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First in a new series of Cantelli NBC concerts
Review of this release: Classic Record Collector, Winter 2009
Keith Bennett, whose new book Guido Cantelli - Just Eight Years Of Fame is published to co-incide with this release, was my introduction to the short-lived musical world of Guido Cantelli. His ceaseless championing of Cantelli has resulted in a number of releases on various record labels including Pristine, and it's now an immense pleasure to be able to delve into Keith's extensive and meticulously- maintained collection of rare taped recordings for this new series of issues. Each one will take the music from a complete concert broadcast by NBC from Carnegie Hall in the early-to-mid 1950s, with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Cantelli. Sonically these are a huge improvement over the many concerts the orchestra gave in NBC Studio 8H under Toscanini, Cantelli and others - the Hall's acoustics are of course excellent, and as listeners we also benefit from ever-improving microphone and recording technologies. In remastering I've dealt with the inevitable tape hiss, and also some mild tonal imbalances characteristic of older recordings - XR remastering identifies and remedies many of the imperfections of older microphones. I've also worked to reduce or remove a number of audience coughs and sneezes, using the latest digital spectral repair technology to avoid damage to the musical content. The result is a fine-sounding representation of Cantelli in concert - clear and full-bodied, brilliantly conveying Cantelli and the orchestra's attention to both fine detail and overall musical impression.
Cantell's NBC Concert No. 31 - 21st February 1953 notes by Keith Bennett
Rossini: Overture – Le siège de Corinthe Commentators often refer to Guido Cantelli’s good taste but there are a few occasions when that attribute deserts the conductor. Such instances which come to mind are the saccharine arrangement by Molinari of the Largo from Handel’s Xerxes and Wagner’s overture to Rienzi and to those could be added this overture by Rossini. This is a potboiler of an overture (and that is being charitable – some have deemed it trashy fifth-rate music) which Cantelli included in his first appearance with the Orchestra della Scala at an open air concert on 27 July 1945 and he gave 32 performances in all (the only Rossini overture to be programmed more often was Semiramide). After the solemn opening it rapidly deteriorates in musical substance and becomes merely rumbustious. Small wonder that Toscanini did not share his younger colleague’s enthusiasm: he gave a couple of performances with the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York in 1931 but none were programmed with the NBC Symphony Orchestra although he did make the studio recording. Cantelli’s performances with the NBC Symphony Orchestra (there was another with the orchestra on 1 January 1951) easily outclass his commercial recording with the Orchestra Stabile dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia both in terms of performance and actual recording quality. But what a pity that the Cantelli performance of L’italiana in Algeri on 7 April 1954 was not broadcast to add to the conductor’s discography.
Tchaikovsky: Symphony in B minor, No.6, Op.74, Pathétique There are instances when the tragedy of Cantelli’s brief career registers with overwhelming force and this is one of them. Cantelli performed this symphony on just six occasions and it is worth a moment’s thought that Karajan made more commercial recordings of this symphony (seven) than Cantelli gave actual performances. Cantelli first conducted the symphony on 27 July 1945 at an open air concert during his first appearance with the Orchestra della Scala and his last was this performance with the NBC Symphony Orchestra on 21 February 1953 on this CD. His previous concert performance was with the Philharmonia Orchestra on 14 October 1952 which was followed by four three-hour session on 24, 28 and 30 October for the commercial recording. As might be expected, with so short an interval between the commercial recording in London and the concert performance in New York, there is little to choose between them.. Cantelli fully understands the emotional implications of the score which he conveys without resorting to exaggerations: the demands of expressiveness are met without hysteria, tempi are well-judged in all four movements, and the harrowing despair of the final movement is admirably portrayed. All this is true of the live performance with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.
However, the writer would like to make some reference to Toscanini’s concert performances with the NBC SymphonyOrchestra. Some commentators have expressed the view that Cantelli was a Toscanini clone and when it comes to the two works of Tchaikovskythat the Maestro and Cantelli both performed – this symphony and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture – one can understand how that assessment came into being because the performances are remarkably similar, both purge the compositions of exaggeration and sentimentality, which is definitely preferable to those performances with over-stated dynamics coupled with inappropriate over-romanticizing. But readers should also remember that Toscanini thought Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 was banal and this was a work for which Harris Goldsmith coined the expression of Cantelli’s ‘calling cards’ (he performed it on 28 occasions). Would a clone have done that in view of his mentor’s strongly held view?
© Keith Bennett 2009
Keith Bennett is the author of Guido Cantelli – Just Eight Years of Fame (published 2009) which is only available from GC Publishers. For further details either write to GC Publishers, 21 Nunn Close, Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4UL, UK or e-mail gcpublishers@keithbennett.waitrose.com
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