a fantastic pianist and musician Gieseking was. But how could he play so well under such fearsome circumstances? Or any of the members of the orchestra? How could the audience sit still among the inferno surrounding them? Eerie.
It was in the recording studios of RRG. no audience, but the orchestra and recording engineers still had to have incredible discipline and concentration.
And over and above,, it sounds like it was recorded just yesterday! Incredible.
***** Don't be facetious.
Anyway, there is always war. Somewhere... It never stops.
I repair and restore vintage Hi FI equipment and have 40+ years experience and the quality of this recording floors me. Was it recorded on paper backed tape or had they made acetate tape at this point. Just for fun when I was 11 in 1960 I took a cheap rim drive dc bias tape recorder and made a bias oscillator for it and the difference was night and day. Everyone should check out the "stereo" 78rpm recordings made with two different record lathes with one as a back-up with microphones in different locations in the 30's.
Acetate since the mid 30s, AKG.
Amazing how much recorded sound quality improved from the 1930's to the 1940's- was this just due to AC bias??
and is stereo!!!
Mostly yes. Also better tape and mechanics, heads microphones electronics etc etc.
the discovery that rust particles make a very good recording medium for magnetic recording. the rest already existed, also the microphones where improved in those years from coal sticks to dynamic magnetic
I would give a good share of the credit to the excellent Neumann condenser microphones that were used during these sessions.
Germany invented the magnetophon in 1928, the forst hd recorder ever.
A miracle how good the s/n ratio is
Na bereits 1941 fand Weber ein Mitarbeiter bei AEG duch Zufall heraus, dass man die Bänder vorher mit Hochfrequenz behandeln musste.Es war der Durchbruch für eine neue Technologie,
die man bis damals noch nicht kannte.AEG und Siemens waren damals die Besten :-)
Sie waren es schon; sie sollen erhalten ihren alten schönen Klang, dann kann der Smiley wegfallen.
Wie kommst du an diese Aufnahmen? Ich bin echt interessiert an einer HD Kopie. Die Qualität ist herausragend.
There was at least one more place in the full version (outside the range of this excerpt) that one can hear the artillery.
great dynamics
ich bin begeistert, wieder was dazu gelernt.
Thank you for this upload. The sound quality is remarkable for the era. Did you do the tape transfer yourself? Is this, the Bruckner #8 finale, or any other of these early stereo recordings available for purchase?
5:48
Thank you for that link
Staggering. I knew Telefunken and BASF had invented the tape recorder and recording tape, respectively, around '41 - Hitler recorded speeches on it - but I did not know it had been used for a higher purpose.
The higher purpose would have been uncle Adolf's speeches. If you showed this future hellscape to allied soldiers, they would have switched sides at the drop of a hat.
The HQ speeches are lost?
Try sometime in the thirties, not 1941.
@@halexd3017 somewhat yes or not. Maybe laying around somewhere in russia after red army confiscated alot of recording from germany. Many of them destroy by weather and age and didnt survive. Only handful. Like the recording on vid is the only high quality and listenable survive
yes, I hear it at 5:44 +, wow!
What are you going to do as your national culture is crumbling but put out this kind of beauty?
In answer to your question: fight harder for the future this beauty represents. Poetic.
@bce5150 good question, my answer: fight, fight harder, fight till your death. Watch this movie ( it`s a Russian made "War-movie" you can say it`s a Anti war movie ) and watch it carefully from 1:36:57 , listen to what the "mad-man" tells to the devil. It took me quite a while to come to the same conclusion ( not the same as the "mad-man" but that of the movie-maker ). We all have to fight the true evil behind all the wars and all the nasty things happening to us "normal people". We all have to fight to preserve the beauty of a Piano-concerto of Beethoven or Mozart or to preserve a painting from Michelangelo or Rubens or the Cave-paintings from Lascaux or or or. We all have to fight that the evil doesn`t prevail over the good and beauty of all of us. That`s also what this recording tells me as a German to do.
and 5:43 to 5:57 (yes..., only with headphones!); impressively eerie "chiaroscuro": brightest versus darkest of the German nation...
And in the part I heard (unfortunately without earphones), the guns were shooting in time with the music.
No, best of the German nation, believe me.
Extraordinary sound quality.
Fantastic!
Search: Engel--Walter_Weber_2006.pdf for an interesting paper on German tape recording, including the development of stereo recording.
Beautiful music with destruction going on !!!
As a word war two expert, I'am Pretty sure they are flak aa guns. Not sound of bomb explosion
Gotta trust the self proclaimed experts in TH-cam comments.
As a non expert I had the same thought.
5:40
What a horrific sound of bomb's...:O
Actually it's 8,8 cm or 12,8 cm Flak
That's how hope sounds. Liberation is close.
Well, you dont mean artillery (the sovjets did not show up in Berlin i 1944, first in 1945) but bombs from planes.
This is great!
Thanks!
Beautiful and haunting at the same time. Now 75 years after the end of ww2 i think it is clear that noone was the victor. Western civilization died in 1945.
Put it in a safety deposit boy and refresh it every now and again. If it that important, as you did, save to magnetic memory (disk drive) and not flash. But, my experience with fire is that ... you are not going to think about your 2.5 hard drive
Please try to talk me out of it, but this is a Steinway D and not a Bechstein 280 which one would one have expected in 1940s Nazi Germany, right?
Ca parait dingue, mais il faut comprendre qu'à cette période, les alliés déversaient quotidiennement des milliers de tonnes de bombes sur les villes allemandes, jour et nuit, faisant environ un 11 septembre tout les trois jours en victimes. Il fallait donc bien continuer à vivre. A Dresde, dans les débris de l'Opéra Semper, on a retrouvé des corps encore habillés en tenue de soirée pour la représentation, surpris par l'attaque.
1. « […] faisant environ un 11 septembre tou[s] les trois jours en victimes […] » ; vous faites bien de rappeler ce fait à l’attention du public musicien, et pour ma part je rappelle qu’il n’y avait plus de musiciens juifs dans cet orchestre.
2. Je ne sais pas pourquoi, en parlant de l’Opéra de Dresde, on devrait toujours en même temps mentionner de façon machinale le nom de son architecte pourtant archiconnu, puisque évidemment on ne sent pas cette obligation dans le cas de Naples, de Milan, de Vienne, etc.
-Le Semper Oper est le nom usuel de cet opéra. Archiconnu ? De qui ? Vous êtes optimiste.
-Les criminels alliés se moquaient éperdument du sort des Juifs, dont d'ailleurs un certain nombre ont péri dans ces bombardements.
-Je ne regarde pas la race des musiciens d'un orchestre.
-Certains de ces artistes réfugiés on formé l'orchestre philharmonique d'Israël en 1948.
Prions pour que ça ne se reproduise plus. Antifa est aux États-Unis, en essayant de faire avancer les choses en attaquant les conservateurs encouragés par ceux qui souhaitent «transformer fondamentalement» le pays en quelque chose de l'UE
Spooky for sure. Brings WW2 to life for sure.
its weird to hear bombs go off and this guy nonchalantly playing piano. at that moment that guys balls were so big he probably couldn't get up from his seat.
Well, that's heroism for you. You saw it on the beaches of Normandy where a hundred men deseperately fought tooth and nail to drive back the invading evil empire.
@@Akalos1 invade we did, and killed goddamn nazis! My grandad was one of the invaders. He used to say the only good nazi is a dead nazi, and of course he was right!
What is the exact recording date?
I would have suggested Götterdämmerung!
Pianino Type???!!! Bechstein?? Fabrik Nummer?? - Danke!
5:40 be like: The ship is sinking. Keep on playing.
Do it be like that?
Please? Does anyone know when exactly in 1944 this was played/recorded? thank you!
This recording is mentioned and described in Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle". You may find the information you're looking for in said work.
@@dyadic thank you so much!
Looks like it has actually been recorded on January 23rd, 1945.
very fast
beatiful
@salsadance999 It's just a quiet drum head sequence, evenly marking the rhythm of this piece. Romanticism? =)
Disc recording couldn't match this. The motion-picture industry had had multi-channel sound-on-film technology for several years, but it didn't transfer to music recording.
The sound of denial and wishful thinking.
I hear nothing like bombs or artillery. I wiill have to run it through the Genelecs.
Sounds like someone stomping on the left side of the stage at 2:30, 5:40, 5:50. Apparently, the B-17 didn't do much damage but the Germans were on the defensive. The RRG building would have been a prime target, since it was the heart of Nazi propaganda. Surprised they kept playing, but there would have been guys with guns waiting off stage, if they stopped. It's a fascinating record of life on the other side.
MADE IN GERMANY -- AND NOT CHINA!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
....okay?
Ok Hans
"It is necessary that I should die for my people; but my spirit will rise from the grave and the whole world will know that I was right."
Why are so many people shocked at the sound quality? Come on, after the 20s quality improved a lot!
Well, I've never heard a music recording made during World War 2 that sounds this good before. I am amazed by it. But yes, I know the Germans were at the forefront of technology development. I sure am glad that they weren't at the forefront of nuke development tho.
Because I can give you hundreds of 50s and 60s recordings that sound much worse. It's a very saturated, natural, full sounding, dynamic and balanced audio material that's just impressive considering the circumstances and age.
Neumann microphones with M7 capsules, telefunken preamps and tape machines. The Beatles made their records with what is basically the same equipment from the same german manufacturers 20 years later.
@@jm10014 As Arte Johnson often said when wearing a German helmet on "Laugh-In", "Very interesting."
Because this is a nazi magnetophon, the forst type of cassette and the firs hd sound recorder ever.
I cn hear the bombings at 2:30!
This is described in The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan. Speer managed to get the musicians out after this concert. Think of these awful people listening to this, bedecked with medals as the .88's are banging away. I heard this in Austin 20 years ago and it chilled me then as it does now. I think this is on tape, and not being recorded on disc. After all, the Germans invented recording tape. Truly a Downfall moment.
The only awful people I can think listening to this are those in the now who impugn the heroism of those who fought to save us from this current hellscape. They tried to warn us.
The people listening to this just wanted to live in peace and enjoy a life of freedom. Something we in the 21s century have never known.
There was no one listening, apart from the engineers. This was a studio recording, almost certainly made at the Haus Des Rundfunks, on Masurenalee, the Western side of Berlin.
@@phaasch Obviously you know a great deal about this. Thanks for the info, I have always been interested in this event.
@@BillyDBunny I'm just amazed at what they achieved, under what must have been very testing conditions.
i like it a little bit
..there are other opinions..perhaps this was German artillery shooting at the RAF....or other planes...or this could be incoming artillery, or it may be actually be bombs landing
2:30. 5:40
Weord that they still playing.under attack.
Reminds me of the quartet on the Titanic. Playing until the bitter end. Ultimately Hitler nearly destroyed a beautiful country, condemning much of it's great talent to death. Fortunately many of them came to the US where we eventually grew to appreciate them.
He indirectly destroyed them by declaring war on most of the world, causing the rest of the world to defend itself against him.
Gary Hatch france and the UK declared war against germany, didn't they? in any case that doesn't justify anything. by declaring war on poland hitler didn't destroy any german city. there is no direct causal link there. france declared war on germany and nobody destroyed french cities (apart from some allied bombing)
- and meekly to take over their Germanic musical vocabulary instead of requiring them to speak proper English.
"It is necessary that I should die for my people; but my spirit will rise from the grave and the whole world will know that I was right."
offf offff. Ne diyeyim!
I hear nothing
listen around 2:30 in the background
It's easier to hear with headphones
+Sam Buckle 5.40 is even clearer.
You can clearly hear the bombing in the first 3 minutes of the work. You must listen with headphones to catch it, but it is there. Incredible recording.
...and again around 5 minutes 30 into the work, sounds like anti-aircraft guns firing.
TFW 😬 when your listening for the history, but also noticing a lot of neo nazis in the comments.
blechmusik - do you read what I wrote? We - the people - dont like fake news, what you are providing here until you edit your "artillery-crap-talk"
5:40
Lol
looool we are in war lool
5:43