>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Pause ]
>> Michael Turpin: Well,
good evening, everyone.
>> Good evening.
>> Michael Turpin: My name is
Mike Turpin, and I know you.
Good to see you again.
I'm a Recording Engineer
here in the Music Division.
Those of you who regularly
attend these concerts
and pre-concert lectures are used
to seeing me on the other side
of the microphone, but
now that we're well
into our 90th season I thought it'd
be a good idea to look back at some
of the legendary performances
that have taken place
on the Coolidge stage, many of which
I've had the pleasure of recording.
Now contrary to what some of
my colleagues might tell you,
I have not been here 90 years.
[laughter] I have been
here long enough, though,
to have witnessed some significant
changes in both the programming
that we offer, as well as
the technology used to record
and preserve it, so I'll be talking
about that over the next hour.
First, let me thank a few people.
My capable associate, Jay Kinloch,
back at the controls there,
Jay has been working with me
for several years now
and doing a great job.
Also, our friends in the
ITS Multimedia Group,
who are recording this for the web.
I guess it'll show up
there sooner or later.
And also want to thank my
colleagues in the Concert Office,
who make it fun to come to work
every day, well, most days.
[laughter] Now some of you know the
history of the Coolidge Auditorium,
that it opened in the fall of 1925,
thanks to the diligent efforts
of Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge, a woman who was ahead
of her time in many ways.
A musician, herself, she had a
passion for chamber music and wanted
to share it with as
many people as possible.
Having an auditorium built
specifically for chamber music,
housed and maintained
by a Government institution was
a pretty unusual idea in 1924,
but she made the proposal to
then Librarian of Congress,
Herbert Putnam, and
Music Division Chief,
Carl Engel [Assumed Spelling].
It literally took an act of
Congress to make it happen.
The idea grew out of
successful chamber music concerts
and festivals she organized
in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
What you might not know is that
Mrs. Coolidge had radio equipment
installed in the Auditorium
right from the beginning,
even though radio was still a
fledgling medium at the time.
Some of those first
concerts were carried
by the Navy's Broadcasting
Service in Arlington.
Unfortunately, there are no known
recordings of those broadcasts,
but by the mid-1930s NBC was
bringing chamber music to the homes
of people who might not
have otherwise heard it.
Here is a rare recording of Mrs.
Coolidge speaking about her idea
to bring chamber music to the
masses at her 80th birthday concert
in 1944, and that is Harold Spevak
[Assumed Spelling] with her.
>> After seven years in Pittsfield
the chamber music festivals had
grown to such proportions and seemed
to me so important that I decided
to perpetuate them by placing them
under institutional management.
Still another chance suggestion
then led me to consider the Library
of Congress as the most
desirable and personal
and permanent administrator
of my cherished project.
[Inaudible] and the
Librarian, Mr. Herbert Putnam,
proved deeply sympathetic
and enormously helpful
in bringing this about, and
I was not only very glad
to share an increasingly
heavy responsibility,
but also welcomed the
opportunity to establish
in the Government a little wedge
of authority in matters of art.
I think I was even kindly
accused of a little wrangling
and perhaps justly for I could wish
for music the same Governmental
protection that is given to hygiene,
education or public welfare.
How wonderful if we could have
in the Cabinet a Secretary
of Fine Arts.
I feel that I the course of 26
years my concerts have developed
and guided my career as
much as I have guided them.
One idea has evolved another.
One event has grown into another.
I have followed their direction into
paths and faced entirely unforeseen,
until today I find
myself in your midst
at this festival feeling the
radiation of friendship and beauty,
which chamber music broadcasts.
As I feel returned messages
augmented a thousand fold
which center in this
little Auditorium
in the Library of Congress.
>> Michael Turpin: And
speaking of Mrs. Coolidge I want
to make sure you all know about
the great exhibit on her life
and legacy, which you can
view over in the lobby
of the Performing Arts Reading Room
in the Madison Building,
right across the street.
It will be up until January 23rd,
so you still have some
time to check that out.
I encourage you to do
so, it's a great exhibit.
In 1935 the Library received
another generous gift,
Gertrude Clarke Whittall
donated her collection
of Stradivarius instruments that
live in this room named after her,
but they came with a condition
that they be played regularly
and not just sit in
the display cases.
So every December 18th we present
a Stradivari Anniversary Concert.
Here is Mrs. Whittall speaking
at the 1937 Strad Concert.
To all unseen friends
who are listening
in tonight, we welcome you.
We are back together by the
universal bond of the love of music.
This collection of instruments
that you will hear played
upon this week were made
by the great craftsman,
Antonio Stradivarius.
I held them in trust for a short
time, now they belong to every one
of you for they were given to our
Government to hold and protect,
further, in presenting these
instruments to the Library
of Congress it was my
aim to give to the people
of this country an opportunity to
see and hear these rare Stradivari.
They can be viewed at
the Library of Congress
by anyone who wishes to do so.
They can be heard in concerts
held in the Library and also
through the medium of the radio
by an even larger audience.
If the appreciation
and enjoyment of music
in America will be
advanced thereby the purpose
of my gift will have been fulfilled.
As you already know, the
festival being held this week is
to commemorate the 200th
Anniversary of the death
of Stradivari on December 18th.
But it is not our intention to make
you wait another century or two
for a similar presentation, it
is our hope that we shall be able
to present a commemorative
concert each year on December 18th
and that arrangements will be
made whereby you can all hear it.
>> Michael Turpin: So
that 1937 Concert happens
to be the earliest one I
could find in the collection.
It featured the Gordon String
Quartet, that's Jacques Gordon,
the leader, the first violinist.
I couldn't find a picture
of the whole quartet,
but we'll listen to a bit of that.
Now we're going to do a
little time travel, well,
we've already done some - imagine
it's a cold December night in 1937
and you can't get to the concert.
Well, you might have
turned on your radio,
which might have looked
something like that.
Here is what you would have heard.
>> The National Broadcasting
Company invites you to the Library
of Congress Chamber Music
Auditorium in Washington, D.C.,
where an audience of music lovers
has gathered to hear the first
of a series of concerts
commemorating the 200th Anniversary
of the death of the celebrated
violinmaker, Antonio Stradivari.
This series is being presented
here at the Library of Congress
under the auspices of the
Gertrude Clarke Whittall Foundation
and the music at all of
these concerts will be played
on instruments made by Stradivari's
own hand, including the rare quartet
of two violins, viola and cello
presented to the Library of Congress
by Mrs. Matthew John Whittall.
Today the participants
are the members
of the Gordon String Quartet -
Jacques Gordon, first violin,
David Saxon, second violin, William
Linser [Assumed Spelling], viola,
and Urum Benditski
[Assumed Spelling], cello.
And the work we are about to
hear is the last of the series,
the six quartets composed
by Beethoven and known
to all quartet lovers by its listing
as Opus 18 Number 6,
the Quartet in B Flat.
[applause] The Gordon String
Quartet in the Chamber Music Hall
at the Library of Congress plays
Beethoven's Quartet in B Flat Major.
[ Music ]
>> Michael Turpin: I'm going to
hate fading out in this music,
but a lot of it to get to, so.
The recordings we've been listening
to so far were made on acetate discs
that looked something like this.
This was the recording
medium radio stations used
to make broadcast transcriptions
or air checks for sponsors.
The discs were fragile and the
acetate coating could separate
from the aluminum base if
they weren't stored properly.
There were also other problems.
This is one of ours, but you see
around the edges the white stuff
and here's a better
example of what can happen.
When I first started here I spent
many, many hours, days, weeks,
months transferring these recordings
from the NBC Radio collection.
And one of the things we did was we
had to figure out how to clean them.
We used various methods
and some chemicals
that aren't available anymore
because they're not safe.
[laughter] But and this was the '80s
and, you know, we did what we had
to do to get them cleaned.
Also, about these discs, during
the War, the Second World War,
they used a glass base and, of
course, that was a common problem
in that there were many broken ones.
Some we could put back
together and some we couldn't.
But these discs were never meant
to be used for archival storage.
In fact, in those days
not much thought was given
to storing sound recordings.
Fortunately, much of the NBC Radio
collection, including our concerts,
survived on these discs,
which are housed
in our Audiovisual Preservation
Facility in Culpeper, Virginia.
Now Mrs. Coolidge understood
the potential
of this new medium called
radio and its ability
to reach vast numbers of people.
Her relationship with
broadcasters was not
without its difficulties, however.
By the mid-1930s commercial radio
was pretty well established,
commercial being the
operative word here.
Networks and local stations
had to answer to sponsors
and often those early concert
broadcasts were interrupted
by commercials.
Also, they rarely broadcast
a complete concert.
Mrs. Coolidge was not happy
about these interruptions
and truncated programs
and was not shy
about letting her feelings be known.
Still the music they did
carry was reaching people
and chamber music was reaching new
fans or making new fans in America.
Regular weekly broadcasts, including
complete concerts, began in 1948,
locally on WGMS - some
of you might remember -
and sometime in the 1970s they
continued on public radio,
where I first became familiar
with them by listening on WFCR,
Five College Radio in Amherst
when I was a student at UMass.
By the mid-1930s the Archive
of Folksongs, which was part
of the Music Division at the time,
had acquired some disc recorders
and a truck which they used
to make field recordings
documenting American folk music.
Many of these recordings were made
by the famous well-known folklorist,
Alan Lomax [Assumed Spelling].
In 1938 Lomax invited Jelly Roll
Morton, the great jazz pianist,
to the Library and
they spent two days
in the Coolidge Auditorium recording
Morton's songs and stories.
Now these recordings
are definitely R rated,
but some of you may have heard them,
but these recordings would become
legendary and required listening
for anyone interested in
blues, jazz or folk music.
Soon after that session the Music
Division began recording the
concerts in-house, which
in turn led to the building
of the Recording Laboratory in the
early 1940s, and this is a slide
of an engineer transferring
a cylinder to tape.
We have a very large collection
of cylinders, Edison and others,
and some of that work is still
going on down in Culpeper.
With a grant from the Carnegie
Foundation and the establishment
of a revolving fund the Lab
was a self-sustaining entity
within the Library,
charging a fee-for-services,
which included duplication
of recordings
for sale in the gift shop.
Income was used to pay salaries,
purchase supplies and
maintain equipment.
Now among the many ways Mrs.
Coolidge left her imprint
on the Library was by
commissioning new music,
particularly by American composers.
The best known of these commissions
without a doubt is Aaron
Copland's Appalachian Spring.
The work was a collaboration
between the composer
and dancer-choreographer,
Martha Graham,
whose dance company premiered the
piece on the Coolidge stage in 1944.
The ballet has been performed here
several times since the premiere
and will be again appropriately
next spring.
Mr. Copeland was here in 1981,
celebrating his 81st birthday,
and he was asked about Mrs.
Coolidge and his famous work.
>> Do you remember
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge?
>> I certainly do and
with much affection.
Mrs. Coolidge really made her
mark I think on American music
in the consistent way over the
years she established and continued
to have here in Washington those
excellent chamber music concerts.
We really owe her a great debt,
and I'm very glad you've
given me the opportunity
to say that in public.
I've often thought it, and I wish
we had more Mrs. Coolidge's around.
>> That relationship is sort of
symbiotic in a way because just
as we, yourself, among the many
composers owe a debt to her,
I think her memory owes
quite a debt to the man
who composed Appalachian
Spring for her.
[ Applause ]
>> You're forgetting Martha
Graham, who created the work.
[laughter]
>> And it didn't even
have a title, did it?
>> No, it didn't.
I can't imagine that being true
any longer, I'm so used to thinking
of it as Appalachian Spring,
it never occurred to me
that when I was writing it I
didn't know what she had called it,
she hadn't given it a name yet.
So after finishing the work
and mailing it back to her,
when she already had
it in rehearsal,
the first time I saw
her I said, Martha,
what have you called the ballet?
I called it Ballet for
Martha just in my own mind.
[laughter]
>> That's exactly what
it says on the front page
of the manuscript,
Ballet for Martha.
>> That was a subtitle.
[laughter] No, I didn't
have a title.
I was really putting
Martha Graham to music.
I had seen her dancing
so many times.
I had a sense of her
personality as a creative artist.
I had really in the front
of my mind I wasn't thinking
about the Appalachians
or even spring,
so that I had no title for it.
The first thing I said to her when
I came down to the rehearsal here
in Washington was, Martha,
what did you call the ballet?
She said Appalachian Spring.
Oh, I said, what a nice
name, where'd you get it?
[laughter] She said, well,
it's the title of a poem
by Hart Greene [Assumed Spelling].
Oh, I said, does the poem have
anything to do with the ballet?
She said, no, I just liked
the title and I took it.
[laughter] And over and over again
nowadays people come up to me
after seeing the ballet on the
stage and say, Mr. Copeland,
when I see that ballet and when I
hear your music I can just see the
Appalachians in spring.
[laughter] I've begun to see the
Appalachians myself a little bit.
[laughter]
[ Music ]
>> Michael Turpin: Remember, this
recording is still on disc acetates,
and you might have noticed a little
glitch and also the footfalls
of the dancers on stage,
interesting.
So let's now talk about
the Budapest Quartet,
which I believe it was 1940,
I'm not too sure about that,
when they started, or '41.
They became the first
quartet in residence
and started a 22-year relationship
with the Library - 22 years,
becoming the first
quartet in residence,
followed by an equally lengthy
residency by the Juilliard Quartet.
In 1945 the Office of War
Information produced a series
of documentaries called
The American Scene.
The Library was the subject
of one of those films
and it featured rare footage
of the Budapest in concert.
So let's take a look at that.
>> But the roots of music in America
go deep into the past and twist
across oceans and continents.
The Music Division of the
Library can furnish the student
with all kinds of materials,
including priceless old manuscripts.
This is the original score of a Bach
Cantatas, and this a Mozart Quintet.
Even the handwriting of a composer
like Beethoven is of interest
to scholars, but more
important are the pen scratches
by which he conveyed his
immortal inspiration to the world.
This is a manuscript of
one of his string quartets.
[ Music ]
But the music that
cannot be heard is dead.
The Library with the help of a
few generous patrons gives life
to its music collections by
presenting eminent artists
in regular series of concerts.
Typical of such occasions is
this Sunday afternoon performance
of the Budapest String Quartet,
playing in the Library's collection
of Stradivarius instruments.
[ Music ]
When Beethoven was born
the United States ...
>> Michael Turpin: Again, I hate to
cut it off, it's such a great film.
This whole film, it's
actually only 20 minutes long
and it can be found online, if you
Google The American Scene Number 11,
Library of Congress, it
should be the first hit.
It's on a website called archive.org
and if you go right to the website,
it's kind of hard to find it,
but it's easier to Google it
and you can go right to the film.
So it's worth the 20 minutes
to watch the whole film.
They talk about other parts
of the Library and what some
of the other Divisions
do and so forth.
It's really pretty fantastic.
So shortly after that film was made
in 1945 audio recording
technology was
about to undergo a
revolutionary change,
but the story begins in 1928.
That year a German
Engineer by the name
of Fritz Pfleumer discovered
a method of recording sound
by using iron oxide particles bonded
to paper or cellulose film strip.
This was the beginning of magnetic
tape, but remember this was Germany
and by the mid-1930s its
use for spreading propaganda
by the Nazi Party was rampant.
Tape recorders were
also a well-kept secret
as the Party maintained strict
control over all communication
in and out of the country.
So it wasn't until
the war ended and US
and Allied troops captured the tapes
and recorders that
the secret got out.
Magnetic tape was a
game changer as a method
for recording sound
compared to acetate discs.
It sounded better, wasn't as
fragile, and it could be edited.
Tape allowed engineers and
musicians the ability to do things
that were impossible or very
difficult to do with discs.
When this new recording
medium hit the States
after the War it didn't
take long for broadcasters
to realize its potential.
In fact, singer Bing Crosby
was so interested he invested
in a new company called Ampex,
which along with 3M became the
two dominant American suppliers
of tape and recorders.
This is a German Magnetophon
recorder,
one of the first ones
manufactured widely.
This is the Ampex tape reel and,
of course, the venerable 440,
which some of these machines are
still in use down in Culpeper.
With all the new technology
we still have to be able
to play the old formats, and it's
getting a little more difficult now
to find technicians that
can repair these things
but they're still working, and
we have a couple good people
down there keeping
these things going.
So back to the music.
By the late 1930s the reputation
of the Library's Concert Series
was attracting major talent,
like Dorothy Maynor, Leontyne
Price, Leonard Bernstein,
Itzhak Perlman and many others.
In 1939 violinist Adolf Busch
and pianist Rudolf Serkin
performed here, and here's a bit
of them doing the Beethoven
D Major Sonata.
[ Music ]
We're back to acetate disc now.
[ Music ]
In 1940 soprano Dorothy Maynor
became the first African-American
artist to perform on
the Coolidge stage.
She was part of a three-day series
of concerts commemorating the 75th
Anniversary of the ratification
of the 13th Amendment
abolishing slavery in the US.
The great tenor, Roland Hayes,
and the Budapest Quartet also
took part in those concerts.
Here is Dorothy Maynor
singing Depuis le jure
from Charpentier's Opera Louise.
[ Music ]
Great voice.
1953 the great Leontyne Price
premiered Samuel Barber's Hermit
Songs with Barber,
himself, at the piano.
Here is the first song.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
In 1963 Leonard Bernstein
appeared with the Julliard Quartet
in their second year of residence
for the Schumann Piano Quintet,
and I want to mention this recording
is also available commercially,
as is the Dorothy Maynor, you
can get them both on Amazon
or your favorite music outlet.
So we'll listen to Lenny.
Having a little fun with the tuning.
I don't know if this on the
record, but then they launch
into the Scarzo [Assumed Spelling],
which they take it
really fast tempo.
[ Applause ]
[ Music ]
That's Lenny.
[ Music ]
I think we have to cool
the piano off after that.
[laughter] We might really.
Okay, let's - jumping ahead now
to 2008, but another major group
that had a long residency
here was the Beaux Arts Trio.
[ Music ]
A lot to get through here.
That you may have noticed,
some of you may have noticed
that was a stereo recording,
obviously, by the mid-'60s, I guess,
we started recording in stereo.
Now we're back to 1981 and
the great Itzhak Perlman,
who joined the Julliard
for a performance
of the Chesong [Assumed
Spelling] Concerto in D,
the pianist is Jorge
Bolet, and this was one
of the first concerts I worked on.
[ Music ]
By the 1990s we begin to see some
diversity in the concert offerings.
Now jazz was never a
staple here, but was offered
in small doses here and there.
I was surprised to learn that
W.c. Handy's St. Louis Blues was
on the program in 1929, but as much
as she championed new music Mrs.
Coolidge was apparently not a fan
of America's most original art form
and reportedly rejected a pitch
for Benny Goodman to perform here.
That's in the bar book
[Assumed Spelling].
Nevertheless, jazz did
eventually make its way
into the concert schedule
and into our collections.
In 1993 the Music Division
acquired the first collection
of a major jazz artist,
Charles Mingus.
Mingus was one of the most
important and influential musicians
and composers of the post-Bop era.
To celebrate the acquisition
the Mingus Big Band was invited
to perform, however, it didn't
happen on the Coolidge stage.
The Auditorium and most
of this building was undergoing
major renovations at the time
so for a few years concerts
were presented in other venues,
mostly at the National
Academy of Sciences Auditorium,
which is just down the street
on Constitution Avenue.
So this Mingus Big Band concert
was different in many respects.
Of course, Charles Mingus passed
away in '79, but so this was sort
of a tribute band and the bassist,
I think his name is Michael
Formanek [Assumed Spelling],
is playing Mingus' bass.
It's a Lionhead bass.
I don't know if you can see it,
you probably can't see it much
in that picture, but it
was a great instrument.
And this was also the first
multitrack recording that we did.
Actually, I didn't do it, we hired
a mobile truck to do this recording.
So this is the Mingus
Big Band playing one
of his pieces called
Boogie Stop Shuffle.
[ Music ]
Fade out on these things,
but this thing goes -
the three trumpet players
get into some trading fours
and they get into an epic battle.
It was really a memorable evening.
Since that time we have, the Library
has acquired many jazz collections,
those of Ella Fitzgerald, Gerry
Mulligan, Dexter Gordon, Max Roach,
Billy Taylor and many others.
The Coolidge Auditorium reopened
in the fall of 1996 and part
of the renovation included
new audio and video equipment.
And this is a shot of the
recording booth back stage,
that's where you'll find either
Jay or me on concert nights.
And in 2000, the early 2000s,
I was able to order our first
digital multitrack recorder.
And this was one of the
first ones available,
it records up to 24
tracks to a hard drive
and each track is saved
as a wave file.
I don't want to get too technical,
but basically you take
the hard drive,
once the recording is done
you take the hard drive out,
dump it into a computer, and
if you have editing software
like this you can mix and
edit, all without using tape.
As someone who came up in the
analog era, I remember a razorblade
and splicing tape and marking
and having little pieces of tape
on the floor, and hoping
that I didn't have
to pick one up and put it back in.
[laughter] It's the computer
makes it much, much easier
and more efficient, and so it's just
much, much faster to edit this way.
So by this time it was clear that
our concerts were going to consist
of more than string quartets.
Since that Mingus concert we've
presented other big bands,
small jazz ensembles, jazz rock
hybrid orchestras and a diverse list
of artists, much too long to name.
In recent years the Library created
the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song,
which culminates in a
large-scale, multi-talent concert.
Some of you may have heard Willie
Nelson is getting the prize this
year, and that concert will be
coming up in a couple weeks,
but it won't be here, it'll
be at Constitution Hall.
We've also formed partnerships
with ASCAP and CMA,
the Country Music Association, each
featuring their own big concerts.
So the challenge of recording
so many different kinds
of events is formidable, but I'm
fortunate to have a lot of help.
Presenting these concerts
is truly a team effort
and we have a great team
in the Concert Office.
I also want to mention and
thank our sound contractor,
John Regan [Assumed Spelling], some
of you may know, and his RMS Team.
You'll usually see John
in the Auditorium for many
of these large-scale events,
like the ones I've mentioned,
and having him take care of what we
call house sound, which is the sound
that you hear in the
audience, allows me to focus
on getting a good recording
for the collection.
So I wanted to make sure that
I've thanked him publicly.
So in closing let me say what a
pleasure it's been for me to be part
of this, to see positive changes
over the years, getting to meet
and work with great musicians,
getting to play with lots
of new tech toys and getting
to work with a great group
of smart and talented colleagues.
I also want to thank all of you,
the audience, and our donors
for supporting concerts
from the Library of Congress
because without you there
would be no Concert Series.
So clearly we could be here all
night listening to recordings,
but we have a great live
concert for you to listen
to by the Bach Collegium of Japan.
So I will leave you, if I can switch
over, with a little video montage
that I put together of
some recent concerts just
to give you a little more
of an idea of the variety
of things that we do here.
[ Music ]
[ Applause ]
>> Michael Turpin: Thank you.
And I guess we have time for a
couple questions or two, anybody?
Well, we're going to
wait for a mike.
I know you have some.
[laughter]
>> Could you just quickly,
briefly describe the current
standard of preservation?
Are you digitizing or have you
digitized all older materials,
audio and visual?
>> Michael Turpin: Yes, not all,
we're talking about millions
of items in the collection.
>> So what's your prioritization?
>> Michael Turpin: Well,
the priority is pretty much
up to the head of the
Recorded Sound Office,
his office is down in Culpeper.
I think that they will do some
like digitizing on demand,
in other words, if you come
in and you want to listen
to a Julliard concert from 1969
or something they would
pull that and digitize it.
The standard for digitization
is high resolution.
For the technically minded
it's 96, 24, 96 kilohertz,
24 byte resolution, which is
much higher than CD resolution.
CDs are 44, 16, 44
kilohertz, 16 byte.
The higher the byte rate
and the higher the sample rate the
more depth there is to the audio,
so it's sort of like going
from standard definition,
which these videos, unfortunately,
our video is not high
definition yet,
but if you've seen high-def
video, when you go back
to standard it's kind of, you can -
the difference is obvious,
so I mean.
>> I remember the broadcasts,
the radio broadcasts
well, Julliard and others.
>> Michael Turpin: Yes.
>> And any chance that
it'll ever come back
so that we can spread
it all over the radio?
>> Michael Turpin: The radio ...
>> TV?
>> Michael Turpin: Yes, well,
it really comes down to funding,
unfortunately, and the
climate we're in now,
trying to get anything
funded is a little difficult.
We have produced a couple of series
of radio broadcasts that are edited,
one-hour programs of
highlights of concerts.
Again, we're not - we can't
put a whole concert together,
but these are being produced
by an outside company called CD
Syndications, and they also do a lot
of work with the folks over at
Wolftrap [Assumed Spelling].
And you may have heard -
I think they've been on -
they were on last spring, concerts
from the Library of Congress,
I think WEDA [Assumed
Spelling] broadcasted them.
So, hopefully, that will continue.
I think we're going to
do another one next year.
Anyone?
>> What was the biggest
challenge you faced
in recording a group
on the Coolidge stage?
>> Michael Turpin: It
depends on the group.
I mentioned John Regan,
our contractor.
It's really great to have someone
in the Auditorium doing house sound.
If you have a jazz group like
Gregory Porter you've got
to have someone doing house
sound because you've got drums,
you've got a bass with an amplifier,
you've got a singer, you've got,
you know, it's a totally different
dynamic than a string quartet
or a baroque ensemble, like
you're going to hear tonight.
These kinds of concerts don't
really require any amplification.
You won't see any amps on stage or
big speakers or anything like that
because the hall - another thing,
the Coolidge was designed
specifically for chamber music,
so it is a challenge to get -
anytime we get a drummer in there
or horn players or amplified
instruments it is difficult
to get a good balance.
But the recordings come
out great because I'm sort
of - we do separate mixes.
John does his mix for the house,
I do my mix for the recording,
and I have a lot more control over
what goes on the tape or the disc,
the computer, if you will.
So, but, yes, it's a challenge.
>> Were you the recording engineer
for that Copeland 81st
birthday concert?
>> Michael Turpin: I was not, no.
>> Okay.
>> Michael Turpin: I had just
started in '81 in the Recording Lab
so I was just learning
my way around and ...
>> I was going to ask if
you ever got to meet him
and what your impressions were?
>> Michael Turpin: Did not, did not.
>> Another technical
question, if I may?
How are you planning to
archive the archives?
Obviously, the hardware
will fail eventually,
so archiving the hard discs,
optical discs or any other media?
>> Michael Turpin: We're doing,
there's a tape backup system
and it's called, a system
called Data Migration,
so as the data collects on
different servers it's automatically
transferred to other
servers and to tape.
And they're - I'm a
strong believer in backups,
even on these recordings.
Every concert I record at least
three or four different ways so that
if there is a failure we
have it some other way,
but the equipment has been ...
[ Inaudible ]
>> Michael Turpin: I'm sorry?
[ Inaudible ]
>> Michael Turpin: Yes, yes.
The converters we use, using now
an Apogee [Assumed Spelling],
I forget the model number, but it's
a very high resolution converter,
analog-to-digital converter.
>> Since you're recording
digitally at this time
and you're recording every
performance digitally,
and since digitally it's available
within minutes of the ending
of the recording can these
recordings be made available
on the Library of Congress website?
>> Michael Turpin: They can be, but
the problem is not the technology,
the problem is the
artists, the composers
and rights, copyright issues.
We can't just put something up, it
has to be approved, the artists have
to approve it, and we've got
to get all the clearances.
Remember, the Copyright Office is
here in the Library of Congress.
[laughter] So we are very
aware of copyright issues here.
So I would love to put these up
right away, but we can't do it.
>> Thank you.
>> Michael Turpin: Yes?
>> Did Gershwin compose
to the Library?
>> Michael Turpin: I'm
sorry, did Gershwin?
>> Compose?
>> Michael Turpin:
Compose for the Library?
[ Inaudible ]
>> Michael Turpin: I don't think so,
I don't think there were
any commissions of Gershwin.
We do have the Gershwin
collection here, you know,
in of course the room
across the hall,
and we had a big Gershwin
Festival when the Coolidge reopened
in '97 I think it was or '98.
Yes, yes, sure.
Anyone else?
You want the mike?
We're trying to get all this
on - we're recording all this,
so we record everything here.
>> Okay. How many instruments are
in the Stradivarius collection?
>> Michael Turpin: I'm not sure.
Michelle can answer.
>> Six.
>> Michael Turpin: Okay.
I don't know, I don't play
so not the violins anyway.
They're beautiful.
Yes?
>> So can you tell us a little bit,
it sounded like you were doing some
of the audio recovery restoration
early on when you were talking
about various things, the solvents
and such, so have the resources -
obviously, the Culpeper Facility
didn't exist at the time.
>> Michael Turpin: Right.
>> Can you describe a little bit
if the resources when you started
and versus the current state?
>> Michael Turpin:
Versus what's now?
>> Yes?
>> Michael Turpin: Well,
there's a lot more available now.
Back in the '80s there
were about five
of us engineers working
during the daytime.
We spent most of our days
transferring the NBC Radio
collection because it's the
largest audio collection we have,
over 100,000 of those acetate discs.
And it covers just about everything
NBC did from the late '30s
into the '70s, that's a long time.
And we're talking about
complete days of broadcasting,
and you'd start off with
the morning, the farm report
in the morning, and
then the morning news,
and then into the daytime talk
shows and the soap operas,
evening primetime, the
Jack Benny Show, Bob Hope,
all of that stuff is in there, so.
And as far as what we would do,
a lot of the discs were
in pretty good shape.
There were a few of
those that had the -
we called it exudation
[Assumed Spelling],
it's sort of like a white,
powdery stuff that sort of comes
out of the acetate, and we had
various methods of cleaning.
One of them was, I hate to say it
but we were using Freon at the time
and cannot use Freon anymore.
But, again, this was the '80s.
But there are other methods.
I'm not familiar with exactly
what they're doing in Culpeper now
because I'm not down there,
but I think if you dig
around on our website you can
probably find some information.
>> When was it built?
>> Michael Turpin:
When was it built?
Mid-2000s, it opened in 2007
I think, yes, because that's
when I came into the
Music Division, yes.
Anyone else?
Well, thank you, again.
Enjoy the concert.
[ Applause ]
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of the Library of Congress.
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