The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
on early Musical Masterpieces society records.
MMS stood for 'Musical Masterpieces society' and was
The concept of the brothers David and Sam Josefowitz.
In the years immediate after world war II both brothers
set up a subscription label 'Concert Hall Society', directed
at unfamiliar repertoire. An example of these early (78 rpm!)
CHS records can be found here.
After the success of CHS (helped by the fact that the records were
made of vinyl in stead of shellac, so easy mailable) MMS was created. MMS
was intended for the core repertoire. David Patmore writes in
his article about the history of the concert hall and MMS label:
On the basis of these technological advances and the growth in the
market for classical music recordings that followed, the brothers
now created a second label, the Musical Masterpieces Society (MMS),
devoted to the standard, popular repertoire. The initial preferred format
for the Society was the ten-inch LP. This had three distinct advantages:
firstly with careful cutting up to twenty minutes of music could be
placed on each side, or only slightly less than the average playing
time of the larger twelve inch LP at twenty four minutes.
Secondly it was cheaper to produce, and thirdly it was easier to mail
than the twelve inch LP.
The MMS sales strategy was different from that of the original
Concert Hall Society. No specific purchase commitment was required.
Members were sent a list of the full year's program of twenty to
twenty-four releases, and were asked to delete from the list only
those records that they did not want. They were then sent these releases,
either individually or altogether, with the facility to pay in installments
and with full return privileges. This procedure was very successful,
with the Society receiving very few returns. In addition the Society
marketed a small device which allowed owners of 78-rpm record players
to change the playing speed to accommodate the new LP,
playing at 33 1/3 rpm. Not only did this directly assist the sale of MMS
recordings, it also helped to expand the market for long playing records
in general. The Concert Hall Society was to run in parallel to the
Musical Masterpieces Society for about five years.
[David Patmore: The Concert Hall Society Inc.
and its successor record clubs. Classical record collector 2001]
After recording in Switzerland initially, the MMS label turned to
the Netherlands for orchestral core repertoire. Several orchestra's
from the Dutch public radio were recorded under the pseudonym
'Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra'. An other Dutch orchestra that
recorded frequently for MMS in the early '50s (under it's own name)
was the Utrecht symphony orchestra, conducted by Paul Hupperts.
To make things a bit complicated, the Utrecht symphony orchestra
merged in the 1980's together with two other orchestra's into the...
Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra!! Often, these two orchestra's,
the MMS pseudonym and the present NphO. are mixed up with
each other, but there is no connection!!
An example of the Utrecht symphony orchestra on MMS can be
found here.
In 2001 the RFO historic society tried to find out which orchestra
and which players contributed to the 'Netherlands Philharmonic
Orchestra' recordings. Unfortunately, this was virtually impossible.
The problem was, that the files of the Dutch radio from that time
are destroyed, and the organization of these 'odd jobs' were in the
hands of the musicians themselves, the so called "hustlers".
These musicians kept no records of their side jobs....
Being radio orchestra's, Dutch law prevented to record under their
own names. The broadcast organizations were aware of the
recording sessions, but turned a blind eye to the musicians.
Some players remembered that members of the following orchestra's
performed in the MMS recordings: 'het Omroep Orkest' (the present
Radio Symphony orchestra), the Dutch Radio Philharmonic orchestra
and the Radio Chamber orchestra. Not all members of the RFO and
OO participated to the recordings, particularly the string players
refused to play for the MMS label.
MMS brought their own equipment and technicians, and remained
approx. a week in Hilversum. In fast tempo, a range of recordings was
finished. It could happen that on one evening three parts of a
symphony were played by the RFO and the next evening the
fourth part by the OO.... The record that I have put
online this week; two symphonies by Joseph Haydn, was one of the
records (together with the Mozart symphonies) that was played
by one complete orchestra; the radio chamber orchestra.
There is a 12# MMS recording with Mozart concerto's played
by Theo Olof and (the excellent!) clarinetist Jos d'hondt,
accompanied by the ' Musical masterworks symphony orchestra'
conducted by Walter Goehr (the World Encyclopedia of recorded music,
appendix 2 indicates that this record was issued around 1955).
This is probably also an orchestra made up by the Dutch radio
orchestra's. More about this record and clarinetist Jos d'Hont
can be found here (in Dutch)
A member or the orchestra remembered that a recording of
The Messiah by Haendel (with Guus Hoekman as a bass soloist)
was recorded under the name 'The Haendel society Orchestra'.
In the recording of Bach's Hohe Messe conducted by Walther Goehr,
the name "Philharmonische Gesellschaft Amsterdam" had been taken.
Beside Maurits van der Berg, of whom I could find little information,
the conductors that frequently recorded with the Netherlands
Philharmonic Orchestra were Walter Goehr and Otto Ackerman.
David Patmore writes about these conductors:
Here often up to two weeks' solid work was scheduled with the
various ensembles of Hilversum Radio. These included different
orchestras for symphonic music, opera, chamber music,
and light music. Recording up to three sessions a day with a
variety of these groups was usual, frequently with Walter Goehr
conducting. David (Josefowitz, Rdo) described Goehr as
'a great musician with an incredible mind and memory'.
So tightly packed were the recording schedules that he recalled
once seeing Walter conduct a rehearsal of one work with his right hand,
while turning with his left hand the pages of the score of the
work to be recorded the next day!
Goehr had of course been active as a recording conductor for
a long time. He had served as a radio conductor in Berlin before
coming to England in 1933. Here he had established himself as
a leading radio conductor for the BBC as well as becoming a
stalwart of EMI's 78-rpm catalogue, frequently as an accompanist
in concerto and operatic recordings. David developed a close
friendship with Goehr, and Concert Hall gave him the opportunity
to record a far greater range of repertoire than he conducted for EMI.
Picture 1 The Hersteld Apostolische Kerk
Another major presence in the MMS catalogue was the Rumanian
conductor Otto Ackermann, who died tragically early aged only
fifty in 1960. (Walter Goehr also died in 1960, aged fifty-seven).
David described Ackermann as 'a wonderful conductor'.
Like Goehr Ackermann was exceptionally versatile, and able to turn
his hand to all aspects of the traditional repertoire.
Between them Goehr and Ackermann laid the foundations of the MMS
catalogue that were later absorbed into the mainline Concert Hall
catalogue in Europe.
Picture 2 The Tesselschadekerk
Trumpeter Harry Sevenstern remembered that the bulk
of the recordings were made in the Hersteld Apostolische Kerk,
a church building at the Johannes Geradtsweg in Hilversum, see
Picture 1. If this church was not available, the recording sessions
were done in the Tesselschadekerk, see Picutre 2.
The wooden interior of the Hersteld Apostolische Kerk provided
excellent acoustics for the recording sessions.
These sessions were recorded on an Ampex recorder, which enabled
the technicians of MMS to edit out mistakes, a technique that at that
time was not mastered by the engineers of the Dutch radio!
Hearing the early MMS 'Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra'
records, I think nobody could claim that they are the ultimate
in performance history.. But these records, and the accompanying
marketing techniques by the Josefowitz brothers, played an important
role in popularizing classical music as well as the 33 RPM
Long playing record format in the early '50s. In the Netherlands, were
MMS had his headquarter in the Amsterdam Paulus Potterstraat
near the stedelijk museum, a full price Philips record costed
31.50 guilders, while a MMS record only costed 6.50 guilders.
No wonder that in some countries MMS had a market share
of 60% or more... Everywhere in the world, from the USA,
Europe, and later south africa and japan, these record could be found.
And still everywhere in the world heavily used 'Netherlands
Philharmonic orchestra' records on flea markets, ebay and second
hand shops indicates the pleasure they gave to a whole generation of
Classical music lovers..
Rolf den Otter
Researcher Sound Design, Technical University of Delft, Netherlands