RCA Victrola
RCA Victrola was a budget record label introduced by RCA Victor in the early 1960s to reissue classical recordings originally released on the RCA Victor "Red Seal" label. The name 'Victrola' was the trademark for early console phonographs with enclosed horns first marketed by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1906. The 'Victrola' trademark also appeared on most Red Seal records issued in the US from around 1909 until 1914, then from 1917 until early 1934. The RCA Victrola label replaced the older RCA Camden label for budget classical reissues, the Camden label now mostly reissuing budget recordings drawn from RCA Victor's pop and country catalog. Many early reissues on the RCA Victrola label included recordings from the historic RCA Victor "Living Stereo" series first released in 1958, using triple channel stereophonic tapes recorded as early as 1954. There were also some first stereo issues of recordings that had previously been available only in monophonic versions. For several years, Victrola released both stereo and mono versions of many albums, many of them in "reprocessed" stereo.
First releases
The label began in 1962 with VIC-1001, a monaural recording of Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra in historic performances of Elgar's Enigma Variations and Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Haydn. This was followed by excerpts from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, Covent Garden, conducted by Jean Morel, released in both stereo and mono versions.Most of Victrola's early releases were issued in both stereo and mono sound, and included recordings by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Münch and Pierre Monteux, the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner. There were also recordings conducted by Morton Gould and Leopold Stokowski, usually with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, which was actually the Symphony of the Air, the former NBC Symphony Orchestra. Among the most noteworthy of the releases were Munch's performances of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Debussy's La Mer, and Reiner's remarkable 1954 recording of Richard Strauss's Also sprach Zarathustra. Victrola also issued Arthur Fiedler's first stereo recording, a 1954 recording of Gaîté Parisienne, Manuel Rosenthal's ballet based on the music of Jacques Offenbach.
Arturo Toscanini Centenary
In 1967, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini, Victrola began an ambitious project of reissuing most of Toscanini's approved recordings with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, mostly from the 1940s and early 1950s. The album covers featured several of the famous striking photographs taken by Robert Hupka of Toscanini in rehearsal. Toscanini's highly acclaimed 1936 recording of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was also reissued on the Victrola label.Initially, only the original mono versions were issued, as most of Toscanini's recordings were made before the advent of stereo. Then, in an attempt to satisfy fans of stereo, a number of "reprocessed" or "electronic" stereo versions were issued; generally, these were less than satisfactory because the tapes seldom had high enough fidelity to justify the separation of highs and lows, changes in equalization for each channel, or use of out-of-phase effects; however, there were a few exceptions where the process enhanced or actually improved the original mono recordings. Several of the album liner notes in the Toscanini series included the dates and locations where many of the recordings were made, a somewhat unusual practice for the time.
Other projects
Victrola also went well back into the RCA Victor archives to issue collections of various operatic singers, as well as groups of singers. Several complete operas, including Erich Leinsdorf's famous Rome sessions, which began with the 1957 stereo recording of Puccini's Tosca with Zinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, and Leonard Warren, were also reissued.Victrola released a number of compilations of operatic recordings, taken mostly from 78-rpm Red Seal discs. RCA Victor had an extensive catalog of operatic recordings by famous singers from opera's golden age, dating back to its beginnings as the Victor Talking Machine Company in the early 1900s. The most famous recordings were by the Italian tenor Enrico Caruso; all of his recordings were made by the acoustical recording process before Victor began commercial electrical recording in 1925. There were a number of Victrola albums devoted to a single singer such as Caruso, Richard Crooks, Lawrence Tibbett, Rosa Ponselle, Ezio Pinza, John McCormack, Titta Ruffo, Amelita Galli-Curci, Louise Homer, Lauritz Melchior, and Kirsten Flagstad, as well as compilations devoted to the French, German, and Italian operas. Although these albums were released long before the advent of digital remastering, great care was taken to achieve the best possible sound through various electronic processes available in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1976, sixteen of Caruso's recordings were among the first to be digitally remastered, using a ground-breaking process to improve the sound of the old acoustical recordings. The process was developed by Thomas G. Stockham at the University of Utah, and in 1978, RCA began a project to reissue all of Caruso's recordings on the RCA Red Seal label.
Most Victrola LP releases beginning in the early 1970s were issued on RCA's "Dynaflex" vinyl format, which used thinner, more pliable, lighter-weight records. This cost-cutting effort frustrated many record collectors of the time, especially since some of the discs had an audible rumble when played on better quality turntables. Despite RCA's claims to the contrary, these records could warp over time and the company eventually abandoned the process.
In 1982, RCA began issuing a series of budget priced Victrola audio cassettes, retailing for $2.99 each; some of these titles were reissues of previous Victrola LPs, while others were new releases. Beginning in the late 1980s, RCA issued a new CD and cassette series on the Victrola label consisting of stereo recordings of mostly standard symphonic and instrumental works drawn from former Red Seal issues. The RCA "Papillon Collection" and RCA Victor Silver Seal, both fairly short-lived labels, also offered low priced CD and cassette reissues of stereophonic Red Seal recordings of the standard classical repertoire. The Victrola label was eventually replaced by RCA Victor Gold Seal, which continued with digitally remastered historic performances, including the complete Toscanini recordings released by RCA Victor and the complete Rachmaninoff recordings issued by Edison Records and RCA Victor.
With the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony, RCA Victrola, as well as Silver Seal and eventually Gold Seal were all retired as active labels. Some of these recordings can still be found on various websites. Sony currently reissues all historic classical and operatic recordings from RCA Victor on the RCA Red Seal label.