I spoke to Tom Null (founder of Varese Sarabande) about that several years
ago, and he was vague about location of the Remington (Don Gabor) master
tapes but said they could not be accessed anyway as the license to use them
had expired. However, for the recordings used for those Remington reissues
by Varese Sarabande (there were about 10 of them), it appears that the old
Gabor master tapes did survive.  The rest are all lost, seized by the
government when Remington's successor was arrested, and apparently
thereafter destroyed.  Beyond that, no details are known about their fate.

Best,
John Haley


On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 1:22 PM, David Lewis <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> "The Origin of Fire" was reissued by Varèse, and I've used a copy of their
> LP to play in lectures about the Cincinnati Symphony/local recording
> history
> before. I'd like a second opinion as the Varèse LP is ticky and I don't
> recall their releasing it on CD. Their CDs are impossible to obtain at a
> reasonable
> price these days, IMHO.
>
> Varèse reissued "The Origin of Fire" from a master provided by Don Gabor
> himself -- I hope that they didn't give it back!
>
> David N. Lewis
> Hamilton, OH
>
> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 12:36 PM, Steven Smolian <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > Wasn't this reissued by Varese?
> >
> > Steve Smolian
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:
> > [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Lewis
> > Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2016 10:07 AM
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Craft Urania Ballet Mecanique
> >
> > David,
> >
> > Thank you! That was exactly what I needed to know. I will probably pick
> > this up, as I really do need a good transfer of "The Origin of Fire," a
> > landmark in Cincinnati based recording as you know.
> > There is also this download of the original Urania tape, though as they
> > can't spell "Hovhaness" I don't suspect I will follow up -- I'm not
> really
> > in the download market anyway.
> >
> > http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Soundmark%2BRecords/48094
> >
> > The reason I asked is that I participate in a monthly "Vinyl Night" in
> > Cincinnati and we often memorialize music folk that have passed in the
> > short term. I figure there will be tons of Bowie at the upcoming night
> so I
> > thought I'd be different and present on Boulez and Craft. Craft's "Ballet
> > Mécanique" is hardly the crisp and disciplined affair that the earlier
> > Surinach version for Columbia is, but it's still fun listening and the
> > airplane sounds defy description. I wanted, though, to determine that
> there
> > was not more of the piece on the tape than there is on the LP.
> >
> > For those who might care, a few things about Urania I stumbled upon in
> the
> > course of looking up this question. Apparently the arrangement that Steve
> > Smolian describes -- combining distribution with Haydn Society -- only
> > lasted from April-November 1955; on November 12, Billboard announced the
> > dissolution of their partial merger with "one of the principals" saying
> "It
> > just didn't work out."
> > That doesn't mean, of course, that they didn't try again later, as Steve
> > suggests. However, it would've been without their president and founder
> > Rudolf Koppl, who died October 15, 1956. I wonder how they managed to
> hang
> > on so long; the best known thing about them is the notorious "Urania
> > Eroica" which Wilhelm Furtwängler sued to suppress in 1954.
> >
> > best,
> >
> > Uncle Dave
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 12:15 AM, david gideon <
> > [log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > In response to the question raised earlier, I don’t know if Urania
> > > ever issued this on reel tape but Omega did. You can see a copy of the
> > tape here:
> > >
> > > http://www.omegatape.us/stereo2.html#6009 <
> > > http://www.omegatape.us/stereo2.html#6009>
> > >
> > > There is also an mp3 clip posted. Like the LP the Omegatape was
> > > missing several minutes of music at the beginning. A unique feature of
> > > this performance was the use of actual airplane sounds rather than
> > > just the whirring propellors.
> > >
> > > ReDiscovery reissued this tape as part of a 20th century CD, one of
> > > the few titles that is not available as a download (due to the
> > > prohibitive costs for licensing non-PD music for download; the rates
> > > are much more reasonable for physical discs). It can be found here:
> > >
> > > http://www.rediscovery.us/compilations.html <
> > > http://www.rediscovery.us/compilations.html>
> > >
> > > dg
> > >
> > > Yesterday's music in today's sound.
> > > http://rediscovery.us
> > >
> >
>