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Osvaldo Fresedo 1924 to 1926

During this recording period, the sextet “Orquesta Típica Fresedo,” which later became famous, under the direction of Osvaldo Fresedo on the bandoneon, underwent a personnel and stylistic reorganisation and, with the change from the former record company Victor to Nacional Odeón, also a reorganisation in terms of distribution.

There were certainly some highlights during this period, but income continued to be generated more from sheet music sales than from record sales. The acoustic recording technology using a funnel was simply still too rudimentary for a real music distribution business to be successful.

At that time, great efforts were made to explore the conditions for the recognizability of a piece on acoustic shellac records. The few successes were more or less due to a chance combination of a catchy melody with concise instrumentation and then also the production of a successful master for pressing the records.

The switch to Odeón began very promisingly for the OT Fresedo with two recordings accompanying the singer and actor Carlos Gardel, whom Fresedo admired, featuring the works “Fea” and “Perdon viejita” from 1925 on the album Vol. 14 (link below).

Today, we are able to present all surviving recordings from this period at the correct playback speed and thus tonality, and in this series we can present a complex anthology of Fresedo’s early recordings for the first time.

At the end of 1926, the electric microphone was finally invented, and the significantly improved recording technology led to a stylistic leap, as can be heard on the album Vol. 17 (and subsequent albums) currently in preparation. Artists could now hear themselves clearly and thus get a realistic picture of their own recordings. They thus had a completely new tool with which to critically examine their own art (music) through recording. They thus began to adapt their music to the results.

Clicking on the cover will take you to the respective album. There you will also find a link to the platform of your choice, where you can stream or download the entire album.

A note for collectors: You can get all our releases uncompressed as FLAC in the Qobuz stores.