Good news (I hope). I’ve published three new reviews (as opposed to Amazon reposts) of… the earliest recordings of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
Bernardino Molinari conducting the Rome Augusteo Orchestra (soon rechristiened “Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia”), published by Cetra in 1942, reissued to CD in 1991 on Ermitage ERM 116 S (1991)
Louis Kaufman and the Concert Hall Society String Orchestra under Henry Swoboda, recorded by Concert Hall in December 1947, reissued to CD on Naxos 8.110297-98 (2005)
Alfredo Campoli with the Boyd Neel String Orchestra under Boyd Neel, a broadcast performance published on Pearl GEMM CD 9151 in 1995 and said to be from circa 1939 and Paris (and therefore now often presented as the oldest extant recording of The Seasons), but I have strong reasons to doubt that dating and location, in favor of England in late 1949 or early 1951, see my review to know why – and what the performance is worth.
Writing those reviews entailed considerable online research and abundant and fruitful exchanges with esteemed Vivaldi discographer Roger-Claude Travers. Things would seem pretty simple when addressing so popular and ubiquitous work as The Four Seasons, but Vivaldi’s masterpiece was in fact practically unknown before the 1950s, and simply gaining access to scores and parts would have been a huge problem. The now standard edition by composer Gian Francesco Malipiero for the Istituto Nazionale Antonio Vivaldi was published only in 1951. Part of my research was to establish which editions these different recordings may have used. Also, there is a tendency with historians to simply repeat what was said in scholarly essays by the previous historian, without checking if the latter’s sources and claims were actually verified, hence endlessly propagating mistakes. I opted to take nothing for granted and checked and double-checked: that Alceo Toni’s edition was indeed first published in 1924 by Milanese publisher Sonzogno (despite appearing in no online library catalog that I could find, thanks to Roger-Claude Travers for producing convincing evidence) before its 1942 and 1947 reissues by Carisch (it is the edition played by Kaufman, but also by Bernstein as late as 1963-64), that Molinari’s 1927 edition bore indeed its infamous dedication to Mussolini (thanks Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid for confirmation!), that the uncredited solo violinist in Molinari’s recording was indeed, as Roger-Claude Travers had conjectured, the orchestra’s concertmaster Remy Principe (and I was able to bring out of an 80-year oblivion the harpsichordist and organist who had taken part in this recording). I was also able to establish the exact chronology of the various original publications of Molinari’s recording by Cetra, and suggest a more probable dating to the broadcast performance given by Alfredo Campoli and the Boyd Neel Orchestra than the one claimed by the Pearl release. It was also fascinating to follow the circulation of the Molinari edition in the United States, first in Saint-Louis under Molinari himself in January 1928, then (individual concertos only) with the New York Philharmonic… under Toscanini in February, then again Molinari himself in August, and Toscanini again in 1936. I was able to rely on the marvelous resources offered by internet when you search in its depths, like the websites worldradiohistory.com, Internet Archive at archive.org and Istituto Centrale per i Beni Sonori ed Audiovisivi, or the New York Philharmonic’s digital archive (much gratitude to them). This research would have been impossible in the pre-Internet era (I do need to pay a “physical” visit to the British Library when I can to confirm some points about the Campoli performance). The sleuth work was exciting and fun, although all these minutiae, admittedly, will be of interest only to Roger-Claude Travers and myself !
And then there is the music, and I find that, despite their sonics and my reservations on this and that interpretive point, all three still have interpretive lessons to teach us today (Campoli’s unwritten cadenza!)
Prior to that, back in March, I reposted old Amazon reviews of guitar recitals by Alirio Diaz on Vanguard Classics, completed with thorough discographic information:
Masterpieces of the Spanish Guitar. Works of Albéniz, Granados, Falla, Malats, Segovia, Turina, Torroba, Sainz de la Maza, first CD reissue on Vanguard Classics “Everyman” OVC 5004 (1992)
Four Centuries of Spanish Guitar, works of Mudarra, Narváez, Pujol, Sanz, Scarlatti, Sor, Tárrega, Torroba, Sainz de la Maza, Granados, Villa-Lobos, Falla, Rodrigo, Albéniz. First CD reissue on Vanguard Classics “Everyman” OVC 5006 (1993)
The Virtuoso Guitar. Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Concertino in D major op. 99, Vivaldi Concerto in A major after lute trio RV 82, Concerto in C major RV 425, Karl Kohaut Concerto in F major (+ 3 Encores). I Solisti di Zagreb, Antonio Janigro, first CD reissue on single CD on Vanguard Classics OVC 8069 (1996)
“Cuatro Siglos de Guitarra Española”, 2 CDs Vanguard Classics / Arcade (Europe) 08 9003 72 (1992), Reissue “The Spanish Guitar”, 2 CDs Vanguard Classics / Arcade (Europe) 08 9194 72 (1993) (partial compilation of the above)
Vanguard Classics The Historical Series: The Classic Spanish Guitar. 2 CDs Vanguard Classics ATM-CD-1802 (2006) and Vanguard Classics Classic Portraits: The Best of Alirio Diaz. 2 CDs Vanguard Classics ATM-CD-1813 (2006)