A pleasant group of holiday numbers played on a Regina Style 50 Music Box--from vintage music-box discs, we can assume. And the fidelity is amazing, and not just for Pickwick--this may have been digitally recorded, especially given the release year (1980).
Howard Brinkman's liner notes are unusually elegant for this label group, even if they're the standard content hype. Er... Well, actually, his prose is pretty clunky. When I first skimmed it, it seemed fancier than usual for a cheap-label essay, but on closer examination... ugh.
For instance: "The idea of authentically reproducing music and other sounds, not just mechanically producing music, is what really fed the phonograph market, not any qualitative preference." That reads nicely, but it doesn't make much sense. Of course, Brinkman--who wrote the liner notes for at least seventeen Pickwick albums (mostly rock)--was filling space with words on the back of a Pickwick cover, so we can excuse the nonexistent grammar of that sentence. But can the early-20th-century public truly be faulted for preferring early sound reproduction, which only provided a rough replication of vocal and instrumental sounds, over the "crystalline voice of music boxes"?
A question we've all struggled with at some point in our lives, I'm sure.
The way I see (or, rather, hear) it is that even a crude reproduction of "real" sound (and I love early 78s to death, so please don't get me wrong) was epically more interesting and exciting than tunes played on a musical comb. (See below.)
Which is not to dis music box technology--it was pretty amazing as a pre-recording medium. Regina boxes sounded gorgeous, as this LP demonstrates. But music boxes couldn't provide the sheer range of sounds, however crudely replicated, that the phonograph provided: singing voices (solo, quartet, choral), bands (marching, concert, dance), and, to an extent, authentic percussion. As in, sort of'/kind of authentic, at least prior to electrically recorded audio. Even a horn-recorded cymbal crash gives us a record (literally) of that audio event, whereas the bells, drums, etc. of carousel organs are mere special effects. And I'm starting to sound like Brinkman...
It's true that, in the beginning, the phonograph couldn't yet match mechanical music for a vivid and immediate musical experience, but it offered a far greater variety of sounds, however muffled. 1905 concert band recordings, for example, sounded more like real concert bands than the fanciest carousel organ could ever approximate. They were analog: I.e., analogous to the real-world source. And what the heck am I babbling about?
Music boxes had a gorgeous sound, but it was the same sound from one perforated disc to another. Also, it would seem from this set of selections that music boxes had a limited range of pitches. Which is to say, all twelve of these selections are in the same key: F-sharp (or, if we're thinking "down," G-flat). While ripping these, it occurred to me midway that "Hey, these all sound like they're in the same key." Because, as I realized upon review, they are. At first, I used a Youtube Middle C video for a reference tone, and I determined a tritone (three whole steps) difference between Middle C and the key of the Regina. (I don't have perfect pitch, but my relative pitch is good.) Plugging in my Casio WK-3800 (which, despite the brand, is a fine synth), I confirmed the key--F-sharp. Or G-flat. A weird default key for a music box, but then why not?
It's not a cut on mechanical music devices, which were state-of-the-art tech for their day, to note that the phonograph had more to offer. Just as TV has more to offer than radio. Then again, radio has made a comeback by way of internet radio and digital music streams (analogous to radio playlists), so maybe mechanical music will stage a comeback. The probability seems low, but what do I know? Hey, that rhymed...
DOWNLOAD: Original Music Box Favorites Vol. One.zip
O Holy Night
Christians Awake
Cloister Bells
Come Hither Ye Children
Under the Mistletoe Bow (Mother Goose Song)
On the Christmas Tree the Lights Are Burning
Holy City
Song of the Virgin Mary
Still Night Holy Night
Monastery Bells
Good King Wenceslas
Skaters Waltz
Lee