![]() ![]() The first fully electrical recording of a symphony was Stokowski's, made in 1924. An advocate from its very first days, Stokowski was quick to see the possibilities of the medium, and pushed his orchestra to record in ways that were ridiculed by music critics and other conductors at the time. Greg Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music, recounts Stokowski's embrace of electrical recording. Stokowski, who helmed the Philadelphia Orchestra from 1912 through 1940, was decidedly in this second camp. On the other side were those who wanted to use the newly available electrical technology-like microphones, amplifiers, filters, and mixers-to record, refine, and creatively playback the sounds they captured. Musicians played into a sound horn, which funneled their sound down to a needle and disc, and then for playback, this process was simply reversed. On one side were those who wanted music to be recorded and played back as naturally as possible, as in the earliest, acoustical days of the industry. And, while there had been experiments and a few public tests of stereophonic sound, only limited audiences had heard them. Direct-to-disc recording was still the norm, with magnetic tape having been only recently invented in Germany, where it was hidden from much of the outside world. ![]() Stereo wouldn't become standard on LPs until the 1950s. Up until Fantasia's release, movie soundtracks-and recorded music of all kinds-were presented in mono. What Taylor failed to mention is the brand-new way this recorded sound was presented: in stereo. So now we present the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, interpreted in pictures by Walt Disney and his associates, and the music by the Philadelphia Orchestra and its conductor Leopold Stokowski. ![]() They might be, oh, just masses of colors, or they may be cloud forms, or great landscapes, or vague shadows, or geometrical objects floating in space. Then, the music begins to suggest other things to your imagination. So, our picture opens with a series of impressions of the conductor and the players. At first you're more-or-less conscious of the orchestra. "What you will see on the screen is a picture of the various abstract images that might pass through your mind if you sat in a concert hall listening to this music. If you were watching the film upon its initial release in 1940, your expectations would have been set by Deems Taylor, the emcee who introduces each of Fantasia's eight segments (and who was sometimes cut from subsequent releases): As the music continues, new silhouetted figures come into view, with harps, trombones, timpanis, and more-each new musician or orchestral section flashing in bright colors, just as you hear the instruments enter the score. Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.Blue bassoons appear on the right, green clarinets above, red violins on the left, and, soon enough, the glowing pink orb of the full orchestra hitting its first crescendo.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions. ![]()
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