Over the past ten years, I have received more requests to re-issue Lillian Nordica’s records than those of any other singer. The idea has always enticed me but I have felt somewhat daunted at the prospect because in nearly every case, these letters ask, “Is there anything that can be done to improve the sound of her records?”

Lillian Nordica’s Columbia recordings did not adequately capture the size and color of her voice due to a deficiency in their recording apparatus. In fact, most of Columbia’s recordings from that period possess a constricted sound with little dynamic range and minimal low frequency response. Their recording equipment was simply unsuitable for registering the subtleties of the human voice. During the LP era, several attempts were made to reissue Nordica’s recordings but these poor transfers, replete with excessive artificial reverberation, only served to tarnish the great diva’s reputation. Even with today’s advanced technology, there is little that one can do to recover the softer tones of Nordica’s voice, lost in the Columbia recordings. Nevertheless, with digital technology, one can reduce the surface noise without detrimentally effecting the voice. In transferring Nordica’s records, I have employed a judicious amount of computerized de-clicking and de-noising to attenuate the noise, thereby bringing her voice more clearly into focus. I should mention here that I have applied the same principles in remastering the 1911 Columbias of Olive Fremstad and Ada Adini’s French Phonotipias all of which, unfortunately, suffer from similar deficiencies.

Remastering Nordica’s Mapleson cylinders presented a formidable challenge. These recordings are so primitive and possess so much surface noise as to invite the remastering engineer to use every tool in the digital arsenal to excess. With today’s technology, it is possible to remove much of the noise from these cylinders thereby allowing the voices to be heard with more clarity than ever before. This sort of processing has its negative aspects, however, as it gives voices a hollow and unnatural sound. The results of such digitization are, to me, both astonishing and disappointing. After much thought and experimentation, I have taken my customary moderate approach. For these transfers, I have used digital de-noising techniques to a greater extent than I would for 78 rpm commercial discs but not to the detriment of the voice. Unfortunately, there is little that I could do to improve the almost inaudible cylinders from Les Huguenots.

It is my sincere hope and belief that technology of the future will be able to capture a clean, natural sound from damaged, inferior sources. Perhaps this will be through digital technology or, as crazy as this may sound, from simply capturing errant sonic debris from the ether.