The
Caruso Labels
A
myth has been circulating over the past
one hundred or more years, which says
that the recordings that Enrico Caruso
made in Milan in April 1902 encouraged
many other great artists of the period
to step before the recording horn. This
"myth" is greatly exaggerated,
if not patently untrue. The renowned
Ivan Tartakov had been recorded by William
Sinkler Darby on April 16, 1899. (Alan
Kelly intimates that Tartakov might
have been persuaded to record as early
as 1897!) Many of the great Russian
singers of the day had been recording
since as early as June 1901, including
the Figners, Labinsky, Sobinov, Vialtzeva,
Nezhdanova, and even the greatest of
them all, Chaliapin, who made his first
recordings in late January 1902. The
Italian tenor Carlo Caffetto had been
recording since July 1900 and the bass
Nazzareno Franchi had recorded in July
1901. The great French baritone Maurice
Renaud made his first recordings in
September 1901. Mario Sammarco, Giovanni
Gravina, and Amelia Pinto, all of whom
sang with Caruso on March 11, 1902 in
the première performance of Baron
Franchetti’s opera Germania at
the La Scala opera House in Milan on
March 11, 1902 under the direction of
Arturo Toscanini, had all recorded later
that month. Moreover, negotiations between
Francesco Tamagno, the greatest tenor
of the day, and Alfred Michaelis, Managing
Director of the Italian Branch of the
Gramophone Company, were already well
under way before Caruso’s first recording
session.
The
issued records of Enrico Caruso encompass
almost the entire acoustical recording
era, and far beyond, even to this present
day. The labels used for them are therefore
particularly representative of the changes
and variations used by the Gramophone
Company during that early period, i.e.,
from April 1902 until about the end
of April 1925. Caruso’s records, like
those of other artists, received labels
in different colors according to the
number of artists involved, which also
designated their price categories. Of
Caruso’s 248 known recordings, only
twenty-two were made under the auspices
of the Gramophone Company; the remaining
226, with the exception of ten made
under the auspices of the Anglo-Italian
Commerce Company (which encompassed
both the Zonophone flat disc and the
Pathé cylinder recordings) in
April 1903, were recorded in America
for the Victor Talking Machine Company.
Of the 211 VTMC recordings, 208 were
pressed by the Gramophone Company from
metal parts, i.e., stampers, imported
from the United States.
Labels
on pressings made in various European
countries have distinguishing features.
In August 1907, Caruso’s recording of
the Quartet from Rigoletto was issued
by G&T with a pale blue label, while
his duets with Antonio Scotti were given
pale green labels. Patti’s and Tetrazzini’s
recordings received pink labels, while
those of less outstanding artists such
as De Lucia, Giorgini, Ruffo, Journet,
Boronat, Galvany, and others were issued
with standard Red Celebrity labels.
In August 1908 Caruso recordings were
being issued with pink, darker blue
and green, and white labels, according
to the number of artists (see above).
All this was done to assign the various
recordings to different price categories.
These colors appear on the labels in
varying shades, due to the difficulty
at that period of preparing batches
of ink of the same hue and saturation.
None of Caruso’s Gramophone Company
recordings were ever issued on double-sided
records during his lifetime. However,
see below under ZONOPHONE LABELS.
Through
the diligent efforts of Madame Aida
Favia-Artsay (see the Bibliography),
a letter from the office of the Gran
Magistero degli Ordine dei Santi Maurizio
e Lazzaro e della Corona d’Italia (Grand
Master of the Order of Saints Maurice
and Lazarus and of the Crown of Italy),
states that Caruso was awarded the honor
of Cavaliere of the Order of the Crown
of Italy by royal decree on January
4, 1900, and the rank of Commendatore
on February 21, 1907. This singular
honor, his first, belies another myth,
that Caruso’s fame and recognition were
initiated by the success of his first
recordings from the Gramophone and Typewriter,
Limited. None of 66 known labels from
the first recording session of April
11, 1902 bear the title "Cav."
On the other hand, with the exception
of the labels on the two retakes from
the first session, it was added to all
known labels of his recordings from
the second session of November-December
1902, but was dropped again during the
pre-DOG period. At a later date the
title "Sig." was added.
The
central figures in the two rows of figures
below show the large type size. Stamper
III pressings of the same recordings
were issued between February 29, 2903
and July 29, 1905, the so-called CO.
marking period. However, we do not know
whether stamper II pressings were made
before or during the same period. The
right-hand figures in both rows show
the use of non-serif fonts for titles.
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Stamper
I
Apr 1902 -
Feb 1903
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Stamper
IIII
Feb 1903 -
July 1905
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Stamper
V
Feb 1903 -
July 1905
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Stamper
I
Nov 1902 - Feb 1903
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Stamper
I
Dec 1902 - Feb 1903
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G&T
label for Victor
Talking Machine imports
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Caruso’s
twenty recordings from 1902 and his
two recordings from 1904 by the Gramophone
& Typewriter culminated in the use
of some 66 or more stampers for the
first ten, 73 or more stampers for the
second ten, 28 for the 1904 10-inch
and 12 for the 1904 12-inch recordings,
for a total of not less than 139 stampers
for the 1902 recordings and a further
40 for the 1904 recordings; more are
possible. Stampers from the first session
were as few as two and as many as thirteen
per recording and those for the second
session ranged from three to twelve
per recording. The labels ranged from
the G&T through the HMV period.
The variations in these labels have
been presented in the articles by the
author listed in the Bibliography. The
label variations for the 1904 recordings
are described below.
All
of the recordings in the first session
were accompanied by the pianist Salvatore
Cottone, who accompanied most of the
soloists recorded by the Gaisbergs in
Milan. By the second session Caruso
was well known enough that several composers
deigned to be his accompanist for their
own compositions. Thus, Umberto Giordano
was the accompanist for the recording
of Amor ti vieta from his opera
Fedora, in which Caruso sang
the world première performance
in Milan on November 17, 1898, while
Francesco Cilea accompanied Caruso in
his recording of No, non più
nobile from his opera Adrian
Lecouvreur, in which Caruso had
sung for the world première in
Milan on November 6, 1901. Labels for
both of these issues included the phrase
Accompagnato dall’Autore, either
with or without parentheses below the
artist’s name. It occurs on issues from
the first three stampers used for G.C.-52419,
including the period from February 19,
1903 to July 29, 1905, and up through
stamper IV pressings of G.C.-52439 but
not on the Stamper VI pressing shown
at the right below, which was issued
following July 29, 1905.
Of
the two recordings that Caruso made
in April 1904 under the supervision
of William Sinkler Darby, the ten-inch
recording shows the name 
through
the labels under the Recording Angel
trademark from first, second, and seventh
stamper pressings. They are the only
recordings made by the Gramophone Company
which bear an artist’s name on the record
surface itself, in contrast to the multitude
of such names on Victor recordings.
No such names have been found on late
stamper pressings (IIII, VI, and XII)
of the 12-inch recording of Mi par
d’udir from Bizet’s opera Les
Pêcheurs de Perles, made in
the same April 1904 recording session.
It is interesting to note that the word
is
almost identical with Caruso’s actual
signature on a testimonial written on
the Zonophone envelope, as shown below.
Caruso’s
signature
The
labels from two original stamper pressings
shown below are quite different. The
selection title "Mattinata"
on the (probably) early label is
42 mm across, while that on the (probably)
later label is 52 mm. across. On the
former the words TRADE and MARK
are closely spaced, while on the
latter they are widely spaced. On the
former the two words PATENTED
are considerably larger than on the
latter. These labels are shown below.
It
becomes apparent from these two labels
that it was necessary for the Hanover
plant to print a second batch of labels
for these stamper II pressings
before the stamper itself was worn out.
We are thus left with two quandaries,
the first being the number of acceptable
pressings that was possible from a given
stamper at this period, and the second
being the number of labels per batch
that were ordered from the printer!
The author’s calculations from other
information indicate that about 350
acceptable pressings could be obtained
from each stamper at this time. It would
therefore appear that the number of
labels ordered in a batch were somewhat
less than that number.
[Author’s
note: one may conjecture that the steps
required to press one more or less finished
record included 1) placing a softened
quantity of shellac compound into the
hydraulic press, 2) putting the label
in place, 3) pressing the record, 4)
cooling the finished pressing, and 5)
removing the record from the press.
This process may have taken about one
minute by an experienced technician,
who could have pressed some 360 records
in an 8-hour working day, with the usual
time off. This provides one with a very
approximate figure for the number of
pressings that could have been made
from one stamper before it was could
no longer be expected to produce audibly
acceptable records.]
Depending
on public demand and the period in which
they were issued, many recordings may
be found with labels of different designs.
For example, G.C.-52034, Caruso’s 1904
recording of Leoncavallo’s "Mattinata,"
with the composer at the piano, proved
to be extremely popular. One can estimate
that some 24,500 records were pressed.
Six labels from forty-seven known stampers
are shown below. The stamper XXVIII
pressing shown below indicates that
some 98,000 copies had been pressed
during the slightly more than three
and one-half years between the original
recording on April 8, 1904 and the end
of the G&T label period in November
1907. A stamper XXXIX pressing
with a pre-DOG pink label indicates
that it had been pressed after July
29, 1905, while the pressings from the
previous stamper had been made before
that date. The stamper AH (37)
pressing, made before August 1910, indicates
an additional 3,000 records produced.
A German pressing from stamper MH
(47) is also known.
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Stamper
II
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Stamper
II
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Stamper
VII
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The
labels on two stamper II pressings
of this recording appear to be identical.
However, they differ by the spacing
of the words TRADE
and
MARK.
It may be noted further that this recording
is one of three by Caruso that indicate
on the label that he was accompanied
by the composer, in this instance, Ruggiero
Leoncavallo. The labels from all issues
of the Mattinata recording bear
this inscription, even on the HMV label
as well as on the pirated German Schallplatte
label. In contrast, the label for the
selection Amor ti vieta bears
this notation up through stamper III
pressings, but not on a stamper VII
label. The phrase was also used on Caruso’s
recording of No, non più nobile,
G.C.-52419 (see above).
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Stamper
XXVIII
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Stamper
GL(=18)
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Stamper
AH (=37)
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Stamper
VIII
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Stamper
VII
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Stamper
IX
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Three
recordings from the first session and
two from the second session were issued
with original G&T labels following
the change in the red Celebrity color
to pink, as shown above.
Three
pre-DOG labels from the first G&T
session and one from the second session
have also been seen, as shown below.
These four recordings continued to be
processed and issued between November
19, 1907 and February 1909, after which
date the DOG trademark became the standard
for all Gramophone Company labels. G.C.-52347
required ten stampers, indicating a
probable total printing of about 3,500
issued records. The issued records of
G.C.-52349 used nine stampers, for a
total issue of some 3,200 records. (Author’s
note: it is probable that between 1903,
from which the estimated stamper usage
is calculated, and the beginning of
the pre-DOG label in late 1907, considerable
advances were made in record processing
technology. It is quite possible that
by that date a stamper could press 500
or more records before wearing out.
