I have long considered the Byron Janis / Kiril Kondrashin recording of the Prokofiev Third Concerto and the Rachmaninoff First to be among the very greatest , and best recorded, ever made. Consequently, I found it deeply frustrating, when the original CD issue of that recording was issued, to read that the 35mm film master was "unavailable," and that a 1/2' tape copy of that master was used. The frustration was amplifide when the SACD version was released, with the same apologetic footnote. I had had the LP issues, both in mono and in stereo from the time of their publication, and it has always seemed obvious to me that the digitised versions were clearly less vibrant and exciting.
I see that Eloquence has released a box of Byron Janis' "Mercury Masters," which, of course, includes the Prokofiev/Rachmaninoff recordings. Can anyone tell me whether or not the 35mm master was unearthed and used in the production of this new set?

Larry Lapidus

On 7/16/2023 8:53 PM, LarryLap wrote:
> I have long considered the Byron Janis / Kiril Kondrashin recording of the Prokofiev Third Concerto and the Rachmaninoff First to be among the very greatest , and best recorded, ever made. Consequently, I found it deeply frustrating, when the original CD issue of that recording was issued, to read that the 35mm film master was "unavailable," and that a 1/2' tape copy of that master was used. The frustration was amplifide when the SACD version was released, with the same apologetic footnote. I had had the LP issues, both in mono and in stereo from the time of their publication, and it has always seemed obvious to me that the digitised versions were clearly less vibrant and exciting.
> I see that Eloquence has released a box of Byron Janis' "Mercury Masters," which, of course, includes the Prokofiev/Rachmaninoff recordings. Can anyone tell me whether or not the 35mm master was unearthed and used in the production of this new set?
>
> Larry Lapidus

According to this blurb at Presto, the recordings were "lovingly restored from the original master tapes and remastered at 24 bit, 192kHz by mastering engineer Tom Fine ...."

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9448625--byron-janis-the-mercury-masters

On Sun, 16 Jul 2023 17:53:35 -0700 (PDT), LarryLap
<larry.lapidus@gmail.com> wrote:

>I have long considered the Byron Janis / Kiril Kondrashin recording of the Prokofiev Third Concerto and the Rachmaninoff First to be among the very greatest , and best recorded, ever made. Consequently, I found it deeply frustrating, when the original CD issue of that recording was issued, to read that the 35mm film master was "unavailable," and that a 1/2' tape copy of that master was used. The frustration was amplifide when the SACD version was released, with the same apologetic footnote. I had had the LP issues, both in mono and in stereo from the time of their publication, and it has always seemed obvious to me that the digitised versions were clearly less vibrant and exciting.
>I see that Eloquence has released a box of Byron Janis' "Mercury Masters," which, of course, includes the Prokofiev/Rachmaninoff recordings. Can anyone tell me whether or not the 35mm master was unearthed and used in the production of this new set?

I asked a friend of mine who is knowledgeable about this 35mm issue a
while ago, and this is what he said, though that is not specific to
the recording you mention above:

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the use of 35mm film elements.
In a majority of the cases, especially when pop material was involved,
the 35mm masters were never used to make the final edited masters. The
films were terrifically expensive, and cutting them up to make edits
was problematic (because of the sprocket holes you couldn’t cut
anywhere; you had to cut and splice so that the sprocket holes would
remain even). So what Command (and later Project 3) did was copy the
whole thing onto regular tape (eventually using Dolby as well to
minimize the noise level). Once on tape they could cut and edit
freely. Then the original, expensive films were wiped and re-used for
the next project. I have a dissertation done by some guy at UofM who
interviewed Light, Bob Fine, etc and got confirmation of all this.
Most of the MCA CDs of Command titles were from the edited tapes used
to make the original LPs.

Mercury had Polygram behind them and they saved most of their 35mm
originals as a matter of course. Everest’s masters were also saved but
were deteriorating because they were not well cared for. Command had
ABC behind them who didn’t regard the music subsidiary with the
importance that NBC and CBS regarded RCA and Columbia. Even if Enoch
had wanted to preserve all the 35mm film original recordings, ABC
wouldn’t pay for it.

----

This WWW page may also be of interest:

https://aes-media.org/historical/pdf/fine_35mm-fad.pdf

On Monday, July 17, 2023 at 5:06:25 PM UTC-4, Mr. Mike wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Jul 2023 17:53:35 -0700 (PDT), LarryLap
> <larry....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >I have long considered the Byron Janis / Kiril Kondrashin recording of the Prokofiev Third Concerto and the Rachmaninoff First to be among the very greatest , and best recorded, ever made. Consequently, I found it deeply frustrating, when the original CD issue of that recording was issued, to read that the 35mm film master was "unavailable," and that a 1/2' tape copy of that master was used. The frustration was amplifide when the SACD version was released, with the same apologetic footnote. I had had the LP issues, both in mono and in stereo from the time of their publication, and it has always seemed obvious to me that the digitised versions were clearly less vibrant and exciting.
> >I see that Eloquence has released a box of Byron Janis' "Mercury Masters," which, of course, includes the Prokofiev/Rachmaninoff recordings. Can anyone tell me whether or not the 35mm master was unearthed and used in the production of this new set?
> I asked a friend of mine who is knowledgeable about this 35mm issue a
> while ago, and this is what he said, though that is not specific to
> the recording you mention above:
>
> There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the use of 35mm film elements.
> In a majority of the cases, especially when pop material was involved,
> the 35mm masters were never used to make the final edited masters. The
> films were terrifically expensive, and cutting them up to make edits
> was problematic (because of the sprocket holes you couldn’t cut
> anywhere; you had to cut and splice so that the sprocket holes would
> remain even). So what Command (and later Project 3) did was copy the
> whole thing onto regular tape (eventually using Dolby as well to
> minimize the noise level). Once on tape they could cut and edit
> freely. Then the original, expensive films were wiped and re-used for
> the next project. I have a dissertation done by some guy at UofM who
> interviewed Light, Bob Fine, etc and got confirmation of all this.
> Most of the MCA CDs of Command titles were from the edited tapes used
> to make the original LPs.
>
> Mercury had Polygram behind them and they saved most of their 35mm
> originals as a matter of course. Everest’s masters were also saved but
> were deteriorating because they were not well cared for. Command had
> ABC behind them who didn’t regard the music subsidiary with the
> importance that NBC and CBS regarded RCA and Columbia. Even if Enoch
> had wanted to preserve all the 35mm film original recordings, ABC
> wouldn’t pay for it.
>
> ----
>
> This WWW page may also be of interest:
>
> https://aes-media.org/historical/pdf/fine_35mm-fad.pdf

The booklet for the Janis box states the films are either too deteriorated to use or no longer in existence.

Dennis H