Record layouts

I was enjoying my recent purchase of Hausmusik's Schubert Octet (wonderful IMO), and was struck by how differently one hears the work if one doesn't have to turn an LP over half-way through. And remember the Saga LP recording of Louis Kentner's Hammerklavier, where you had to turn the record over *twice* to avoid interrupting the Adagio (the layout was 4th Mvt, 1st Mvt / 2nd Mvt, 3rd Mvt)?

This kind of thing can happen on CD as well, with some longer symphonies going over to two CDs; pre-recorded cassettes tend to avoid the problem by having extended run-off on one side.

Do any of you have particular instances of your enjoyment of a record being impaired by poor layout?

Any number of Beethoven 9ths with a break in the slow movement.

Then again, I'm still getting used to hearing Stravinsky's 'Sacre' WITHOUT having to flip the LP over between the two parts.

Regards, Eric Grunin

I learned Mahler's 1st from the Walter/Columbia SO recording, and when I hear it in concert, I *still* expect a break before the Eb minor section of the slow movement. (For those not familiar with the LP, that's where you have to jump up and flip the record over.)

You mean, like the LP side break in Scherchen's Mahler 2nd faithfully preserved in the MCA issue on CD?

Ah, the short memory of youth! What we old folks took for granted is a puzzling mystery to youngsters. There was once a gadget called a 'record changer.' A stack of records would be mounted above the turntable platter, and, as each side ended, the next disc with the next side was dropped onto the previous disc, and play resumed. It was standard for operas and other multi-disc sets to have the sides arranged for record changers, so you didn't have to get up and flip each individual record. Instead, you flipped the entire stack midway through the music. Both 78s and LPs, right up to the end of the LP era, were often arranged this way. Audiophiles frowned, not just because of the damage of the discs rubbing against each other, but because the pitch of the music dropped as the load on the turntable motor increased. However, except for the small audiophile community, record changers were the standard record playing device in most

Commonly in the US, but (mercifully) rarely in Europe.

Tony Movshon

Ah, I've always wondered why LPs were often arranged 1/4-2/3...

[...]

Still a youth then, though perhaps no longer callow.

Very common in the UK in the 1960s.

And had the good sense to put a 'locked groove' at the end of the 4th movement so that there was no risk of running on to the beginning again.