It goes without saying; another rarity this weekend. The legendary Desiré-Emile Inglebrecht leading Orchestre National de la Radioffusion Francaise in this 1955 performance of Franck’s D Minor Symphony – recorded on March 17, 1955 at Théåtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Desiré-Emile Inglebrecht (or D.E. Inglebrecht as it was printed on record labels) probably doesn’t ring any bells with many except the die-hard collector and researcher of the French performing arts between the World Wars and into the 1960s.
But those of us who grew up with and got bitten by the collecting bug as kids, Inglebrecht was one of the names we knew and were well familiar with, along with Piero Coppola, Gustave Cloez, Francois Ruhlmann, Eugene Bigot and Philippe Gaubert (and many others). These were the conductors whose 78s we regularly found in thrift shops all over Southern California.
Why? Because at the time, 78s were considered ancient relics in favor of lps and many liked the idea of not jumping up every 5 minutes to flip a record over. It was the Twilight of the 78 and the dawn of the lp and 78’s at that time were treated pretty much like lps when CD’s came in (and ironically, now that lps are back in vogue along with streaming, CD’s have fallen out of favor with the audience). The upshot, particularly for kids like me, was what became these amazing rarities in retrospect were downright cheap at the time and, because it was L.A. (particularly Hollywood, the Valley and the West Side), many of the creatives who worked in Hollywood were record collectors and had some pretty sophisticated taste in music. Imagine going to the City Of Hope Thrift Shop on Sunset and finding a trove of discs from the collections of Cecil B. DeMille and Johnny Mercer going for 10-25 cents a disc. We took it for granted at the time but 78s were a thing of the past and many of the conductors I collected in the era of 78s were also living long enough to have made it into the lp era, but not many, and certainly none into the Stereo era.
Tonight it’s Desiré-Emile Inglebrecht in this 1955 concert via ORTF in Paris. Certainly one of the artists who shaped my appreciation of French music and whose performances are still milestones for me – still have the 78s – still enjoy them – still get inspired by them.
Music is magic on so many levels and everyone brings a different point of view to the table.
Here’s one.
