Luening/Ussachevsky King Lear

[Jeff Wilson]

Anyone have the recording of Luening/Ussachevsky's Suite for King Lear (the electronic score to Welles' 1956 theatrical production), released by Composers Recordings. Label number os CRI-S-112, I believe. I'd love a copy of this, be it tape or whatever.

[Le Chiffre]

Boy, so would I! Thanks for the info, Jeff - I had no idea this score had been recorded. I'm going to put a post on rec.music.classical.records on www.deja.com to see if anything turns up. We should try and track this down asap.

[Jeff Wilson]

Apparently it's been out of print for quite a while; CRI's web site has no record of it, and I've only found a couple of library listings for it on the web. Copies must be floating around out there, so hopefully one will turn up at some point...

[Le Chiffre]

Jeff,
Good news and bad news on the King Lear search-
I found those two library listings on the Net you mentioned. One was for Ithaca College in New York. I gave them a call and they said they don't participate in inter-library loan programs, don't make copies, don't even allow the LP to be checked out - NADA! Stingy SOBs.

The other listing was part of a "Sullivan Collection" at MSU. Since there are five states that start with the letter "M", I assume there are five different MSUs in the U.S.. My guess is that it's Michigan State, but that's just a guess. Are you anywhere near there?

The good news is that I did manage to find at one of my local libraries a copy of Luening and Ussachevsky's other, earlier LP; taken from their historic 1952 electronics concert at New York's MOMA - a concert I suspect Welles may have been at and which probably inspired him to hire them for LEAR. Haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm hoping it's in good condition. The search goes on for the Lear suite...

[Jeff Wilson]

I did see the MSU listing, Mike, which as far as I know is Michigan State. I'm about an hour or so from there, so driving up for one record isn't really something I care to do (since I don't know if I'd even be able to check it out). But as a last resort, maybe. I'll check into interlibrary loan possibilities. I think CRI has some of these guys' other stuff still available on CD, if I recall correctly. I slogged through their web site looking for any record of the Lear release, and saw others. The search continues...

[Jeff Wilson]

Success! I think. After 45 minutes of trawling search engines and various web sites, I finally tracked down a copy of this elusive LP. The site said it was still available, but hadn't been updated in a month, so hopefully it hasn't sold. It's supposed to be in mint condition as well. More as it develops. The excitement never ends here at Wellesnet...

[Le Chiffre]

Great news! Let me know if and when you get it.

I made a couple of posts on this subject last year on Christopher Banks' D For Dialogue board. Unfortunately, it was one of the few threads I managed to print out before that board went under. Luening said that Welles, as part of the score, commissioned a special tape of sub-audio frequencies in order to try and play some Orwellian mind-control games on his audience. He was always innovating, and in this case, it appears he was innovating in some pretty bizarre directions. Sounds like fascinating stuff, though.