The Fascinating Odyssey of a Sembrich Record Cylinder
Cover of the Bettini’s phonograph catalogue featuring Marcella Sembrich and other grand opera stars. (April, 1900)
Sometime around 1900, Marcella Sembrich stood before the recording horn of Gianni Bettini and gave her rendition of Johann Strauss, Jr’s. “Voci di Primavera.” Lieutenant Bettini (1860-1938), as he was usually referred to, was the son of prominent tenor Geremia Bettini and the nephew of impresario Max Maretzek. He was also a prolific inventor, whose “Micro-Phonograph” attachments substantially improved the timbre, volume and overall quality of record cylinders.
Almost every luminary of the Metropolitan Opera House recorded in his Judge Building laboratory, at 110 Fifth Avenue, or during the many social events in his Manhattan apartment within the Sherwood Studios, on West Fifty-seventh Street, corner of Sixth Avenue.
From 1889 to 1905, the years he was active as a phonograph entrepreneur, Lieutenant Bettini also captured on wax the voices of ex-President Benjamin Harrison, Pope Leo XIII (during an audience at the Vatican on February 5, 1903), and those of his personal friends: Enrico Caruso, Mark Twain, actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse, and fellow inventor Nikola Tesla.
The resulting five-inch Sembrich-Bettini cylinder made its way from New York to New Zealand, and while the recording’s complete provenance will never be uncovered, its known trail makes for a fascinating historical story. There were several New Zealand phonograph retailers covering both the North and South islands that sold Bettini’s wares around the turn of the last century. But how the Lieutenant initially made contact with them is also unknown. Lieutenant Bettini’s daughter, Madame Rolo, with whom I exchanged many letters during the last years of her life, wrote me that she was uncertain if her father had actually travelled there.
Also somewhat puzzling is the fact that this particular cylinder apparently was part of Lieutenant Bettini’s private collection, and not sold by any stores. That remains quite probable, because while a few selections by Madame Sembrich are listed in the various extant Bettini catalogues, the “Voci di Primavera” is missing from them. And the fact that the Lieutenant is heard exclaiming “Brava, Brava” at the song’s conclusion further suggests that it was not offered for sale to the general public. I can only conclude that someone in New Zealand received it as a gift.
G. Bettini (1860-1938). Photograph courtesy of the author.
The first New Zealander known to have possessed it was Mr. Jesse F. F. T. Baxter, who owned the Tophouse Hotel, at Nelson Lakes, beginning in 1921. In February of 1939, he sold Tophouse to Mr. Melville R. Clarke, who inherited the then forgotten Sembrich cylinder, along with several Edison recordings, and a Bettini cut clarinet tune, with the purchase. Around 1963, Mr. Walter Norris, a Swannanoa, New Zealand farmer who had just begun to collect antique phonographs, was told about the cylinder cache by a friend. He then went to Tophouse, and over cups of tea, offered to buy all the cylinders. Mr. Clarke, who kept the cylinders in Tophouse’s attic, needed little persuading as he did not own a phonograph to play them with.
At first, Mr. Norris, who would go on to become President of the Vintage Phonograph Society of New Zealand, was unaware of the rarity and importance of Bettini recordings. However, two Wellington antique phonograph hobbyists, Mr. William Main and Mr. Michael Woolf soon informed him that he had purchased what can only be described as treasures, and told him not to risk damaging the Sembrich-Bettini cylinder by playing it.
During the summer of 1964, Mr. Main and Mr. Woolf travelled to the Norris farm, and taped the still pristine Sembrich-Bettini recording.
Photograph courtesy of the author.
Mr. Main wrote: “The complicated process of transferring the sound from the cylinder to the master tape was accomplished with the aid of two Edison phonographs and some up-to-date electronic components. One Edison phonograph was adapted to take a five-inch mandrel and the other, when positioned properly carried a mounted stereo arm and cartridge in a course parallel to the first machine … The sound resulting from this operation was considered excellent enough to warrant… reissue.”
The tape was brought to New Zealand’s EMI, which pressed it on a beautifully labelled 45rpm disc as Primo Records No. P 1001:
Beginning in 1965, the rerecording enjoyed a wide distribution in four countries, and it was sold at very nominal prices. Two hundred were sent to the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound for sale to American enthusiasts at a price of $1.50 apiece. One hundred and fifty were sold in the UK via The Record Collector Shop of Ipswich, Suffolk, fifty were sold in Australia by C. E. Rees, of Victoria, and hundreds more were sold in New Zealand by Mr. Main. Occasionally, the Primo No. P 1001 disc still shows up for sale on eBay.
There has been considerable excitement and praise for the disc:
Writing in The Gramophone of August 1965, John Firestone exclaimed: “…luckily the recording is amazingly good for its period. The timbre of the voice is unmistakably Sembrich’s… The overtures are delivered with great freedom and the top notes have a brilliance and a vibrance which reveal the great soprano …”
In the September 1965 issue of the The Record Collector, opera historian William R. Moran wrote: “The transcription has been excellently accomplished, and the result is indeed thrilling … For the most part the voice comes through with a bell-like clarity…”
Opera audiophile and discographer Aida Favia-Artsay began her exuberant October 1965 review in Hobbies with the words: "Once in a blue moon, events exciting beyond the ordinary occur in our already exhilarating hobby."
And in The Talking Machine Review of February 1970, Clifford Williams described the Primo disc as: “… clear and… charmingly sung.” Other reviews of the rerecording were equally glowing.
In Great Britain, around 1979, Sunday Opera Records transposed Primo P 1001 to its Volume 1 LP of Sembrich’s recordings, and in 1998, Romophone dubbed the Primo disc onto its CD, “Marcella Sembrich, The Victor Recordings,” Volume 2.
Original wax-cylinder with Bettini’s recording of Johann Strauss II’s “Voci di Primavera” sung by Marcella Sembrich. Photograph courtesy of David Peterson.
Walter Norris passed away in 2014, just days shy of his 87th birthday. In 2015, his family asked Vintage Phonograph Society of New Zealand members Gavin East (Lincoln, NZ) and David Peterson (Christchurch, NZ vicinity) to catalogue his collection of antique phonographs and recordings.
The Norris’s had long since moved into a newer home on their property, but the collection was kept in the original farmhouse. Within a cupboard, underneath a stairway, a large biscuit tin was discovered. And when it was opened Gavin and David found the two Bettini recordings. The Norris’s were willing to sell both cylinders to David Peterson, who still owns them, and who kindly took and sent me color photographs of the now-famous Sembrich cylinder, record slip, and Bettini box.
Back in 1965, sixty-six original Bettini recordings were known to have survived the passage of time. But original Bettini recordings have continued to be found in such varied locales as New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, France, Poland, and several sites in the United States. Some even turned up in a Palatine Bridge, New York barn! The number of extant Bettini recordings known to modern collectors has risen to about three hundred, many of which are housed in archives at: Syracuse University, Yale, the Library of Congress, the National Library of Poland, and amazingly, in California's Gene Autry Museum of the American West.
About the Author
Robert Feinstein, is a retired medical library director, who grew up and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He holds a B.A. from Long Island University, an M.A. from Brooklyn College, and an M.L.S. from Pratt Institute. His articles about Lieutenant Bettini have appeared in: ARSC Journal, The Antique Phonograph, Antique Phonograph News, Antique Phonograph Monthly, The Phonographic Record, For The Record, The Record Collector, Record Research, In The Groove, The Sound Box, New Amberola Graphic, On The Lighter Side, Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site Newsletter, and Blaze. He also is the author of more than thirty published short stories. His ultimate goal is to finally finish writing the first full Bettini biography.