Number of recordings of Antonín Dvořák’s 9th „New World” symphony is countless, it is one of the most recorded and most popular symphonic works in the entire music literature. Its popularity has been unbroken since its wildly successful premiere at Carnegie Hall on December 16, 1983.
The first recording of the symphony, made with acoustic techniques and containing cuts, was made between 1919-1922, with Ronald Landon conducting the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra. The first electronic recording was made with the same performers in 1927, 2 years after the development of electronic recording technology. Of course, both recordings were originally released on gramophone records.
The Japanese company Nippon Columbia signed a large number of record publishing contracts in the 1960s, among them were the American Columbia, Erato, the Czech Supraphon, Muza, Box, Everest, Hispavox and other brands. Columbia’s rights later went to Sony, Erato was bought by RCA (today Warner). Among the narrowing options Nippon Columbia increasingly had to rely on Czech Supraphon, founded in 1932. Nippon Columbia could not use the Columbia brand name for its electronic products overseas, which is why the DENON brand was created, which later played a pioneering role in the development of digital sound recording. By 1982, when the Compact Disc appeared, Denon already had 10 years of experience in digital sound recording and Nippon Columbia was one of the world’s top three CD factories. From the middle of the 70s, the label „PCM DIGITAL RECORDING” on Denon’s Japanese LPs indicated that it was not an analog recording, but a new, digital recording.
Czechoslovak Supraphon – as far as I know – in the countries of the Eastern Bloc in the 70s and 80s did not have very good sound quality records. In Japan this was not the case. With Nippon Columbia-Supraphon co-production recordings and Supraphon records released in Japan a small cult developed around the Supraphon. Of course, this also required the great Czech performers and orchestras of the era.
But let’s get back to Dvořák. In addition to the 9th, the 7th and 8th symphonies, although less popular, are also of high artistic quality. The earlier symphonies are much less well-known and, although not as mature in style, should not be missing from the collection of a classical music fan. There are far fewer complete symphony cycles than recordings of the last 3 symphonies, but we can still choose from lots of great series. Among the many good ones, one of the best is the analog cycle recorded between 1972 and 1974, under the auspices of Supraphon, performed by the great Czech conductor Václav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.
The "PCM DIGITAL" cycle
This long story of the introduction came to a conclusion in the early 80s. In October 1982, the compact disc developed in co-production with Sony-Philips was released. It finally made the digital audio recording, which had existed for a few years at that time, available to the general public without an analog transmission medium. For the very small number of manufacturing at the beginning, the publishers (including Nippon Columbia, which has its own CD factory) tried to re-record works considered „evergreen” with new digital technology. They thought that record buyers will definitely buy them even on new CDs that were still very expensive at the time. Among these works, of course, Dvořák’s 9th Symphony could not be missing: on October 1, 1982, Nippon Columbia released 5 CDs for the Japanese CD premiere, one of which featured the 9th Symphony.
It was a brand new digital recording, so that the „PCM DIGITAL RECORDING” inscription, which has already become established at Denon, can also be added to the CD. This new recording was a Nippon Columbia-Supraphon co-production a year earlier, in 1981. As Takeaki Anazawa, one of the developers of digital sound recording, a sound engineer at Nippon Columbia at the time, said: in the early 1980s, plans were already being made for a digital recording of the symphony with one of the greatest Dvořák conductors of the time, Václav Neumann. However, the conductor himself was reluctant at first. I mentioned earlier that he already recorded a complete symphony cycle in 1972 in analogue, he was probably satisfied with that, so he said it was unnecessary to record it again.
The change occurred when Denon recorded Beethoven’s Serioso Quartet with the Smetana Quartet in Prague in June 1981, with the assistance of Takeaki Anazawa as sound engineer, using digital technology. Once, when they were playing back the recording, Anazawa went out into the corridor where he met Neumann. The conductor, who himself was a former member of the Smetana String Quartet and loved the piece, was curious about what they were doing. After listening to the recording, it struck him that it was made with a new technique. Anazawa of course jumped at the chance and explained that it was a digital recording that would soon replace analogue all over the world. What he heard convinced Neumann, who was then willing to record the New World symphony once again using digital technology. In fact, he was so convinced by the new technology that one recording became a whole series: it became Neumann’s second Dvořák cycle, and also the first digital Dvořák symphony cycle. The recordings were made between 1981 and 1987.
This symphony cycle (like others) has been reissued several times in recent decades, in this article I am not writing about these. This article is about the most interesting first Japanese CD releases from a collector’s point of view: what you need to know, if you are a fanatical collector and you want to acquire only the very first releases which were intended for the Japanese market only. (At the end of the article, I will present one more interesting release.) I will not write more about the performances here, it is enough to say that these are first-class performances of the Dvořák’s symphonies.
General information
Almost all releases of these recordings are very tight-lipped about recording information. In the best case, we can find the location and year of recording in the accompanying booklet, but nothing else. In a later European Supraphon release, we also find the name of the sound engineer and the producer. All in all the following are the general information:
Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor: Václav Neumann
Location of recordings: Prague, Rudolfinium/House of Arts (the two names mean the same building)
It can be assumed that Denon’s DN-035R recorder was used for the first recordings (certainly for the 9th symphony). This recorder was released in 1979 and used 47.25 kHz sampling frequency and 16-bit resolution (the improved and more portable DN-035 MkII was released in 1982). Since there was no software sampling conversion process available at the time (to convert 47.25 kHz to 44.1), presumably the analog output of the Denon DAC was fed to a Sony PCM-1600 or PCM-1610 ADC. First CD masters are presumably made in this way. Considering Denon’s 10 years of experience in digital sound recording, of course anything is possible. After 1984, Denon’s new DN-039R type recorder was probably used for the recordings.
All first edition CDs that I know of are made with pre-emphasis (in subcode, so the EAC program can’t handle it). It means that the DAC/CD player has to restore the previously highlighted treble during playback. Unfortunately, I have seen many CD players today that can’t handle CDs recorded with pre-emphasis. With these, you will hear sharp treble during playback. These players are unfortunately not suitable for playing these early discs which is quite a shame. Of course the number of CDs recorded with pre-emphasis is small and they have not been produced since the 90s, but the CD standard includes this.
I go through the characteristics of each release below in the order in which the discs were released. A common feature of the first editions is that each symphony was published in a separate album. In later editions, the 5th and 3rd, the 8th and 4th, and even later the 9th and 7th symphonies were combined on one disc. With the exception of the 9th symphony, the rest of the albums in the first Japanese edition are now difficult to obtain and appear very rarely on auction sites (the more popular symphonies more often, probably more of them were sold at that time). Of course, these recordings can still be easily purchased in later editions or in compilation albums intended for the Western market. Several such albums have been made over the decades.
| Symphony | Recording | Producer | Engineer | First release | Item number | Pre-emphasis (subcode) | Price at release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9. (E minor) "New world" symphony | 1981. 10. 21-22 | Milan Slavický | Stanislav Sýkora | 1982. 10. 1. | C37-7002 | yes | 3800 yen |
| 8. (G major) symphony | 1982. 04. 20. | Milan Slavický | Václav Roubal | 1983. 10. | 38C37-7073 | yes | 3800 yen |
| 7. (D minor) symphony | 1981. 10. 21-22 | Milan Slavický | Stanislav Sýkora | 1984. 02. | 38C37-7067 | yes | 3800 yen |
| 6. (D major) symphony | 1982. 09. 14-15 | Milan Slavický | Václav Roubal | 1984. 10. | 38C37-7242 | yes | 3800 yen |
| 5. (F major) symphony | 1982. 04. 23-27 | Milan Slavický | Václav Roubal | 1985. 02. | 33C37-7377 | yes | 3300 yen |
| 4. (D minor) symphony | 1984. 09. 11-14 | Pavel Kühn | Václav Roubal | 1985. 05. | 33C37-7442 | yes | 3300 yen |
| 3. (E-flat major) symphony | 1985. | Pavel Kühn | Václav Roubal | 1985. 10. | 33C37-7668 | yes | 3300 yen |
| 2. (B-flat major) symphony | 1987. 10. 1-2 | Jaroslav Rybár | Václav Roubal | 1988. 05. | 33CO-2253 | none | 3300 yen |
| 1. (C minor) "Bells of Zvonice" symphony | 1987. 06. 15-17 | Pavel Kühn | Václav Roubal | 1988. 03. | 33CO-2143 | yes | 3300 yen |
9. "New World" symphony (C37-7002)
This was released at the Japanese premiere of compact disc on October 1, 1982, as part of Nippon Columbia’s first 5 CD release. CD and Supraphon logo are in the upper left corner of the front of the booklet. „C37-7002”, PCM logo and „STEREO” are in the upper right corner. Their arrangement is very important! In later reissues, layout is reversed: The PCM logo is placed in a smaller size on the left side, Supraphon on the right side, and the CD logo is removed from the front of the booklet. The layout shown above can be seen only on the first edition of 4-9 symphonies.
Layout of the first edition (for symphonies 4-9):
Layout of later reissue and layout of the first release of 1-3 symphonies (the picture was taken from the booklet of the 9th symphony, it can be seen that the album number has also changed):
Important that in the sides of the case the numbering C37-7002 is also visible. On one side, the title is in Japanese and on the other in English. Sometime in late 1982 or early 1983, Denon changed its numbering system and prefixed it with information about the price of the record, meaning that the album number started with „38C37” for digital recordings that cost 3,800 yen. A copy is also known where the sides already has 38C37-7002 numbering, while the booklet has C37-7002. Such a copy is not a first edition, but released after the changing of the numbering system. (You can see that the numbering system of Supraphon records manufactured by Nippon Columbia is the same as that of Denon records, and there is even no overlap between the two brands.)
The CD’s graphics correspond to the early Denons, with a black band on both sides and gray (transparent) in the middle. So apart from the Supraphon label, it is the same as the early Denon CDs. The case has smooth edges and a raised “Patent Pending” label on the back in the lower right corner. The lid has either one long (very early) or two shorter (slightly later) ribs.
The Patent pending label have been removed from the cases from around 1984. I have some discs from 84 that still have it and some that don’t anymore. Since the cases can be replaced, I can only guess the exact time.
Early case with smooth edges. I don’t have any more precise assumptions about when production stopped for this, probably sometime in the first half of the 80s. Although these early cases are much less fragile than today’s, it’s easy to replace with today’s knurled edge case. So many of the early pressings are now unfortunately replaced with modern cases.
Case made with one long (early) and two short (later) ribs. During production, they maybe realized that it was more difficult to remove the booklet from the long ribbed version, but some very early cases were made that way. Both are „Patent pending”. There is only one CD logo in the upper right corner.
Regarding the matrix numbers, I have too few samples to be able to give an exact list. It is certain that there are copies where numbers are „scratched” into the mold and there are copies where matrix numbers are „engraved”. Since I have a scratched numbered copy from 1983 and an engraved one from 1982, it is not possible to determine ordering connection between the two.
Hardly visible but this is the scratched matrix number version.
This is my copy with engraved matrix number.
Due to the popularity of the symphony, many later editions were made of this recording, which differ to a greater or lesser extent from this very first version.
The booklet is only in Japanese and, unlike the later ones, also contains information about the recording device (DENON DN-035). It contains description of the performance, the work, the movements and the performers, as well as the place and time of the recording. The last page also contains a small description of the CD system itself. It can be found in the accompanying booklet of most early Denon CDs. In the case of later or international market copies, a multilingual text (English, German) was included in the booklet and the CD description is also missing.
On the back of the booklet we see a description which should serve as a reference for all later CDs. In reality they unfortunately soon abandoned this kind of detailed description. (Apart from the earliest Nippon Columbia discs all later CDs are much simpler.) In this case each movement is a track, the structural points are assigned an IN:DEX number, and the timings are given for the entire disc and the movement too. This type of demanding CD editing has now been completely forgotten by manufacturers. Today, every movement is still one track (in 99% of cases), but the IN:DEX editing is completely gone (even from CD players), and the all-encompassing timing statistic too.
In the first edition of the 9th symphony, two types of obi are known. The one covering the entire side of the case like a pouch (on the right, although torn copy, presumably this is the earlier one) and the one that bends over (left). The price of 3,800 yen is equivalent to 35.7 dollars today, calculated with inflation. At the end of 1982, this was how much a disc for the then revolutionary new CD players cost.
8. symphony (38C37-7073)
The 8th Symphony, recorded in April 1982, was released one year after the 9th, in October 1983. The design of the front cover of the booklet is essentially unchanged in terms of logos, the back cover shows the photo that takes up the entire page: the Bedrich Smetana Museum as seen from the Charles Bridge in Prague.
In the case of the side tabs, the design is unchanged compared to the 9th symphony: Japanese title on one side, English title on the other and the album number 38C37-7073.
In the case of the 8th symphony, the case has remained the same although there is a version with and without „Patent pending” insciption. The CD remained unchanged, my copy has the „scratched” matrix number.
In the case of the 8th symphony, the booklet has a slightly hybrid design: the text is still only in Japanese, but an introduction to Václav Neumann in English, German and French has also been included. The Japanese text is about the new recording and the piece.
Unfortunately, the editor of the CD didn’t use IN:DEX feature here. Unfortunately, my copy does not have the obi, but it looks like this for the first edition:
Later, this changed to the extent that a small advertisement about the 7th symphony, which had already been published at the time, and Neumann’s Janacek album was also placed on the back cover.
7. symphony (38C37-7067)
Although the Symphony No. 7 was recorded at the same time as the 9th, in October 1981, it was published after the 8th: in February 1984. The design of the front page of the booklet is essentially unchanged with regard to the logos, the back page shows photo that occupies the entire page: the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague in the castle.
In the case of the side tabs, the design is unchanged compared to the 9th and 8th symphonies: Japanese title on one side, English title on the other and the album number 38C37-7067.
In the case of the 7th symphony, the case has remained smooth sided, and we can also find the inscription „Patent pending” on it. The CD graphics remained unchanged, my copy has the „scratched” matrix number.
In the case of the 7th symphony, the booklet – probably with international distribution in mind – contains English, German and French descriptions of the piece in addition to the Japanese. Only the Japanese text contains description about the performance and the previously published 9th symphony. (Perhaps because it wasn’t published anywhere else besides Japan at the time?) On the last page you can see the usual short description of the CDs and their handling, even in European albums at that time. The description on the back cover is the same as the one we saw for the 8th Symphony.
Unfortunately, my copy does not have the obi, but it looks like this (the back cover also contains a short advertisement for other records, this also appeared on later editions of the 8th Symphony):
6. szimfónia (38C37-7242)
The first release of the 6th symphony from October 1984 is a strange release. Its front cover matches the early-style PCM emblem and layout, the case also has a smooth edge, but the back cover does not show a full-page image, but the small-sized image. This layout is typical only from the end of 1985. This is the first release where side parts had completely white background, with Japanese title on the left and English title on the right. However, the price here is still ¥3,800.
In recent years, several symphonies have appeared in the Denon Crest 1000 series, and you can immediately tell from the back that they are new editions because they fit perfectly into the design of the Crest 1000 series.
The accompanying booklet of the first Japanese edition contains a description of the piece in Japanese, English, French and German, and a short description of the performance in Japanese.
Unfortunately the obi of this release is unknown for me.
5. symphony (33C37-7377)
The 5th Symphony recorded in April 1982 but released only in 1985. Its first release is a child of a transitional era. The appearance of the front of the booklet is still the same, but the arrangement on the back has changed and the side parts are completely white, with Japanese title on the left and English title on the right. Since the production of CDs had already ramped up, the publisher was able to reduce the price, so this album could already be purchased for 3,300 yen (29 dollars at today’s prices). It is a mystery when the Japanese manufacturers stopped producing smooth edged cases (although I have seen them in modern versions as well). In any case, today’s cases with knurled edges are characteristic of the series from then on.
The matrix number here is the „engraved” version.
With international distribution in mind, the booklet also contains English, German and French descriptions in addition to Japanese. However, we can read about the piece, the orchestra’s beautiful playing and the performance in Japanese only.
4. symphony (33C37-7442)
It seems to me that the Denon engineers did not visit Czechoslovakia in 1983, because 4th symphony was recorded only in September 1984, but it was released on CD a few months after the 5th: in May 1985. Here we have temporarily returned to the back page with the full-size photo. The appearance of the beginning of the booklet is still the old one, but the pages are already familiar from the 5th symphony.
The accompanying booklet contains a description of the piece and a brief introduction to the conductor in Japanese, English, French and German. This is the first release where we will see a photo about the composer in the booklet.
From now on, we will stick with the „engraved” matrix number.
3. symphony (33C37-7668)
Several things changed for the release of Symphony No. 3 in October 1985. The designers of Nippon Columbia swapped the inscriptions PCM and Supraphon and no longer saw the need to display the CD logo. As I mentioned before, the earlier recordings also reissued at that time. The new reissues also received such a booklet, but there was no previous edition of the 3rd Symphony, so it was only published with such a booklet.
On the back, there is only a small picture and information about the piece and the performers. Personally, I liked the photo filling the entire back side much better than this somewhat oversimplified solution. But the fact is that the small print text is much better read this way. In 1985, the entire CD industry introduced the three-letter notation to indicate the recording technique (ADD, AAD, DDD), you can see this in the lower right corner: this recording is DDD, i.e. made with a fully digital recording chain.
The booklet contains Japanese, English, German and French text.
The PCM DIGITAL text has also changed on the obi: it has been moved to the top in a separate blue bar.
2. symphony (33CO-2253)
In the case of Symphony No. 2, published in 1988, two more things changed: the Japanese-only text returned on the back. Perhaps because of the symphony’s lesser importance, this edition was not intended to be sold internationally. The other thing is appearance of the the barcode, which was missing from previous first editions. This can also be noticed with other Japanese discs: sometime in the second half of the 80s, they started putting barcodes on the back. Before that CDs were not marked with any barcodes.
The 1st and 2nd symphonies were also recorded in 1987 and published in 1988. It is interesting that, unlike the 1st (and all the others), the first CD release of the 2nd symphony is without pre-emphasis.
The 2nd symphony was released in May 1988, 2 months after the 1st, completing the release of the Czech Philharmonic and Václav Neumann’s digital Dvořák symphony cycle.
The booklet for Symphony No. 2 is only in Japanese, which also confirms that it was not planned to be sold internationally.
1. symphony (33CO-2143)
The recording of the 1st symphony was released in March 1988, slightly ahead of the 2nd. This release is also made purely for the Japanese domestic market: both the title and the booklet are entirely in Japanese only.
Golden symphonies
In the 1980s and 1990s, it seems that gold versions of successful records were very popular in Japan. Several gold CD series known, such as Karajan Gold or Nippon Columbia’s Pure Gold Collection. The 1981 recording of the 9th Symphony was also released in the Pure Gold Collection series. A gold CD here means that the reflective layer on the disc is not made of aluminum, but of gold with a thickness of a few microns. Thus, it is even more resistant to environmental influences than aluminum, which oxidizes easily.
The recording of the 9th symphony was published in January 1988 in a limited edition of 3,000 copies, individually numbered. Although this is already a reissue, it is still worth mentioning because of its speciality. Compared to normal discs which were 3,300 yen at the time, it was originally 4,300 yen (roughly 37.4 dollars). Number: 43CO-2128.
And in July 1991, the publisher went even further and released the entire series on gold CDs, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This 6 CD release (COCO-7621-6) was also available in Japan only, the booklet is entirely in Japanese. This album is the most special of the reissues and is not easily (and not cheaply) available today, so I will present it in more detail here at the end of the article. Its original price was 18,000 yen, at today’s price it would be 144 dollars.
The „golden album” contained two double cases in a thick cardboard gift box.
Box with the original obi.
Front page of the booklet.
Backside of the first case.
Backside of the second case.
The obi.
Japanese and English side of the cases.
CD No. 1
Loudness analysis
When listening to the first edition discs, it became apparent that, just like other Denon CDs of the time, they were mastered relatively low level. I separately collected the loudness analysis for them here, compared to the 1991 gold album. (If you are wondering what this term mean, you can find them in this article.)
| Symphony | Recording | LUFS | LU | Clipping/Preemph. | LUFS (1991) | LU (1991) | Clipping/Preemph. (1991) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9. (E minor) "New world" symphony | 1981. 10. 21-22 | -20,68 | 24,3 | -/yes | -18,28 | 24,31 | yes/no |
| 8. (G major) symphony | 1982. 04. 20. | -22,39 | 22,36 | -/yes | -20,65 | 22,31 | yes/no |
| 7. (D minor) symphony | 1981. 10. 21-22 | -22,88 | 21,85 | -/yes | -20,32 | 21,84 | 17/no |
| 6. (D major) symphony | 1982. 09. 14-15 | -23,36 | 21,75 | -/yes | -23,36 | 21,75 | -/yes |
| 5. (F major) symphony | 1982. 04. 23-27 | -23,5 | 20,27 | -/yes | -20,45 | 20,47 | -/no |
| 4. (D minor) symphony | 1984. 09. 11-14 | -21,46 | 21,02 | -/yes | -20,06 | 20,99 | -/no |
| 3. (E-flat major) symphony | 1985. | -21,27 | 20,03 | -/yes | -18,32 | 19,52 | yes/no |
| 2. (B-flat major) symphony | 1987. 10. 1-2 | -19,03 | 17,93 | -/none | -19,03 | 17,93 | -/no |
| 1. (C minor) "Bells of Zvonice" symphony | 1987. 06. 15-17 | -19,93 | 18,41 | -/yes | -19,94 | 18,41 | -/yes |
Several conclusions can be drawn from the data: looking at the first editions, it is apparent that the volume level of the recordings was quite low in 1981-1982, and then it got higher. The dynamic range also underwent a change. Compared to the relatively wide dynamic range of the 1981-1982 recordings, the later ones were a bit more mixed, although the values still fit within the high average of orchestral recordings. I wrote that preemphasis is used on all first editions, and clipping does not occur anywhere.
The 1991 edition is an interesting release. Two of the 6 CDs are still recorded with pre-emphasis (the 1st and 6th symphonies), but the others are not. I am sure that the masterings of the first editions were included in the album (in the case of the 1st symphony, the one-tenth LUFS difference could even be a measurement inaccuracy). In the case of the other symphonies, however, it is a matter of new mastering. The dynamic range has also changed slightly, but the loudness level has clearly become higher, which means that when listening to them, we have to turn up the volume less to get the same feeling of loudness. On the other hand, what is less noticeable in the table, but it became clear during the analysis: digital overload appears several times in these releases. Although this does not reach level 0 except for the 7th symphony, it is clearly visible from the examination of the waveform:
The above is the same small excerpt from Symphony No. 9 from 1991 (above) and 1982 (below). Such passages can be found in several new releases. This is a mastering mistake, but it probably won’t be noticed by anyone listening to the recording. These errors may indicate that the recordings were not converted by software sampling from the higher sampling of the Denon system to the smaller sampling of the CD standard, but – as I wrote – re-digitalized from the analog output of the Denon system for Sony CD mastering sometime in the 80s. Although I don’t have any information about them, I assume that these values are the same as the previous reissues of the recordings, since what reason would Denon’s engineers have to make a new mastering for the 91 edition.
I hope this little review for the digital Supraphon recordings of Dvořák’s symphonies was interesting (at least for the hard core of collectors). In conclusion I can only say this: the good sound quality and excellent performances will make listening a great experience in any edition!
Róbert Sipos (2023)