Simon Heighes visits an unusual recording session at the Royal College of Music where students and early recording experts have teamed up to recreate Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic'€™s 1913 recording of Beethoven'€™s 5th Symphony. The original recording, one of the earliest one and most successful attempts to record an entire symphony using (close to) a full orchestra, used an acoustic horn to cut into a wax disc. Simon talked to participants in the 2014 re-enactment about the challenges of re-creating a recording process that pre-dated the use of electronic microphones.
Published on Saturday, 3rd January 2015.
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