Restoring old recordings

By almost any measure, he is considered one of the best in the small but worldwide group of music lovers and sound engineers dedicated to finding new life in old phonograph records. . .

He works mostly with classical recordings, and his output over the years has been prolific. There was the reworking of Arturo Toscanini's entire recording career, ultimately 35 long-playing records, done for the Franklin Mint in conjunction with the Toscanini family. There was the complete set of Leopold Stokowski's broadcasts with the Philadelphia Orchestra, which eventually led to 58 one-hour programs on a local National Public Radio affiliate. . .

Mr. Marston, who has been blind since shortly after birth, first came to prominence in his field in 1979 when he successfully restored the first known stereophonic record, made by the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1932. He has restored old recordings for labels including EMI, BMG, Biddulph and CBS. He restored all of Rachmaninoff's recordings. . .

He gathered and reworked everything the tenor Enrico Caruso ever sang into a microphone or, in the early days, a recording machine horn. . .

Posted by David on August 27, 2005 8:50 PM