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Messages - chriskh

#1
The RAI performance was recorded at a public concert on 30 April 1959. The soloists were Gloria Davy (soprano) and Pierre Mollet (bass), with the Turin RAI Chorus and Orchestra conducted by Mario Rossi. I wasn't aware of an LP issue. It used to be on youtube but seems to have disappeared. There are a couple of quite recent live performances on youtube, though. It lasts just under 36 minutes in Rossi's hands, so cantata is probably a better word than oratorio, also because it has only 2 soloists.
#2
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Zingari (Leoncavallo) Update
Saturday 02 October 2021, 07:35
For the semi-historically minded, there's a 1969 RAI version under Elio Boncompagni with Gianna Galli and Aldo Bottion
#3
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Hubert Parry: Piano Music
Wednesday 14 July 2021, 19:18
It was the first complete recording when it was made in the 1990s (John Parry's Pearl LP had only a selection) but it is not true now in 2021 to say (as they do) that Jacobs is the only pianist to have recorded the work
#4
I think it's a third time for the Clarinet Fantasies too, just a second time for that with Horn (a terrific piece, by the way). For those who want to label their issues "first recording", I don't think there's any unrecorded Stanford chamber music left unless you start looking at arrangements of other things, such as Herman Sandby's transcriptions for cello and piano of 4 of the 5 Characteristic Pieces (originally for violin).
The existence of previous recordings has not prevented new recordings of Brahms, Dvorak and countless others and it is to be hoped that the same will go for Stanford, whose music can take a range of interpretative options.
#5
Back to continental conductors performing VW ... Ferruccio Scaglia conducted Symphony 8 for RAI in Rome in the 1960s. I don't know if a tape still exists. I have heard a performance of the Oboe Concerto with Sheila Hodgkinson (a good player briefly active in Naples in the 1960s) and the Naples Scarlatti Orchestra of the RAI under Pietro Argento. Argento seemed to have no difficulty with the style (to an Italian, VW is likely to sound like Pizzetti). This was a studio performance, though.
#6
17 strings? A performance of Parsifal or Meistersinger with 17 strings might leave us wondering (if it was the only performance we could hope to hear) whether Wagner's ability as a composer was equal to his ambition
#7
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Stanford on Concertzender
Thursday 24 January 2019, 20:01
The 3-CD set from which the broadcast was taken is still readily available
#8
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Elgar in Eastern Europe
Monday 15 October 2018, 19:42
Bizarrely, Venezia seems to be  Russian label
#9
Somehow the system divided "conductor" in my previous message to "con ductor", a hilarious variant which of course I didn't mean
#10
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Elgar in Eastern Europe
Monday 15 October 2018, 10:43
Elgar's fate abroad may be partly tied up with Mediterranean vs Nordic tastes. He's certainly not played much in Italy, but even that little may amount to more than they play of Sibelius, apart from the Violin Concerto, and far more than they play of Nielsen. I haven't found reference. for example, to any performances of Sibelius 6 in Italy at all except for a couple conducted by Jeffrey Tate (who also did a lot of British music for RAI, and not just obvious things) in the present century.
#11
Most people in the UK remember Trevor Harvey as a longstanding and rather waffly (but sometimes helpful) reviewer in Gramophone. The general tenor of his reviews was inclined to be "I'm a conductor really". I doubt if enough recorded material exists to judge him in his preferred role. The original recording of the two Merrick movements was conducted by Stanford Robinson, who was certainly an excellent practitioner, but the sound would be very old indeed.
#12
Some of the extra time in the Marzadori recording is because they opened out a cut in the finale, but it was only a small one and probably does not account even for two minutes
#13
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Sinigaglia Violin Concerto
Wednesday 04 April 2018, 12:45
The YouTube version of the performance by Laura Marzadori was disfigured by a bad flute entry for an important countermelody in the second movement, unfortunately the player stuck to it all through, heedless of the Ivesian harmonies that were resulting. I have had assurance that this will be corrected from rehearsal material for the disc. This will not improve the fact that the performance is awfully slow, if you don't mind ancient off-air sound you might get a better idea of this very beautiful work from Mosesti and Scaglia, also on YouTube (and also in a big box from Rhine Classics) 
#14
Composers & Music / Re: Stanford at Carnegie Hall
Monday 29 January 2018, 22:54
Re Mahler's performance of Stanford, I have a photocopy of a review of this concert in the New York Herald of 15 February 1911 and it clearly states that it is the 3rd (the Irish) symphony. The critic specifically remarks on the inclusion of "Let Erin remember" in the finale, so that removes any doubt that there may have been confusion over the numbering. Stanford's "Irish" was not unknown in New York, Damrosch conducted it several times. This doesn't seem to have prompted any investigation into his other symphonies and I do not believe the 4th has ever been performed in New York. Karl Muck conducted the 7th in Boston. One Stanford work that had considerable success in New York, for a time, was Phaudrig Crohoore. The Voyage of Maeldune had some success (but only a single performance, I believe) in Chicago.