| | Putting the Record Straight |  | Author: John Culshaw
Publisher: Secker & Warburg
Category: Book
Buy Used: $57.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 4312087
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 362
ISBN: 0436118025
EAN: 9780436118029
ASIN: 0436118025
Publication Date: November 16, 1981
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Published by Secker & Warburg in 1981. Hardcover. Number of pages: 362. Condition: Good. Used book but in Good Condition for sensible price. #8393771 Delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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| Customer Reviews:
DECCA's dirty secrets revealed March 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is an autobiography by John Culshaw, one of the legendary classical music record producers of the 20th century, who represents many of the fine DECCA recordings from 1940's until the middle of the 1960's.
Culshaw was in the middle of the SP to LP, and Mono to Stereo transition period when the record companies were very active and confused about their overall direction. As such, he provides first hand account of many of the industry's amazing achievements and terrible mistakes.
He gives clear explanations of the technical obstacles at the time, and some of the secret tricks he had to use in order to keep DECCA at the forefront of the recording technologies.
The book is flooded with personal recollections of his interactions with the star artists, and provides in-depth view of their personalities during the critical recording sessions. The most interesting are his involvement in many of the legendary early opera recordings, and I found it amusing to read about the personalities of the star opera singers of the time, and how the new generation of singers climbed up the stairs to stardom.
Obviously he only covers those artists that were affiliated with DECCA, from early recordings of Curzon/Knappertsbusch, Ansermet, etc, the big breakthrough of Solti/VPO, and eventually to the close connection with Benjamin Britten. But there are many notable fragments of his work with other conductors and artists, such as Beecham, Szell, Monteaux, Reiner, Kertesz, Nilsson, Sutherland, Rostropovich, Richter, Rubinstein... to name a few, some positive, some very negative, but all interesting little stories to witness the human side of these legendary icons.
I also found it interesting to read about how the LP cover jackets were designed. (especially the famous "War Requiem" jacket!)
Unfortunately the book deliberately omits the most important event, Solti's stereo Ring Cycle, since this is written in the author's another book "The Ring Resounding".
Culshaw spends a large number of pages to Karajan during his DECCA years. He illustrates his true personality to clear many myths, and some of the magic tricks Karajan used in his recordings, and explains why Karajan left DECCA and moved on to Deutshe Grammophon.
If there are two things I found disappointing about this book, they are:
1. Culshaw refers too many times to how the management is evil, and how many of the potential projects were ruined due to bad management.
Although I believe he is right in every respect, I became frustrated by his repeated attacks and complaints about what he did not like about the company.
2. The book unfortunately ends half way, and an apology is placed at the end by Erik Smith, suggesting that the book was compiled and published incomplete, due to Culshaw's death. I cannot imagine how many other amazing stories he could have told had the book been completed.
Irrespective of those negative points, I have to give this book 5 stars, since nobody else could have written such an amazing book full of insider stories.
The writing style is very fluent, honest and clear, and it is a joy to read from beginning to the end.
However, it is important that you have listened to, or at least know about many of the early DECCA recordings in order to fully appreciate the values of this book.
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