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Donald
Gabor and his parents around 1930.

Don
Gabor during World War Two and....

....after
the war.

Donald
and his wife Valerie.
The
earliest Remington Records catalog when the company was still located
at 263 West 54th St., the first address of the offices.
On the cover a photograph of conductor Fritz Busch and his testimony:
I
record for Remington Records because it offers me the possibility to
reach the widest audiences on high fidelity quality recordings at prices
everyone is able to pay...
Fritz Busch conductor.

George
Curtiss around the time he studied at A.B. Davis College, Mount Vernon,
NY.


George
Curtiss, Donald Gabor's cousin, photographed in 1942 when he was Assistant
to the Recording Manager of the Standard Phono Company. He joined Continental
Records in 1945 after the war and continued working for Remington Records
in the nineteen fifties.

An
office on Fifth Avenue in the shadow of the Empire State Building.

The
only quality record at a low price.


Don
Gabor at home in a reflective moment... contemplating a new project?

See: Copyright

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Over
the years there has been considerable speculation about the man whose
name figured on many a Remington cover, first in an oval emblem and
later written in Alex Steinweiss's scrawl, in a simple but clever
line: "A Don Gabor Production".
No other record
label has been so personalized by its owner and creator as Remington
Records by Donald H. Gabor. It
gave every buyer the subliminal notion that each and every record
bought had been personally handled and approved by producer Don Gabor
himself , as if he guaranteed the authenticity of it: the record you
have in your hand is special, it is no imitation, it is original.
Whether this idea was the result of a gradual development over the
years, or if it was the outcome of a brainstorm, or not, it most likely
originated in the creative mind of a marketing genius like Don Gabor
as so many other ideas did: shaping a catalog, targeting different
groups, choosing typical label names and additional logos, advertising
a return guarantee and a saving system with stamps as an incentive
to buy more records.
Donald Gabor
was born on November 20th, 1912 in Hungary. His mother was Freida
Halmos (research suggests that she was related to the Halmos family
which had migrated to the USA in 1924 and had settled in Chicago).
He spent his entire youth and his early adulthood in Hungary were
he was raised by his mother's sister Regina and her husband Samuel
Gabor, until 1938, the year in which he came to the US, just before
full scale war broke out in Europe. He had studied at the Budapest
Electrical Conservatory to become a radio and mechanical engineer.
At age 26 he was one of those lucky few who succeeded in reaching
the US to build a new existence. And that is what he did.
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Frank
Yankovic was one of the most popular Continental artists.
The yellow label is of the Dutch release of the Ensemble "Accordeana".
The record is Made in Holland. The label states: Manufactured
under license from Continental records Inc. New York NY. USA
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It is documented
that "beginning in 1938 as a shipping clerk for RCA-Victor
at $12 a week, he was head of Victor's foreign records department
within two years, producing song discs in 14 languages."
He may have founded Continental Records when he was still
employed at RCA's, or just may have made a few recordings then and
there, but Continental Records Inc. became really active from 1942
when he recorded (together with conductor László Halász),
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in his home in
New York, the maestro playing his own compositions at the piano.(These
recordings were released on Continental 78 RPM, the format of the
day. The recordings were later transferred to Lp: Continental CLP-101
and were listed in the Schwann Long Playing record Guide of September
1950. By the end of 1952 they were reissued on Remington R-199-94.)
Other Continental 78 RPM discs followed with classical music, played
by various migrated musicians, popular music, and jazz, played by
young artists who would play the clubs of New York.
Having been raised and educated in Hungary, Gabor dwelled in two
worlds and understood only too well the feelings of the immigrant
who, while appreciating the modern lifestyle and the possibilities
America offered, still remembered the homeland. Alongside goulash
and fruit brandy, there certainly remained a taste for records with
folk music played by immigrant musicians. And not only for Hungarians
as Gabor ensured himself of a high turnover by issuing recordings
aimed at Poles, Slovenians, and Czechs as well, released on the Continental,
Czardas and White Eagle 78 RPM labels, and later on Lp and 45 Extended
Play. In some cases he even bought masters from artists and other
labels, including the copyright (as in the case of Frank Yankovic,
the Polka King).
That was how he started and that is how he collected the necessary
capital for expanding his business in the second half of the nineteen
forties. And he most certainly did encounter people who wanted to
invest in a small, but growing record company. Donald was doing well.
Donald's mother
Freida and her husband could have come to America with Donald in 1938,
but they were reluctant to leave Europe, because they were receiving
a large pension, they loved their country and they thought that in
time life would improve. So they stayed. After World War II broke
out the fascist Arrow Cross movement had free play and Miklós
Horthy de Nagybánya's government deteriorated the political-humanitarian
situation in Hungary more and more, notwithstanding the fact that
Horthy tried to save the political situation, but was arrested by
the Gestapo, he later testified in Nuremberg.
It was several years after the war that Donald met someone who had
been with his mother and father. He told Donald, that when the Germans
had invaded Hungary in 1944, and the so called Death Marches were
organized. Donald's parents were forced to leave Budapest and literally
walk into Germany. They were in one of those prisoner groups that
were being marched from one concentration camp to another and they
had died.
The development
by Columbia of the 33 RPM Long Playing record (in the fall
of 1947 a 17 minute per side Lp was ready), and the official launch
in 1948, promised new possibilities, not only for the big record companies,
but for newcomers too, and of course for eager entrepreneurs like
Donald Gabor.
By 1950 the Lp was quickly becoming the accepted medium and as the
proliferation of the appropriate playback equipment was increasing,
it was time to enter the Lp record business on a large scale and as
early as possible. 
In 1950 Remington Records Inc., was founded, producing both 78 RPM
and 33 RPM records. Many Continental recordings were transferred to
Lp and later rereleased on the Remington label. And when the 45 RPM
format (introduced in 1949 by RCA) was generally adopted, recordings
on the the new 7 inch discs were issued.
Recordings were made in the USA, but most riginated in Vienna, the
musical capital of Europe with its abundance of singers, instrumentalists,
orchestras and ensembles.
Although the
black/silver label (which is the third label) mentioned "A Don
Gabor Production", the rights of most of the performances recorded
in Vienna were the propriety of lawyer/impresario/dramaturge Marcel
Prawy. Gabor paid for the rights to issue the performances
on Remington, but he also released the material (while often omitting
the names of the soloists and of the conductors) on the other labels
he created - labels with such remarkable names as Masterseal, Plymouth,
Masque, Merit, and Etude, later adding more labels to the
list: Palace, Pontiac, Paris, Webster, and Buckingham.
Each and every name bore a hidden persuasion to which a specific buyer
could connect.
To give his product
mass appeal, Gabor priced
his Remington records at about one third of the prices asked by the
big labels. A ten inch disc in the 149-series was $ 1.49, and a twelve
inch record in
the 199- series was priced at $1.99. These prices were maintained
for a very short time only. Already 6 months later prices had gone
up to $1.69 and $2.19 respectively, but were still about two fifth
of RCA's high priced 10 inch and 12 inch records which sold at $4.67
and $5.72 respectively. And even if in 1954 the prices of Remington
discs were raised to $ 1.99 and $ 2.99, prices were significantly
lower compared to those of the other labels. Then, all of a sudden
prices, were lowered in the course of 1955 to $ 1.45 and $ 1.95.
By 1955 the quality of records had improved significantly and the
question is whether Remington could keep up with the quality of the
competition and attract buyers.
In order to be
able to guarantee these prices, Donald Gabor makes no contracts with
top-price artists, he uses a cheap substitute for vinylite, and he
employs no network of salesmen and district managers to distribute
his records. While the cheap vinyl substitute kept the cost of production
low, it also resulted in poorer sound quality. This fact should have
deterred many consumers from buying a Remington record or a release
on other labels of Gabor's. At the same time one should not forget
that most record buyers were playing their records on portable gramophones
or simple turntables, all equipped with crystal or ceramic pick ups,
connected to a small amplifier or radio which had of course variable
tone controls, so bass could be enhanced and treble could be adjusted
to minimize hiss. Only much later the criterion of quality was gaining
in significance. The serious music lover and audiophile would pay
more attention to the quality of the performance and the technical
quality of the discs.
Gabor's policy
was to make all sorts of music affordable. And he surely must
have turned many people into record collectors, irrespective of the
label's name, as Gabor entered the game at the right time and with
mainstream repertoire.
In the Schwann
catalog of December 1950 there were only three recordings listed of
Dvorak's New World Symphony: Eugene Ormandy
on Columbia, Leopold Stokowski on Victor and there was the
Remington disc with George
Singer, a recording made in the beginning of that year and
issued on R-199-4.
The same goes for Brahms's First Symphony. There were three recordings
listed in the June 1951 Schwann catalog. One of Arthur Rodzinski
on Columbia and another again by Leopold Stokowsky on Victor.
Number three was the Remington recording of H.
Arthur Brown ( R-199-5) conducting the Austrian Symphony Orchestra
- also called Niederösterreichisches Sinfonie-Orchester (Symphony
Orchestra of Lower Austria), Viennese Symphonic Orchestra, Orchestra
of the Viennese Symphonic Society, Niederösterreichisches Tonkünstler
Orchestra, Linz Symphony Orchestra, and Austrian State Symphony Orchestra,
and who knows what more.
That same June 1951 Schwann edition mentions that of Beethoven's Sonata
Pathétique there were just three recordings: Arthur Rubinstein
(Victor), Rudolf Serkin (Columbia) and Alfred Kitchin
(Remington), and Beethoven's Moonlight was available by Horowitz,
Serkin and on Remington R-199-10 by Alexander
Jenner.
Paganini's Violin Concerto in D had three recordings listed: Zino
Francescati on Columbia, Rugiero Ricci on Vox and Ivry
Gitlis on Remington R-199-20 (though it was the one movement as
orchestrated by Fritz Kreisler).
Since its release, Edward Kilenyi's recording of Debussy's
Preludes Book 1 on R-199-50, was the only Lp available for quite some
time. Only in July 1952 one of Walter Gieseking's reference
recordings was listed.
When in the course of 1951 Alexander Jenner's Etudes Op.25 (R-199-28)
and in the fall of 1951 Edward Kilenyi's recording of Op. 10 (R-199-57)came
out, the only alternative on LP was the set of Alexander Brailowsky
on Victor LM-6000.
And there were of course the recordings of Michèle
Auclair playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (R-199-20),
the recording of Rimsky- Korsakov's Scheherazade conducted by H.
Arthur Brown (R-199-11).
Beethoven's Fifth Concerto (Emperor) with pianist Felicitas
Karreron RLP-199-1 was the first Remington releaase, listed
in December 1950. There were only three competitors: Cassadesus (Columbia),
Curzon (London), Schioler (mercury) and Serkin (Columbia). Grieg's
Piano Concerto (R-199-3) was a December 1950 listing. Karrer's Rachmaninoff
Second (R-199-32) was released in the fall of 1951.
When in the summer of 1951 Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony with Kurt
Wöss on R-199-7 was released, the only competition was from
Columbia with the Bruno Walter recording (ML 4010).
As in the years
1950-1952 the catalog only contained those recordings which could
be obtained through Marcel Prawy, there was never a Beethoven Ninth,
orchestral music of Richard Strauss, or a Gustav Mahler
Symphony. Strangely enough these gaps in the catalog were not
filled in when Laszlo Halasz had become Recording Director and Berlin
had become the main recording venue. However, there apparently
was a recording made for Remington of a performance of Mahler's
Fourth Symphony with Bruno Walter conducting the Vienna
Philharmonic and soprano Irmgard Seefried at the 1950 Salzburg
Festival as Robert McColley reported. (There were of course recordings
made in Salzburg with Joseph
Messner conducting works by Mozart, Handel, Haydn and Rossini.)
Although the orchestra did permit to record the work, it was not released
by Don Gabor. The most likely reason would be that Bruno Walter was
under contract of Columbia Records and the release was not
permitted or very expensive. As the taped performance was among the
tapes Don Gabor gave to producer Tom Null, it was issued in the Remington
Series on the Varèse Sarabande label around 1980, although
a listing could not be traced by me.
Gabor's records
were priceless alternatives. Remingtons were the cheapest in the catalog,
even cheaper than Eli Oberstein's Allegro/Royale records with bootlegged
material released under fake names for instrumentalists, conductors
and orchestras, and sometimes omitting a movement of a symphony or
a number of bars.
A few suspicious collectors may have assumed that the names of the
artists on Remington records were often also pseudonyms. They were
definitely not! Felicitas Karrer, Kurt Wöss, H. Arthur Brown,
George Singer, Walter Schneiderhan and Ivry Gitlis - and the names
of numerous other artists printed on the covers and listed in the
Schwann were all genuine names of musicians who had studied with important
teachers and professors, privately or at the famous conservatories
of Paris and Vienna.
Low prices meant a big turnover. No wonder that the big companies
tried to boycott Remington right from those early days (when it still
had a red label and the records were already sold by the thousand),
and even more so when Remington was achieving a higher cosmetic profile
through distinguished art work and outstanding design by Alex Steinweiss
and the artists he recruited.
The sale of each Remington disc meant less income for the giants who
were used to dividing the bulk of the market between them.
There were a few recordings from Vienna which were issued on the more
expensive, early Masterseal label, like Fritz Busch's Memorial
Album and the recording of Volkmar Andrae conducting Bruckner's
Symphony No. 1.These wetere poresented as "A Marcel Prawy Production",
obviously to please Prawy.
There was
another man who was instrumental in turning Remington Records
into a success. His name was George Curtiss.
George Curtiss was a little younger than Donald Gabor. George
was actually from the Kertesz family, but the name was Americanized
and changed into Curtiss. George's father, Gyula Kertesz,
who played for soccer for the MTK Budapest and also did the
coaching for other soccer clubs, was Don Gabor's uncle. Gyala
Kertesz supervised the Continental enterprise during the war,
when his son George had enlisted in the US Army and Donald
had joined the US Navy. Donald enlisted on June 8th, 1943;
the document states that his civil occupation is a motion
picture sound editor and sound recorder. (Note: On
Donald H. Gabor's recruitment document, the name was probably
written in under cast and later typed. That could be the reason
why the official document says: Donald B. Gabor - the 'h'
was mistaken for a 'b'.)
George
Curtiss, born as George Kertesz on April 19, 1921, in Metz,
France, lived his first 12 years mainly in Germany and later
in many different European countries (Sweden, Norway, England,
and Switzerland). He was an only child and like Donald Gabor
came to America in 1938. He graduated from A.B. Davis High
School, Mount Vernon, NY, and started as 'Assistant to Recording
Manager' for the Standard Phono Corporation at 163 W. 23rd
St. in NYC, and was employed from September 1938 to December
1942. He also attended City College of New York until he was
drafted in 1941, and in 1943 he became a US citizen while
he was stationed in Spartensberg, South Carolina. Shortly
afterwards he was shipped overseas. He was one of the soldiers
of the 102nd Infantry Division of the US Ninth Army who reached
the town of Gardelegen on April 15, 1945, and were horrified
when they discovered the atrocities of the massacring of concentration
camp prisoners which had taken place only two days earlier.
George
spoke French, German, Hungarian, English and Spanish, all
fluently, without an accent. He also mastered reading and
writing these languages. He later learned some Russian and
Albanian too and could converse in Italian. Remarkable, and
at the same time unusual, is that he also had a brilliant
mathematical mind. He was able to multiply five numbers by
five numbers faster than could be calculated when using a
calculator. He was a gifted, handsome man, was artistic and
had a sarcastic sense of humor. But mostly he was a man of
great character, honest and forthright in business.
His
passive and active knowledge of so many languages made him
a perfect broadcaster (as a side job) for the Voice of America
in the nineteen fifties, the early, turbulent years of the
cold war.
Relations
and family ties are always important in business, especially
in small emigrant groups. Gabor asked his cousin George to
join Continental Records in 1945. He first became Manager
of the Foreign Production Department of Continental Records
from 1945 on and than switched
to Remington Records, when the label was founded in 1950,
working closely with Don Gabor. The cooperation lasted until
1962. In that year George Curtiss started Eurotone, his own
business, dealing with ethnic labels named Eurotone, Tikva
and Anthology (which was his favorite). And he was the importer
in the USA of the Unesco sound recordings.
Gabor
spoke American English and of course Hungarian, but for international
contacts he needed a man who was fluent in many languages
and also had the necessary social skills to successfully engage
in business negotiations and conferences. George Curtiss perfectly
complemented Gabor's ideas. Through good management he helped
turn many a project into a commercial success. He was
head of the Webster plant where the Remingtons, Masterseals
and other labels, were pressed. He was responsible for the
manufactoring of the vinyl, for the production of matrixes
and plates, and the pressings. He constantly tried to improve
the quality of the final product, difficult as it was, given
the limited budgets. On many an occasion heated discussions
took place between Don Gabor, George Curtiss and Gabor's cousin
Steve, about the recordings, the quality, and what could be
done to make improvements. And George definitely had different
views. As his responsibility was the final product that left
the plant, he often picked out several pressings to listen
to and to check the quality. While using a red "china
marker" he would pick out imperfections in the pressings
and improvements or corrections could be made.
George Curtiss was also the man who wrote the liner notes
for the early recordings before a host of professional writers,
critics and musicologists was hired to fill the backsides
of the covers with notes and biographical details, if available.
After
setting up a pressing plant for Don Gabor in Puerto Rico in
1961, George Curtiss finally quit the company the following
year, as views on how to continue in the new era of the stereo
record were diverging. To make things easy in the beginning,
Sam Goody offered George a work space to set up his Eurotone
Record Company.
The photograph of George Curtiss conferring was taken around
1960 during a recording session. George Curtiss died in May
2003.
(A page about the Webster pressing plant will be added later.)
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Don Gabor was
a demanding entrepreneur. Total personal commitment is the trademark
of many men who have a vision and start a business of their own. Gabor's
vision was of building a record emporium, producing 'music for millions'
and challenging the big companies. Gabor not only gave all his time
and energy himself, he also expected total commitment from his workers
in the office as well as in the factory.
When he had a new idea he immediately would call a producer, even
in the middle of the night or in the early hours of the morning, and
'ask' him to come over and talk about what needed to be done to realize
the idea or to implement a new strategy. In this way many series may
have been originated, the series of the Young Violinists, the series
of recordings done with the American Composers Association, and the
Music Plus
Series with Dr. Sigmund Speath.
It was inevitable that valuable managers, assistants, producers and
even workers would quit sooner or later, as often enough an individual's
ideas about how to get the job properly done, had to be put aside.
And also in many cases payment was not always on time. This suggests
that capital was not always sufficiently available. Reaching a goal
was often more important than the remuneration. The means justified
the ends.
This flaw did
not prevent Gabor acquiring the collaboration of famous musicians,
pedagogues, writers and artists. On the contrary. Many well known
figures did cooperate. Violinists Georges Enesco and Albert Spalding,
pianists Edward Kilenyi and Ernst von Dohnanyi, and conductor Thor
Johnson, they all performed in front of the Remington microphones.
Yehudi Menuhin and Jacques Thibaud endorsed the series of violin pedagogues
Theodore and Alice
Pashkus.
Musicologists Dr. Sigmund Spaeth, John
W. Freeman and Irving Kolodin (to name just three) wrote liner
notes.
Alexander Steinweiss
designed a house style for the Remington company, a new cover and
label, and Curt John Witt, Otto Rado, Slonevski and H.Kaebitz and
many other artists (and often Alex Steinweiss himself) delivered the
art work to fill in the basic grid.
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'A
Don Gabor Production', the crown, the vertical row of boxes
which spelled REMINGTON, the Musirama label, plus the heading
on the stationary (and other documents) with the slogan 'music
for millions', the capital R on the catalog with the Remington
logo, and the black/gold sticker with the important text 'factory
sealed', they were the elements defining the corporate image
of Remington Records Inc.
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It made Don Gabor
an important figure in the record business, starting in a small office
on Broadway, and later on 263 West 54th St. in the nineteen forties.
In the early nineteen fifties the office's address was a
Suite on Fifth Avenue (first at No. 500 and later at
No. 551). He became a well-to-do business man in the industry, with
a rich social life, together with his wife Valery, known to everyone
as Wally (and she was not a singer as many opera buffs want us to
believe), and with his daughters Edna and Geraldine, living in a luxurious
20-room mansion on Delafield Avenue in the Riverdale area (Bronx),
and spending holidays in their Cape Cod summer residence.
Gabor had wit, and he was a serious and social man too, but only then
when he chose to be, as is so often the case with rulers of an emporium.
He supported Béla Bartók by paying him a generous allowance,
far more than the actual profit of the sales of the master's Continental
records. When in 1956 Hungary fought for a 'socialism with a human
face' and the revolution failed, Gabor supported his relatives. Donald's
cousin Steve fled Hungary with his 8 month pregnant wife and his son
Peter and daughter Kathleen. Steve became a manager of the Webster
plant, which was supervised by George Curtiss. There must have been
numerous other occasions when Gabor helped out, for example by arranging
a loan for buying a house. And when news from the hospital said that
George's wife had given birth to a little baby-girl, Donald wrote
a letter on the Remington stationary, to be delivered to George Curtiss
at the Webster plant announcing the birth. Gabor wrote: 'Dear Mr.
Curtiss, This is to inform you that today I have shipped to your hospital
one baby girl. For further details, please call the hospital. Very
truly yours, THE STORK.'.
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On
the last page of this catalog from 1953 the MUSIRAMA productions
are being announced.
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Issuing many
labels with much of the same material, which was clever marketing,
is being seen by many as Gabor's main trait. That can be true. But
his geniality was in creating the Remington label, right from the
start, and especially when it evolved into a better quality label
with the introduction of the MUSIRAMA '3 Dimensional Sound' recordings
with the multiple microphone placement.
That was when Robert Blake was the recording technician, and conductor
Laszlo Halasz teamed up with Don Gabor and George Curtiss and became
Remington's recording director, mainly for the recordings made in
Germany (with the RIAS Symphony) and in Italy (with the Orchestra
of the Teatro la Fenice) and at home (with the Cincinnati
Symphony Orchestra).
For recordings
of individual artists playing recitals, the Mastertone Studios
in New York City were hired. It is probable that the recording
of Sari Biro playing Bartok, Kabalevsky and Kodaly (released
in December 1953), as well as the recitals of Jorge Bolet,
of Ossy Renardy with Eugene List, of duo pianists Pierre
Luboshutz and Genia Nemenoff, were recorded there for the Musirama
Series, which meant a vast improvement over the early Remington recordings.
Then Gabor was at the pinnacle of his achievements. (More information
can be viewed when accessing The Remington Site, using the links at
the end of this page.)
Remington was discontinued a year or so after the stereo record had
been introduced (1958). Then Gabor (re-)issued cheap, low quality
recordings, which were only available at gas stations and in super
markets and were no longer listed in the official record catalogs,
Schwann and The Longplayer.
The fact that Gabor did not follow the road for further improvement
but overlooked the importance of sound quality, was an omission that
kept him, regrettably, from establishing a quality laberl that withstood
the passage of time. If he had done otherwise and had continued the
cooperation with the Bertelsmann label, had expanded his international
contacts and had released quality recordings in the stereo era, his
top label ultimately could have evolved into the class of Vox,
Turnabout, Dover, Kapp, Vanguard and Westminster.
In the beginning
of the nineteen sixties Gabor revived Continental Record Co. Inc.
for a short time. The office was located at 630, 9th Avenue. The company
then also produced 8-track cartridges labeled 'Radiant' but
without much success. He relocated the office once again, but now
to his home in the Bronx. Several covers mention "Paris Sound
Laboratories - 4645 Delafield Ave, Riverdale, New York".
In the nineteen seventies there was no specific activity of 'A Don
Gabor production', in any case not advertized as such. Those were
the years when several recordings were licensed to other labels. The
most famous are the three records with violinist Georges Enesco performing
Bach's Sonatas and Partitas, issued by Bert Whyte's Everest Records.
Other taped recordings were reissued on Vox. Gabor's company
is then named 'American Tape Corporation'.
Tom Null reissued several taped performances, of which the tapes were
given to him by Donald Gabor himself. Null's label was Varèse-Sarabande.
Issued were the 'Remington Series' with specific recordings
like those of Albert Spalding playing Dohnanyi's Violin Sonata
with Ernst von Dohnanyi at the piano, and Georges Enesco
playing his Sonata No. 2 with Céliny Chailley-Richez.
There is Simon Barere playing Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and formerly
unissued Scriabin Etudes. Also on Varèse-Sarabande were released
the first commercial stereo recordings, made in 1953 of the
Cincinnati Symphony and the Helsinki
University Chorus performing Sibelius (Origin of Fire, Pohjolah's
Daughter, and Songs by Sibelius a/o.). These
recordings made in November 1953 were the first commercial stereo
recordings issued on Lp. (In February 1954 it was RCA who made their
first commercial stereophonic recordings.) Also
Dvorak's 4th (8th) Symphony, as well as some of the recordings made
with the RIAS Symphony
Orchestra - like Jussi Jalas conducting the 1st Symphony of
Jean Sibelius and Anja Ignatius playing five of the Six Humoresques
for violin and orchestra - were done in stereo.
Don
Gabor died on his 68th birthday of a heart attack. An obituary was
published in The New York Times. Gabor was called a colorful entrepreneur,
a leader in making classical music available to many people by charging
low prices, 99 CT. per record when he started to release the Remingtons.
That is correct.
His undeniable importance lays, from the very beginning of his enterprises,
in his decision to make the Long Playing record a medium for the masses
and applying unusual means to achieve that goal. In doing so he showed
many a record company the way to create new strategies in marketing.
On November 23rd an 'afternoon worship' was held in the Riverdale
Presbyterian church. The words of French nobleman Stephen Grellet
(the lines slightly altered, maybe written down from memory) were
typed on the order of service:
I shall pass through
this world but once.
Any good that I can do, or any
kindness that I can show to any human being,
let me do it now. Let me not defer or ne-
glect it. For I shall not pass this way again.
Rudolf A. Bruil,
June 30th 2005.
>GO
TO THE REMINGTON SITE WITH LINKS TO ARTISTS or
>>READ
A PERSONAL INTRODUCTION or
>>>CONTINUE READING THE STORY
I expect to pass
through this world but once.
Any good things, therefore, that I can do,
any kindness that I can show a fellow being,
let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it,
for I shall not pass this way again.
- Stephen Grellet
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