Room 8

Remember the old days of LP records? What do you mean? You've never heard of them? Back in the days before compact discs, there were turntables and you would put the needle at the end of the tone arm in the outer groove of a record, and you would listen to it. Every once in awhile you would happen upon a record that was messed up, or your turntable would malfunction and the sound would be something like this. Listen!

See how the speed is screwed up and the pitch fluctuates. But what if a hundred years before turntables were invented, someone wanted to compose a piece that gave you a similar sound? The next piece of music approaches that effect and it was written in 1830! Sound crazy? The effect starts about 20 seconds in. Listen!

Amazing but true. It's part of the First movement from Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz. Charles Munch conducted the Boston Symphony in that 1954 stereo recording. Label is RCA. Catalog number is 60392. I guess Monsieur Berlioz was trying to give you that opium-intoxicated feeling. Read about the history of the piece to understand that.

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