The Repertoire

I was often asked how our releases came to be selected – especially classical material.

In principle, it was a very simple matter.  Certain music fell immediately into a well-defined category.  To my ears Hindemith and Schoenberg (to take just two) were incomprehensible, and were immediately banished to The Record Society.   A lot of baroque music was just repetitious tinkling to my ears and suffered the same fate.  Virtually anything after Sibelius was suspect, and even his seventh I disliked.

Basically the Club released only the classical music I enjoyed.  I had the rather grandiose (and doubtless egotistical) theory that the only sure way the club’s repertoire could be consistent was if it reflected the musical taste of one person (myself!) and that the previous practice of selection by committee must be abandoned.

I think it was probably a naïve notion.  But by and large I think it worked – especially in the long run.   It had the one great advantage:  as my own musical knowledge and appreciation gradually expanded, so the Club’s repertoire perforce changed to match.  Where once I rather disliked Mahler I began to love him;  I discovered Bruckner (where had he been hiding all my music life?);  I  nearly came to enjoy Berg;  I began to distinguish between Bach and Telemann.  My musical education and development, in other words, began to match that of our members – and vice versa.  

All of this is reflected in the Club’s programs.  A list of composers featured in the period 1960-65 bears little resemblance to those in 1966-70.  And just as well.

Light music was another matter.  Dianne Ellis and Roger Hudson (a very good jazz pianist who worked with Frank Traynor and the Jazz Preachers,  and the Storyville Jazz Band) in particular dictated the form and nature of our jazz and pop/vocal divisions and did a great job with resources that obviously were much more limited than our classical catalogues.

Of Tapes and Mothers

Our preferred “raw material” was always mothers – from which the stampers were cast.  Erato, for example, always provided mothers, as did DGG and many other European labels.  But sometimes tapes were sent;  it didn’t matter:  E.M.I. had a highly competent technical staff and the cutting of a master was not in any case a particularly complex matter:  it was all done by machine (such was my understanding anyway.) 

Keep in mind that we had a particularly astute pair of music-lovers in Harvey Blanks, our general editor, and Alex Berry, who was in charge of Record Society, our contemporary, baroque etc. division.  After my return to Australia they no longer took part in World record selection – but they listened assiduously to test pressings and on quite a number of occasions were able to detect minor faults or failings of one sort or another.

And of course we had Eric Cleburne, our Technical Director.  Eric was supplied with the best sound equipment and accessories we could well afford and took his job very seriously indeed.  He fought a running battle with E.M.I. over their treatment of mothers, which they liked to play before proceeding to stampers.  Eric was adamantly opposed to this practice, though there was not much he could do about it except finally to entreat me to write a stern letter to E.M.I. Chairman, John Burnett.

John Mitchell Burnett CBE was not only Chairman of E.M.I. Australia, he was on the board of the U.K. operation as well;  worse still (I mean of course better still!) he was my own Chairman.  I quailed at the prospect of writing him a letter of any sort, much less a stern one. *

Eventually I lied outright to Eric, assuring him earnestly that I had dealt with the matter.  So I suppose the E.M.I. technicians continued to play our mothers (as they did their own) and I really don’t think they did any harm.  At any rate Eric was satisfied even if he still had his suspicions.

* The WRC Australian board consisted of John Burnett,  Norval Scott,  who was E.M.I.’s company secretary, and myself.   We had monthly board meetings mostly in Sydney and I was normally accompanied by Alan Kemp, our company secretary.

It was my first real taste of high-level corporate life, and it was interesting – in a macabre sort of way.  For instance, if we’d had a very good financial result in any one month, then Alan and I were subjected to the most intense and almost hostile examination.  If we had made a loss, the E.M.I. directors were sympathetic, comforting, encouraging – almost embarrassingly so.  It reached the stage where Alan and I began to dread our upcoming ordeal if our figures were really good – as in fact they generally were.  (See below)

Rags to Riches

World Record Club Australia had a capital of $25,000 or thereabouts – a miniscule sum when you consider the size and scope of its operation.  From its inception to the time when I retired its profits - with the occasional exception - increased year on year.  In the year I retired its profit reached $500,000 before tax for the twelve months, a disastrous result for Alan Kemp and myself because we knew we’d cop it at the next board meeting.

I’d had an agreement with John Burnett, too, which he’d recklessly made some years previously at a post-meeting lunch - never dreaming it would reach consummation - that I could have a Bentley as my company car should the Club ever make that profit.  (John himself was driven in a Bentley, though a fairly ancient, rather stately one).  It is a reflection of my generous nature, I’m sure you’ll agree,  that I decided not to remind John of his promise.

On the matter of profits:  the Club at times achieved sales figures far in excess of normal industry expectations.  In the month we first released Wagner’s Ring, for example, we sold well over a thousand sets, which translates to well over 20,000 records.  Dianne Ellis brought to me a cracking record she’d discovered of a symphony by Joly Bravo Santos (who hardly anyone outside Spain had ever heard of) and we sold nearly 2,000 on first release.  It was very attractive modern music and it was written up as such in our brochure and nearly 2,000 members trusted us.  In general, our pressing runs were far from short even for quite obscure music, and sometimes very long indeed by any standard.

Continue to Part 4