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Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis.
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History
[edit]Foundation
[edit]
The origins of Decca were not in making recordings but in making the gramophones on which to play them. Shortly before the First World War the first Decca product was offered to the public: the "Decca Dulcephone" a portable gramophone, retailing at two guineas (£2.10 in decimal currency, and equivalent to about £250 in 2023 terms). It was manufactured by the musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons Ltd, a company founded in 1869.[1] There are various theories about the derivation of the name "Decca", but the musicologist Robert Dearling describes it as "a word whose origins are lost".[1]
In the 1920s the company changed its name to "The Decca Gramophone Company" and it was floated on the stock market in 1928.[2] Edward Lewis, a London stockbroker, acted for the company, and took an increasing interest in its business. He concluded that the way forward for Decca was to expand into record production and manufacture, which he believed would be a far more profitable business than making gramophones. Decca's board of directors were doubtful. They considered a possible factory site – the short-lived Duophone Company's record plant in New Malden – but eventually turned Lewis down in January 1929.[2]
Lewis raised enough capital to acquire Decca the following month and on 7 February the Decca Record Company's first discs were recorded: dance music performed by Ambrose and the May Fair Orchestra.[3] The first classical recording took place four days later at the Chenil Galleries in Chelsea, and featured the violist Cecil Bonvallot in an arrangement of J. S. Bach's Komm, süßer Tod.[4] Among the fledgling company's releases in its first year were a set of numbers from William Walton and Edith Sitwell's Façade conducted by the composer and recited by Sitwell and Constant Lambert, and a set of Handel Concerti grossi conducted by Ernest Ansermet, who made more than a hundred recordings for Decca between then and 1968.[5] A premiere recording of Delius's Sea Drift conducted by Julian Clifford was in less than ideal sound,[6] but marked Decca's first association with the baritone Roy Henderson which endured for the rest of his career.[7]
1930s
[edit]The Great Depression of the 1930s hit Decca hard. At Lewis's instigation the company made substantial cuts in the prices of its records, and although he remained nominally merely a board member he effectively replaced the outgoing managing director in running the company.[2] In 1930 Decca acquired the British rights to the German Polydor label, gaining access to a wide range of classical recordings. During the decade Decca also bought the British rights to the Fonit and Ultraphon catalogues, but sold its French subsidiary to Edison Bell.[8] Decca's new American subsidiary acquired the American Brunswick Record Company from the Warner Brothers film studios; its catalogue contained recordings by leading popular artists such as Bing Crosby and Al Jolson. By 1934 Decca was breaking into the profitable American market and the record division turned in its first profit.[2]
Between 1929 and 1938 record sales in Britain fell by eighty-five per cent, and Lewis sought new ways of keeping Decca afloat. He signed popular artists such as the singer Gertrude Lawrence and the best-selling dance-band leader Jack Hylton.[2] In 1935 Decca made the first recording of Walton's First Symphony and in the same year lured Sir Henry Wood away from EMI, although he later returned there.[9] Classical artists recruited by the company included the newly formed Boyd Neel Orchestra in 1934, followed by the Griller Quartet in 1935 and Clifford Curzon in 1937.[10] Lewis's biographer Peter Martland writes that "through a combination of Lewis's adroitness, good luck, and a gradual upturn in the global economy, by the time the Second World War broke out in 1939, it appeared that Decca had weathered the storm".[2]
Second World War
[edit]Decca had acquired the small Crystalate record company in the late 1930s, and with it its sound engineers Arthur Haddy and Kenneth Wilkinson, as well as its studios in West Hampstead. Recording continued at the studios throughout the Second World War. Although production was hampered by a shortage of the shellac from which records were made, for Decca the positive results of the war far outweighed the disadvantages. Haddy and his team were moved from making commercial recordings to developing vital technology for the war effort. They were tasked with making recording equipment to detect the sonic differences in the water movement around German and British submarine propellers. As the relevant sonic differences were at the high end of the frequency range, unprecedently sensitive equipment had to be invented, and this the Decca engineers did. This was not only an important contribution to the war effort, but made possible greatly enhanced gramophone recordings when the war ended. "We'd got the goods," Haddy later recalled.[11]
Post-war: classical
[edit]On 8 June 1945 Decca announced that its ffrr (full frequency range recording) system had been "in daily use for the past twelve months".[12] The dramatically enhanced frequency range now possible prompted Decca to move its main London recording venue from the West Hampstead studios to the acoustically superb Kingsway Hall in 1944.[13] Ansermet conducted what Dearling calls "the first important ffrr release" – Stravinsky's Petrushka, recorded there in February 1946.[14][15]
Another technical advance that greatly benefited Decca was the invention of the long-playing record (LP), pressed on vinyl rather than shellac and playing for five times longer than 78 r.p.m. discs. The technology was pioneered in the US by Columbia Records and in Europe by Decca. From 1948 to 1950 Decca concentrated its efforts on exporting LPs for the American market and it was not until June 1950 that Decca LPs became available in Britain. The playing time of LP made recordings of complete operas considerably more viable than hitherto, and Decca recorded Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Seraglio) in Vienna in June 1950 and Wagner's four-and-a-half-hour Die Meistersinger (The Mastersingers) in 1951–52.[16] Decca's main British rival, EMI, comprising the Columbia, HMV and Parlophone labels, lagged behind, having initially reached the conclusion that there was no future in LP, devoting itself instead to an unsuccessful two-year attempt to perpetuate the 78 format.[17]
Most recording contracts had expired or lapsed during the war, and consequently many eminent artists, previously exclusive to rival labels, could be enticed by Decca’s technical edge. The company instituted an ambitious programme of international classical recordings in many European centres, building up an artists’ roster comparable with those of its pre-war competitors. For the first time since the 1930s Decca was able to resume full-price releases. A mainstay of the orchestral catalogue was provided by Ansermet and his Suisse Romande Orchestra in Geneva, who recorded for Decca from 1949 to 1968.[18] Peter Pears signed for the company in 1944, Kathleen Ferrier in 1946, Julius Katchen in 1947 and the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company – hitherto exclusive to EMI – in 1949.[19] In 1950 the Vienna Philharmonic, also contracted to EMI until then – entered into an exclusive contract with Decca.[20] Other former EMI artists who joined Decca were Wilhelm Backhaus and Wilhelm Kempff.[20]
Notes, references and sources
[edit]Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b Dearling, p. 92
- ^ a b c d e f "Lewis, Sir Edward Roberts (1900–1980)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ Stuart, p. 4
- ^ Stuart, p. 32
- ^ Stuart, pp. 36–38 and 407
- ^ "Gramophone Records", Music and Letters, October 1929, p. 415
- ^ Stuart, p. 35
- ^ Stuart, p. 3
- ^ Stuart, pp. 55–56
- ^ Stuart, p. 16
- ^ Blyth, Alan, "Arthur Haddy, F.I.E.R.E", The Gramophone, April 1971, p. 44
- ^ Stuart, p. 88
- ^ Stuart, p. 20
- ^ Dearling, p. 93
- ^ Stuart, p. 108
- ^ Stuart, pp. 1094 and 1096
- ^ Culshaw (1967), p. 21
- ^ Stuart, pp. 935 and 1005
- ^ Stuart, pp. 16 and 159
- ^ a b Culshaw (1981), p. 96
Sources
[edit]Books
[edit]- Culshaw, John (1967). Ring Resounding. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11800-9.
- Culshaw, John (1981). Putting the Record Straight. London: Secker & Warburg. ISBN 0-436-11802-5.
- Dearling, Robert; Celia Dearling (1984). The Guinness Book of Recorded Sound. Enfield: Guinness Books. ISBN 978-0-85-112274-8.
Web
[edit]- Stuart, Philip (July 2009). "Decca Classical, 1929–2009" (PDF). CHARM. AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music.