I remember when the Philadelphia Orchestra moved from Columbia to RCA. Things like that were a really big deal then. Scandal in the music world! But I wasn't following it other than noting it at the time, and I'd love to read some history of this stuff now. Also, if I'm remembering the timeline right, I was heavily into acquiring and listening to Toscanini recordings -- as much, if not more than, the contemporaries -- so I was hearing relatively few of the new Ormandy releases.
So along with the musical chairs, weren't recording techniques changing quite a bit in those years? The quality of vinyl in this country was certainly taking a turn for the worse. A confluence of bad events. Remember RCA's "flexible" LPs? Those, in retrospect, may not in and of themselves been a bad thing, but they sure added to the impression of increasingly shitty quality. And the exact opposite was happening in Europe, where the quality of vinyl was incredible.
Back to Philadelphia. Was that change well received back then? I want to say no, that most people didn't think it was a good idea at all, but these are vague general impressions. But in reading BK's observations now, I'm thinking the "people" were right!
Back to Columbia. Reading a little bit in the audiophile press in later years, I learned that the classical recordings engineered by John McClure at Columbia are now held in high regard because there they employed good clear (and simple) miking with none of the doctoring that came later. (I don't know if he did any of Philadelphia's.)
Sorry for the rambling mess. I'm pulling bits and pieces of memory out of my arse as I type. Which makes for a lovely mental image, don't you think?
