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Henry Ward Marston IV (born in 1952), better known as Ward Marston, is a restorer of historical recordings and a jazz musician. He is well known for making high quality transfers to compact disc (CD) from older recording media, including wax cylinders and 78 rpm records drawn from his extensive personal collection.[1][2]

Background and education

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Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Ward Marston's father was a banker from an old Philadelphia family, and his paternal grandfather apparently sung minor roles at the Opéra Comique in Paris.[2] Marston himself has been blind from early infancy due to an oxygen overdose following premature birth.[2] Marston's mother discovered her son had perfect pitch when he was three years old.[3] After taking to the piano at the age of four, Marston began to study music at the School for the Blind in Overbrook, Philadelphia, which he attended from 1956 to 1964, before going on to a public school where he could continue his ongoing studies in piano and organ.[1] In 1968, Marston was able to study in Paris with Pierre Cochereau and play the organ of Notre Dame.[2] After forming his first jazz group in 1967,[1] Marston began to play piano in clubs and bars, happy to veer away from the prospect of a concert career.[2] While studying at Williams College, Massachusetts, where he majored in history, Marston managed the local radio station, a post that allowed him to play his already extensive collection of records.[2] Following this experience, Marston began to develop his skills as a recording engineer and start work at Columbia Records.[1]

Restorer of historical recordings

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I do a lot of the equalization in the analogue domain and digitize it once I've got the sound I want, using CEDAR (Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration), which is a wonderful product, but can be misused. It's always a compromise. Some people don't want any CEDAR at all — they would rather hear all the clicks and scratches. And it's true that any amount of digital intervention can have an effect on the sound. I feel it's important to make the restorations of these old recordings sound like real, live performances, which is why you may end up hearing more surface noise in my transfers than you will in others'. Preserving the music is simply more important than noise reduction.

from "From where I sit,"
article by Ward Marston in Gramophone[4]

Marston's initial career breakthrough came while working for Columbia, when he restored and transferred to tape the first known stereophonic recordings,[n 1] made by Arthur Keller and the Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1932 as part of an experimental program instigated by conductor Leopold Stokowski who was anxious to attain clearer and fuller sound, together with a more realistic way of reproducing the orchestral sound stage.[5] During the 1931 and 1932 concert seasons, Bell Laboratories had set down—using innovative mono techniques as well as the new stereo—as many as a thousand experimental recordings (mainly brief excerpts) of Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music.[5] In 1979, Bell Labs invited Keller to catalog around 600 surviving metal masters, and to assist Marston in the pressing of new discs and their re-recording them on tape. To commemorate the event, Bell Laboratories released two LP records of some of Stokowski's performances of short works or extended excerpts, as re-recorded by Marston. Bell also organized a conference on the subject at Stanford University.[6]

Marston went on to restore and transfer to CD a wide range of historic recordings, released by a variety of other labels, including EMI, RCA/BMG, Koch Historic, Naxos Historical, Andante,[7] Biddulph, Pearl, Pristine Audio, Romophone,[8] VAI Audio and West Hill Radio Archives, in addition to his own record company, Marston Records, which he founded in 1997.[2]

+ Historic Masters.....

The original recordings used by Marston all come from his vast personal collection, numbering some 35 thousand individually chosen records, prevalently of vocal performances, kept at his home in Swarthmore, Pensylvania,[1][2] and he emphasizes the key importance of selecting exactly which original discs should be used for restoration.[3][7] Although often considered a 'non-interventionist' in terms of restoration style, Marston prefers to call himself a "limited interventionist".[7]

His many well known transfers include complete sets of recordings made by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Fritz Kreisler (for RCA) ..... complete recordings of Enrico Caruso (Naxos), ...Leopold Stokowski[5] ....Toscannini 12" vinyl for Franklin Mint[2] ......complete recordings of Josef Hofmann... Pearl

Being blind, Marston employs an assistant to help him with some particular tasks, such as accessing remastering technology interfaces.[3][7]

The Julius Block cylinders

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It is impossible to describe the elation that we felt listening to nineteenth century pianists, violinists, and singers – none of whom we could have dreamed we would ever hear. We began by auditioning each cylinder. Several transfers were then made using different sized styli to achieve optimum sonic clarity. We found that the cylinders had not been recorded at a standard speed and consequently, we had to adjust the machine for each cylinder to obtain the correct pitch. This proved to be easy for works where we knew key signatures, but we had to make educated guesses for unfamiliar music, knowing that pitch adjustments could be made later.

Ward Marston on first hearing the Julius Block cylinders[9]

One of Marston's most prominent tasks has been the restoration of a series of wax cylinder recordings which businessman Julius H. Block started making in 1889, before the first commercial recordings of classical music. [10] [11] [12] [9] which came to light in St Petersburg in 2003.

Jazz musician

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Ward Marston makes his living by giving performances with his Trio and Orchestra.[2] According to his performer website, "After graduation, he played jazz in Philadelphia clubs where he established a reputation as a talented musician. He caught the attention of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ellla Fitzgerald, and Oscar Peterson."[13]

Awards

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Notes and references

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Notes
  1. ^ The pioneering stereo recordings were of Scriabin's Prometheus: Poem of Fire and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in the Ravel orchestration were made, together with corresponding with monoaural ones, on 12 March 1932.[5]
References
  1. ^ a b c d e 'Restoration engineer — Ward Marston'. Naxos Records website. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Prial, Frank J (2005). 'A master of making old tunes new again'. New York Times, 27 August 2005. Accessed 27 February 2012.
  3. ^ a b c von Rhein, John (1996). 'An ear for detail — the art of transferring historic recordings onto Cd has become a booming business'. Chicago Tribune, 19 May 1996. Accessed 27 February 2012.
  4. ^ Marston, Ward. "From where I sit", The Gramophone, February 2003, p. 19. Accessed 27 February 2012
  5. ^ a b c d Stokowski, Harvey Fletcher, and the Bell Labs Experimental Recordings, stokowski.org, accessed 1 March 2012.
  6. ^ Guide to the Bell Labs early stereo collection ARS.0118. Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California. Website, oac.cdlib.org. Accessed 1 March 2012.
  7. ^ a b c d Stearnes, David Patrick (2011). 'Ward Marston' [with interview]. WYSO website hosted by publicbroadcasting.net. Accessed 27 February 2012.
  8. ^ a b Steane, John Barry. Historic vocal Lucrezia Bori Opera and Operetta Arias, Volumes 1 and 2. Lucrezia Bori (sop) with various artists, The Gramophone, November 1996, p. 54. Accessed 27 February 2012
  9. ^ a b Marston, Ward (2008). 'The dawn of recording: the Julius Block cylinders', marstonrecords.com. Accessed 27 February 2012.
  10. ^ Wakin, Daniel J (2008). 'Classical ghosts, audible once again '. New York Times, 24 October 2008. Accessed 28 February 2012.
  11. ^ Nicholas, Jeremy (2009). 'The dawn of recording: the Julius Block cylinders', The Gramophone, June 2009, p. 89. Accessed 28 February 2012.
  12. ^ Woolf, Jonathan (2009). 'CD review—historical recording of the month. The dawn of recording: the Julius Block cylinders', musicweb-international.com. Accessed 28 February 2012.
  13. ^ About Ward Marston, wardmarstonmusic.com. Accessed 27 February 2012.
  14. ^ ICRC Awards: first ICRC Historic Awards, The Gramophone, June 1998, p. 27. Accessed 2 March 2012
  15. ^ ARSC Awards for Lifetime Achievement & Distinguished Service to Historical Recordings, ARSC - Association for Recorded Sound Collections, arsc-audio.org. Accessed 1 March 2012.
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