The Italian Intermezzo

[alberto]

It's a Chandos record of orchestral excerpts from Italian Opera, by Cilea, Puccini, Catalani, Giordano, Ponchielli, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Verdi , Puccini, Wolf-Ferrari (Noseda, B.B.C. Phil., CHAN. 10634). At first it reminded me of some decade ago and I thought that then similar records (obviously with shorter music timings) were frequent.
But better considering my record collection I found just one LP by Galliera and Philharmonia (Emi, late 50s or early 60s) recalling this one and more unitary and daring.
The Galliera contained the same three Catalani exceprts in the Chandos, two Wolf-Ferrari (only one common to Chan.), two Mascagni (not in Chan.: from Guglielmo Ratcliff and Le Maschere) and even a substantial (at least in length: 8' 41") interlude from Giulietta e Romeo by Zandonai and a merely symphonic piece by Riccardo Pick-Mangiagalli (Waltz from the suite Notturno Romantico).
Anyway, today there is scant place for a record of short orchestral operatic excerpts (of course there is more for vocal excerpts,  for singing stars: see-or better- hear recently Kaufmann Verismo Arias and Fleming Verismo, both with a lot of worthy rarities).
I am quite fond of the Chandos record, mixing few sung pieces (but almost never heard out of their full context) and a greater bunch of unsung ones.
I understand that some may prefer Bruneau to Zandonai, Cilea and Giordano. That's the object and the richness of the forum.
I like (in my limited knowledge) all four of them (no one obviously in the first flight) and, in the Italian trio, I would put Zandonai first. 

[febnyc]

One of the earliest of such collections to appear on CD in the DDD format was recorded in 1983 - Opera Overtures & Intermezzi/Staatskapelle Dresden/Silvio Varviso (Philips 412 236-2).  It still can hold its own in the competition - especially for the lush and gorgeous Intermezzo from Notre Dame, by Franz Schmidt.

[alberto]

I have and value the Varviso record. But it contains mostly sung pieces of composers of varied periods (also Rossini) and countries ( Bizet, Saint Saens, Offenbach, Massenet, Schmidt). The only seldom sung piece appeared the Schmidt (recorded at least  twice by Karayan, between others). In the "Eloquence" reprint were added ballet musics from Macbeth and Sicilian Vespers (just one snippet), conducted by De Almeida. Only two pieces are common two Noseda and Varviso: Ponchielli Dance of the hours and Puccini Manon Lescaut interlude. And 1983 is not so near (De Almeida comes from 1974).