 Vinyl
Classics:
Frayne Shares His Personal Collection
of Old Recordings
Classics of the Phonograph:
Great Recordings of the Past
9 pm Sundays (See scheduled programs)
John Frayne says he stopped counting the records in his collection when he got to 20,000. And that was years ago. He’s still filling up rooms at his home and farm with more old 78 and LP recordings.
When John looks at those stacks of records, he doesn’t see dusty old discs that other people might discard in favor of new CDs. He sees a treasure house of great performances from the earlier part of the 20th century. “This is a living history of the performance of classical music,” he says.
John will open his collection, as well as the older recordings in the Friends of WILL Music Library, to WILL-FM listeners this summer with
Classics of the Phonograph: Great Recordings of the Past, a new program he will host from 2 to 4 pm on Sundays as
Prairie Performances takes a break for the summer.
“I love the records and I love the music,” he said. “There is always the belief in a golden age in the arts. It may be an illusion. But there is a belief that in conductors and orchestral performances, there were giants on the earth during this time.”
He’s talking about the period between 1925, when electrical recording became the norm, until the stereo era, which began about 1960. He’ll concentrate on those years, but will also play music recorded up until the digital era began in the 1980s.
“Arturo Toscanini was the most famous conductor of the time,” John said. “He recorded many performances in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s, and they should be heard more often today. Back then, some conductors, like Toscanini, were dictators of the baton. Others, like Bruno Walter, were gentler in their approach.” Other widely collected and admired conductors of the period include Wilhelm Furtwaengler and Willem
Mengelberg.
The recordings are historically important because these conductors knew
many of the composers whose works they performed, John said. “Toscanini knew Verdi and Puccini personally. He conducted the world premiere performance of
La Boheme, Puccini’s most popular opera. Toscanini played second cello at the premier of Verdi’s
Otello. It’s the closest we can get back to people who were close to the creators,” said John, who has hosted WILL-FM’s
Classics by Request since 1985, and also hosts WILL-FM’s
Prairie Performances and Afternoon at the Opera: An Opera
Preview.
Artists recording in this golden age included violinist Fritz Kriesler, cellists Pablo Casals and Gregor Piatigorsky, and pianists Vladimir Horowitz and Artur Rubinstein, said John. “It can be said that some of these people re-recorded their repertoire in LP and even in stereo. But they made the 78s when they were young,” he said.
“We’re now in a golden age of historical reissues,” said John. “Many performances from the archives of the past are just now being released.” So John will even be playing some CDs made from the original recordings. “The purpose of the show is not only to highlight music not available on CD, but to appreciate recordings from the era,” he said.
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