There were just sixteen in all: SP-1 through SP-16, lavishly illustrated two-disc 78rpm sets from the 1940s. The RCA Victor Showpieces were encased in light-cardboard gatefold albums, similar to the open-book style used for later 2-disc LP sets. They were blessed with gorgeous cover art (courtesy of RCA's most Romantically-inclined illustrator, Henry Stalhut) and offered liner jacket notes with copious pictures and text effects.
Unfortunately you don't find them around all that much any more. Those thin cardboard sleeves looked great and took up far less space on one's shelf—roughly about the same as a comparable LP—but shellac 78s need more protection than that. The discs could break easily, and that's sad; typically the SP shellacs were RCA's prime quality compound, a record surface as smooth as the legendary 'Z' pressings of the 1930s. An RCA Victor Showpiece was likely to play like a dream, its discs free from frying-pan sound, only a light satiny underlay that enhances, rather than detracts from, the music.
I'm the happy possessor of four Victor Showpieces, although only of three albums, given that one album is a duplicate.
First up: SP-1, the flagship of the set, an exquisitely well-performed and recorded rendition of Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe Suite No. 2 from Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. To date this remains one of the great performances of the work, both in its matchless orchestral virtuosity (there's just no gainsaying the Boston Symphony of the 1930s and 40s) and in Koussevitzky's faultless conducting. RCA captured this precious rendition in as good of audio as is possible for the era; not modern high fidelity by any means, but eminently and enjoyably listenable.
Just look at the cover and the inside jacket: a beautiful presentation, indeed. Stalhut never painted a better jacket cover, while the inside liner notes are enhanced by discrete graphics.
SP-1: The first Victor Showpiece
Next up: Marian Anderson, Pierre Monteux, and the San Francisco Symphony grace us with the exquisite Brahms Alto Rhapsody. Recorded in 1945, the album was originally issued without fanfare, two discs in a plain paper wrapper as RCA Red Seal DM-1111. However, later in the 1940s RCA gave this terrific performance the treatment it deserved, with Stalhut's arch-Romantic interpretation of Goethe's poetry on the cover and some charming faux-German artwork inside. Great album, this one. I have two copies of the set; one was a bit chewed up but I was fortunate to acquire one in near-mint condition, its colors saturated and no tears, rips, or wrinkles.
The Alto Rhapsody Showpiece: Stalhut in full-bore Romantic mode
Vincent d'Indy's Istar might be an obscure work, but when Monteux and the SFS produced their performance in 1945, RCA took full advantage of the Istar's opulent idiom to produce what just might be the most spectacular cover of the series, a truly virtuoso Henry Stalhut performance. That's a good thing, because the d'Indy was SP-16, the last album of the series. I have copies of the album in its "regular" release as Red Seal DM-1113 as well as a slightly worn but still gorgeous Showpiece. The cover artwork is the same for both, as are the liner notes, but the Showpiece benefits mightily from its inside illustrations.
Istar as regular 78: DM-1113
Istar as showpiece: Victor Showpiece SP-16
It's probably all for the best that RCA discontinued the Showpiece series; all those broken 78s that resulted, tsk tsk. And given that the Showpieces were products of the late 1940s, the LP juggernaut was on the way. Still, they stand as a modest postscript to record industry history, and remain some of the most appealing albums of the pre-LP era.