An Everest Records reissue of music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Malcolm Arnold

Everest Records was a stereophonic record company in Bayside, Long Island; started by Harry D. Belock and Bert Whyte in May 1958 as a division of the Belock Instrument Corporation. Belock was very ambitious, and told High Fidelity (magazine) that "We're out to surpass Capitol. We're not shooting marbles". This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Map showing Long Island; to the north is Connecticut and to the west are New York City and New Jersey. ... See also: 1957 in music, other events of 1958, 1959 in music, 1950s in music and the list of years in music // Events January 28 - Little Richard begins attending classes at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama February 14 - The Iranian government bans rock & roll because they claim that the form...

History

The idea for starting a label was related by electronics inventor Harry Belock (who also worked on sound films in Hollywood in the 1930s) to Roland Gelatt in the February 1959 issue of High Fidelity: "The more of them I heard, the more I felt that nobody had a good stereo library. So I decided to get into the business myself". The plan was to record repertory that was new to stereo. Belock Instrument Corporation, a manufacturer of precision equipment (particularly missile electronics) was the parent of the Everest label 1958-1960 (operated as the Belock Recording Company). Everest would issue its recordings on monaural LP (LPBR 6000 series), stereo LP (SDBR 3000 series), and tape.

Bert Whyte was the producer and engineer. Bert's wife, Ruth, was the assistant engineer. Belock and Whyte decided to use 35 mm film to record music on, an improvement on half inch tape they believed. Westrex built this equipment to their specifications, at a cost then of about $20,000 for each recorder. In May 1959, Edward Wallerstein (formerly president of Columbia Records) was appointed as a vice president of the company. 35 mm film frames. ... Company Masthead Logo Logo until circa 1969, also current logo on company web site Logo 1969-1983 Western Electric (sometimes abbreviated WE and WECo) was a U.S. electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995 . ... Columbia Records is the oldest brand name in recorded sound, dating back to 1888, and was the first record company to produce pre-recorded records as opposed to blank cylinders. ...

Bert Whyte looked for performers in a market loaded with exclusive contract artists. Everest engaged the services of several major conductors: Adrian Boult, Josef Krips, Eugène Aynsley Goossens, Malcolm Sargent, and Leopold Stokowski and others. Sir Adrian Cedric Boult (April 8, 1889 - February 22, 1983) was an English conductor. ... Josef Alois Krips (born 8 April 1902 in Vienna, died 13 October 1974 in Geneva) was an Austrian conductor and violinist. ... Sir Eugène Goossens Sir Eugène Aynsley Goossens (May 26, 1893 – June 13, 1962) was an English conductor and composer. ... Sir (Harold) Malcolm (Watts) Sargent (April 29, 1895 – October 3, 1967) was a British conductor, organist and composer. ... Leopold Stokowski (born Antoni StanisÅ‚aw BolesÅ‚awowicz April 18, 1882 in London, England, died September 13, 1977 in Nether Wallop, England) was the conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the NBC Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the Symphony of the Air. ...

Stokowski signed a contract to record with Everest on September 26, 1958. Amonst the first Everest recordings were a group with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Stadium Symphony Orchestra of New York (a pseudonym for the New York Philharmonic) in Manhattan Center. Stokowski made a total of eleven LPs with Everest between 1958-59. Six were recorded with the Stadium Symphony and five with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Stokowski believed that the recording philosophy of Everest was inimical to music making, and more in line with mathematics and engineering. None of the records he made with the company seemed to satisfy him. However, many are still considered exceptional as recordings. One particular example: Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini and Hamlet (made with the Stadium Symphony). Stokowski discovered bootleg recordings of his Everest records being issued under the Tiara label. These included both his name and the name of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. He wrote Bernard Solomon at Everest to ask how this could be possible. The New York Philharmonic is the oldest active symphony orchestra in the United States. ... Manhattan Center Studios is home to two world class Recording Studios located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. ... Jones Hall The Houston Symphony Orchestra is one of the United States of Americas major orchestras, based, as its name suggests, in Houston, Texas. ... The composer, Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini, Op. ... A bootleg recording (or simply bootleg or boot) is an audio and/or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist, or under other legal authority. ...

In England, Everest recorded the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra at Walthamstow Assembly Hall. The world premiere recording of Vaughan Williams Symphony No. 9 in E minor was made by Everest at Walthamstow on the morning of the composer's death August 26, 1958. The composer planned to attend the Everest sessions just as he had attended the earlier Decca sessions for the first eight symphonies. As before, Adrian Boult conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but this time he began by recording a tribute to the composer. The London Philharmonic Orchestra (frequently abbreviated to LPO), based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom. ... The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom. ... Ralph Vaughan Williams (October 12, 1872 – August 26, 1958) was an influential British composer. ... Symphony No. ...

Everest also recorded several composers conducting their own work, including Malcolm Arnold, Aaron Copland, Morton Gould, and Heitor Villa Lobos. Sir Malcolm Arnold Sir Malcolm Henry Arnold, CBE (21 October 1921 – 23 September 2006) was an English composer. ... Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. ... Morton Gould (December 10, 1913 – February 21, 1996) was an American pianist and composer. ... Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887 - November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer. ...

Sadly, one composer/performer, Ernő Dohnányi (Ernst von Dohnanyi), died in 1960 while recording piano compositions for Everest. Dohnányi made few recordings, not caring much for the process. He was attempting to complete a huge recording assignment in January 1960 when he fell ill at a session. His condition deteriorated quickly and in a matter of hours he was seized with a heart attack. Believing rightly that this was his last opportunity to record, Dohnányi continued the session, and two days later he died. Everest issued a memorial album to the composer, on SDBR 3061. ErnÅ‘ Dohnányi, also known as Ernst von Dohnányi or Dohnányi ErnÅ‘ (July 27, 1877 – February 9, 1960) was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. ...

Everest prospered for only a few years (it may have been hurt financially by Whyte's recording the complete Pablo Casals Festival in 1960). By this time, Harry Belock owned only 22 percent of the business and the board removed him from control. Belock (who died in 1999) left the record business and sold his interest in Everest to his accountant, Bernard Solomon, in 1960. The 35mm recording equipment was sold to engineer C. Robert Fine, who used the equipment for Mercury Records and other recordings. The Casals Festival is a classical music event celebrated every year in San Juan, Puerto Rico, it was founded in 1957 by the world renowned musician Pablo Casals. ... Mercury Records was a record label founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1945 by Irving Green, Berle Adams and Arthur Talmadge. ...

Reissues

In recent years, some of Everest's audiophile recordings of the Belock/Whyte era have been reissued on compact disc by DCC Compact Classics, Omega, and Vanguard Classics and on LP by Classic Records [1]

See also

• List of record labels

This is a list of record labels. ...

References

• "Belock Appoints Head of Recording Division", New York Times, May 23, 1959, page 36
• Gelatt, Roland, "Music Makers" High Fidelity, November 1958, page 53 and February 1959, page 47
• Harry D. Belock on imdb [2]
• Kiszely, Deborah "An Analysis of Ernő Dohnányi's Ruralia hungarica" in Studia Musicologica: Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 1995, page 79.
• Robinson, Paul. Stokowski. New York: Vanguard Press, 1977
• "Stereo Concern Organized", New York Times, May 8, 1958, page 49