by John Stainer
This is a long background for readers interested in background history. As someone involved in that history, they are fond memories!
Examples of desired information:
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Adaptation of The Crucifixion for AHS Choirs
Observations About Recording Technology
Robert F Kunkle - Choral Director, AHS Choirs
Creation of the Private, Limited Edition Recording in 1959
Digital Mastering and Restoration (First Ever)
It Is Worth Reflecting on the Miricle of What Was Accomplished
Copyright Notes; Why Public Domain
Other Background
Stainer was mindful this score was intended for performances during Holy Week (week before Easter) by then existing choirs in Church of England parishes. Their members were dominantly untrained, volunteer choir members. Therefore, Stainer simplified the load on the choirs by following the model of J.S.Bach's St. Matthew's Passion, of having a considerable portion of the performance carried by a limited number of soloists.
For a history about The Crucifixion see History of The Crucifixion.
In 1959, Mr. Kunkle have the luxuary of having 3 choirs:
Mr. Kunkle created an adaptation that used the mixed choir to sing the numbers Stainer scored for 4-part choir harmony, i.e., the choruses that would normally be sung by the church volunteer choir. He replaced most of the arias and recitatives, normally sung by soloists, with the 2 women's choirs. The result is a truly expanded far more choral presentation in nature than scored by Stainer.
However, to break up the otherwise all choral presentation, Mr. Kunkle included a limited number of short solos. These include those indicated in Stainer's score to be performed by selected members from the mixed choir. One of those tenor solos Mr. Kunkle split between 2 women within the chorus number, "Fling Wide the Gates". The male solos also include several of the shorter recitatives. The result is the 1959 AHS choirs' performance are a wonderfully more choral sound.
The student soloists' are named on the record, clearly in order of their appearance. That enabled proper attribution of their names to their respective numbers in the playlist and lyrics pages of this website where each appears.
The combined choirs gave 2 performances. One was for students during the day, and the other in the evening for family and friends in the community.
The performances used Stainer's organ only accompaniment. In this case the organ was the electronic Hammond organ, which in 1959 AHS was on the audience right, front of the school's auditorium.
Somehow Mr. Kunkle obtained what by 1959 standards was a nice consumer quality monaural tape recorder and single microphone. (Neither were commercial studio grade, so high-fidelity overtones were not captured.) What was used was:
That recording equipment was used to record 2 performances of The Crucifixion. The "best of" from those 2 performances were edited together and pressed as a limited release, private monaural record.
Consumer tape recorders (reel-to-reel) were not common in 1959 and still relatively expensive. Ampex was the most popular brand. True blossoming of multiple brands of reel-to-reel tape recorders would occur in the 1960's. The cassette tape was also introduced in the mid-60's and by the mid-1970's had largely replaced reel-to-reel, but with lower fidelity.
Note. Stereo LP records became generally commercially available only the year before this recording in March of 1958.
Tape noise reduction was introduced on the commercial side as Dolby A in 1965 for commercial studios, and updated for commercial studios with Dolby SR in 1986. (Dolby SR is still used for those doing studio analogue recording.)
Tape noise reduction on the consumer side was first introduced as Dolby B, in 1968, followed by Dolby C in 1980.
That means the consumer grade tape recorder system used by Annapolis High School in 1959 had a high level of tape noise. The slow tape speed, compounded by the limited sensitivity/frequency response of the microphone means the higher frequencies that fill out a Hi-Fi's sound, were not captured.
(More recent higher end stereo consumer tape recorders still use 1/4 inch tape, but larger tape reels and often operate at 15 IPS. Commercial studios doing analogue recording still more commonly use 30 IPS with Dolby SR tape noise reduction.)
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The choirs were on risers on the stage in front of the auditorium, and the single microphone and recorder were placed in the back of the auditorium up in the balcony next to the lighting booth. Thus, the microphone was a Long distance from the performers, which caused the recording to also contain:
Note. Neither Mr. Kunkle, nor others involved in creating the tape recordings of The Crucifixion, or later editing together the "best-of" tape from the 2 recordings, had any knowledge about the technical processes required for making a quality recording with the limited equipment available in 1959.
Notes.
For the 1959 performances, there was No safe place to put the microphone closer to the performers. Doing so would have placed both the tape recorder and microphone in a isle on the main floor with a power cord running to it. An alternative would have been to place the recorder at the foot of the stage. That would also have required a tall mic stand right in front of the stage. However, that would have placed the mic relatively closer to the front row of singers, making them more prominent. Plus, no such tall mic stand equipment was available to the school, nor did anyone involved likely know to inquire about a possible loan.
Recordings of such performances now days would prefer to use multiple microphones, and place them closer to the performers. (They would also probably prefer to record multiple tracks digitally on a computer, enabling as many microphone inputs as needed to accomodate separate tracks for the different sections of the choirs, soloists and organ.)
Using multiple microphones placed near the performers get both stronger signals from the different performers, and minimize capture of audience noises and auditorium reverberations. Each of the multipe microphone signals are recorded on separate tracks, allowing mixing a final, balanced sound of the performers. (None of that was available to AHS in 1959 for making this vintage recording.)
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Robert F. Kunkle, Choral Director Annapolis High School (AHS), in Spring 1959, creatively utilized his 3 choirs: mixed choir and 2 women's choirs, plus student soloists from the choirs, to mount 2 performances of The Crucifixion by composer John Stainer. Members of the 3 choirs were from the graduating classes of 1959, 1960 and 1961.
Mr. Kunkle graduated from The Eastman School of Music and attended the Dusquesne University Music Appreciation - Chorus Orchestra. In addition to being the director of the choral program at AHS in 1959, he also taught music theory at AHS and was organist/choirmaster for at least one church in Annapolis.
It was only after recording the performances, that the idea of a limited, private record became known to students involved in the recording process. So, no professionally knowledgeable persons about the techniques of the recordmaking processes in the 1959 era of recordings were consulted upfront for planning management of taping the performances.
They might have helped with advice on things like:
After tapes of the performances were made, what was then known about industy practice was to edit/splice together the best-of-performances. That was carried out with then existing technology, which was razor blade and splicing. That meant the resulting spliced together master tape of best-of-performances was louder and softer at each of the edit/splices throughout the recording, depending on which performance part was spliced in as the best.
The AHS student editor who created the "best-of" tape became aware of the volume level differences and prepared a detailed set of instructions with exact timings where the recording volume levels needed to be adjusted to equalize them. However, many of the volume differences on the tapes were included on the LP.
The record company that pressed the record (Century Record Co) was only founded the year before in 1958, the year before they pressed the record of the 1959 AHS recording. They focused on the music education market.
Mastering services were a very rare thing at that time, and a search of the internet implies that Century Record Co did not provide any such mastering services. (Even if they had been available, such services likely would not have been in the School's choral budget.) Even more than the very prominent audience noises, the result of those volume changes throughout the 1959 record produced an uncomfortable listening experience.
Note. During conversion of the record to digital, the audio engineer remarked he heard changes in the volumes during play. Thus, it may be that the record company made volume changes on the fly, perhaps based on the notes provided. But, those on the fly edits did not solve the multiple underlying volume change problems, and likely contributed some of its own problems.
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The lesson learned looking back many years later, based on Tortoiseclimbing Audio™'s work with recordings, is that much of what can now readily be accomplished via digital mastering and some restoration techniques were VERY difficult to impossible in 1959, and were not widely practiced. The technology in 1959 required that all recording conditions had to be made as identical as possible up front when making alternative recordings, in order to enable editing pieces of them together. That was then the method required for making sure different takes, when spliced together, sounded like a coherent whole, without any mastering. There really was not any method for removing audience noises.
TortoiseClimbing Audio™ used the digital mastering capabilities available today to deal with the different recording level issues, and restoration capabilities to remove most of the objectionable audience noises. However, auditorium reverberations remain.
TortoiseClimbing Audio™ was finally able to undertake this project because the beginning of 2023, more than 60 years after the original historic, private limited edition, vintage monaural LP record was pressed, the score became Public Domain. Thus, TortoiseClimbing Audio™ is now permitted to provide free downloads of a digital audio file mastered and restored from this recording. (NOTE - If you want unlimited mp3 streaming from bandcamp their cost is $1.00.)
So, shortly before the beginning of 2023 when The Crucifixion's score would become public domain, we temporarily paused completion of the Hymns and Songs of My Mother project to:
The record was digitized the end of Decenber, 2022. During January 2023 TortoiseClimbing Audio™ mastered and restored creating version 1 of the recording. Among other things, that process:
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Thus, subject to:
for the first time since the 1959 private LP recording was produced of the performances in spring 1959, this digitally mastered and restored version of this vintage, historic record from the 1959 performances:
Under current copyright laws (including U.S., Britain and European Union), copyright exists for 70 years after the death of the last surviving person associated with creating the work. (U.S. copyright treats publications before 1978 as being under copyright for 95 years from date of publication.)
Thus, 2023 begins the 71st year since William Simpson the younger died. Therefore, as of January 2023, the score for The Crucifixion entered the Public Domain.
That means there is no longer a requirement for royalty payments for providing copies of this recording of The Crucifixion, making it practical to provide free digital audio file downloads, or "at cost" CDs. (NOTE - If you want unlimited mp3 streaming from bandcamp the cost is $1.00.)
Individually burned CDs are also available at cost ($3.00 including mailing.)
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The mastered and restored digital audio file is made available for download, at the unbeatable price of Free, in alternative digital audio file formats with somewhat different fidelity (and size). Version 1 or version 2 may be downloaded from:
For those who would prefer a CD, TortoiseClimbing Audio™ includes an option on the online Marketplace for purchasing a CD. Based on the assumption demand for such CDs will be small, they will be individually burned by TortoiseClimbing Audio™ and mailed, at cost ($3.00 including shipping). (That means they will not have commerical printing on the CD.)
The Download Process for Version 1 from this website consists of 3 steps:
4 formats of digital audio file formats are provided:
Also available, in addition to the recording are:
Version 2 of this album is available for Free download from TortoiseClimbing™'s online Marketplace, at online Marketplace. The download from the online Marketplace includes an option that includes the lyrics as an attachment.
Note. If when you download The Crucifixion from Bandcamp, you also want the option of unlimited mp3 streaming of The Crucifixion from Bandcamp, they charge $1.00.
Persons who might be interested in this album include:
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Conceptually there is the possibility of creating a YouTube version of the mastered performance. That could be a simplistic showing of video stills, or gathering video of Maryland Hall, to accompany the mastered audio, in order to allow it to be posted to YouTube. It is a possibility. Again, is there any interest?
You can express your interest for other options, such as:
To express your interest in these possible options, click on our Comment page to let TortoiseClimbing Audio™ know whether you have an interest in any of these.
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In 1959 AHS was located in the building at 801 Chase Street, in what is now known as Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts. (Access was from West Street to Amos Garrett to Constitution, to the front of the school on Chase.)
That the old high school building is preserved is a testament to those in Annapolis who came together to preserve the old AHS building. It is open to the public to browse its art gallaries. Their website is MarylandHall.org.
Maryland Hall has 4 resident companies, one of which is the Annapolis Chorale. (See The Resident Companies of Maryland Hall.) The Chorale's contact form cites room 202. (I wonder if that is the same large room on the 2nd floor where Mr. Kunkle's choruses practiced?)
Maryland Hall can be contacted at:
Annapolis Chorale can be contacted at:
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