Bizet – Carmen – Toreador Song – Coldstream Guards

(mp3 file – click to play, or right click the link, then select “Save as”)

Transferred at 78rpm, to play in G minor/major at A452.

Download – Fucik – Gladiators – Coldstream Guards

(mp3 file – right click the link, then select “Save as”)

This recording plays just sharp of A major at 78rpm and, in A flat major at 73rpm. Transposition up to B flat major seems unnaturally fast, and A is an unlikely key for a military band. The piano score of the piece is in C major.

Thanks to Teri Noel Towe, who drew my attention to the following in Henry Wood’s autobiography, “My Life of Music”.

“Mackenzie Rogan, Conductor of the Coldstream Guards’ Band, met me one day in the street.
‘Do you know Tchaikovsky’s overture 1812?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Never heard it.’
‘It’s fine; just been published. Would you like to hear it?’
Naturally I said I would, whereupon Rogan invited me to go down one morning to a public house near Victoria station where he was rehearsing. I seem to think my father went with me; at all events, I was sufficiently taken with what was only a military band arrangement to perform the work at the Promenade concerts; but I took good care, of course, to obtain the original version.”

Wood’s account does not seem to be picked up in either of the later biographies by Reginald Pound or Arthur Jacobs, and the 1812 is not listed amongst Wood’s UK premieres in the Jacobs biography, so it may be that another conductor got there sooner for the UK orchestral premiere. But it is an interesting comparison to hear this 1905 recording of the final section of 1812 alongside those of Wood and Ronald. The section performed by Rogan is exactly that performed on the final side of Ronald’s abridged account.

Mediafire link for Orth, Tchaikovksy – Mackenzie-Rogan & Coldstream

(This is a zip file – left click the link, download the file, then unzip when downloaded)

Disque Pour Gramophone (pre-dog, recording angel) 0117
Matrix 1981f
Recorded 1907
Credited on label as:

Fabriqué par

Gramophone and Typewriter Ltd.

SPANISH BAND

Ejecutado por la Banda
de la Cª Francª del Gramophone

BARCELONA

In fact performed by J Mackenzie Rogan and the Band of H.M. Coldstream Guards

Gramophone Monarch Record 050572
Matrix 1797c
Recorded 22nd April 1909
Credited on label as:
The Gramophone Co., Ltd. (and Sister Companies)

ITALIAN ORCHESTRA

Orchestra della Scala, diretta dal
Mo. Carlo Sabajno

This record is extremely battered and worn, so there is a substantial level of surface noise and distortion.

Mediafire link for Orth, Tchaikovksy – Mackenzie-Rogan & Coldstream

(This is a zip file – left click the link, download the file, then unzip when downloaded)

Mackenzie-Rogan is not named on the record label.
This recording is likely to be transposed a tone down from Tchaikovksy’s original, like the Safranek arrangement for band. The recording plays in E flat at 78rpm. However, at this time, British military pitch was around A-452, so the record should probably be played at 80rpm, to be in E flat for the appropriate pitch standard.