There is a simple choice
here. You can start to build up a detailed
collection of the complete recordings in a
painstaking year by year approach (these three
Naxos volumes are respectively 1902-03, 1903-06,
1906-08) or go for the sampler approach and
buy a pair of ASV CDs consisting of 44 recordings
ranging from 1903-1920. The highly expert
Ward Marston is doing a sterling job in what
is described as 'new restoration' and there
are some real gems including Caruso accompanied
on the piano by composers such as Cilea and
Giordano. The pioneer recording engineer Fred
Gaisberg, whose name would in due course become
synonymous with HMV and EMI, undertook recording
tours to Europe as early as 1899, going on
to Russia over the next two years, but it
was in the spring of 1902 that he struck gold
with the 29 year-old Caruso. In March that
year Caruso had scored a triumph in Franchetti's
opera Germania (the first two tracks
on Volume One are taken from that work), and
in May he was booked for Covent Garden to
sing with Melba in Rigoletto. Sensing
something special Gaisberg cabled the tenor
with the offer of a recording session and
asking his fee. Ten songs for £100 came
the reply, which Gaisberg's masters, the Gramophone
Company, forbade him to accept.[see footnote]Fortunately
for us (and for the Gramophone Company) Gaisberg
agreed and the session took place on the afternoon
on 11th April 1902 in a room on
the third floor of a Milan hotel. News travelled
fast and the discs sold like hot cakes, making
a fortune for the company, and encouraging
singers such as Emma Calvé and Antonio
Scotti, who did not wish to miss the bandwagon,
to get themselves signed up. The recording
industry, one might say, had been born.
The first ten tracks of the 27 on the first volume (which covers almost all
the recordings he made before signing exclusively with the Victor Talking
Machine) are the result of that first session (and incidentally all these
transfers are reproduced at exactly the same speed at which they were originally
recorded, which was by no means always at 78 rpm). By today's standards these
ten tracks are heavily flawed (and I am not referring to the inevitable hiss
or distortion) with false entries, throat-clearing, the use of falsetto for
the top final Bb in 'Celeste Aida', a shambolic early-by-one-bar start to
'E lucevan le stelle' from Tosca which takes a page to correct, some gruesome
piano playing by the inconsistent Salvatore Cottone, but there are also some
utterly glorious moments. Somehow the flaws which occurred that day all add
to the charm and gives a sense of occasion to what must been a revelatory
experience for Gaisberg. As a piece of living history they are priceless.
We are listening to the voice of a true tenor, the baritonal quality would
come later, sheer power, with verismo opera and the Neapolitan song given
their best interpretation by the vocal chords of their greatest exponent.
You'll find a fair amount of duplication even within one disc, so the title
of the series 'Complete Recordings' will in time prove to be literally that.
There is not always an improvement second time around, with, for example,
the aria from Aida brought to an abrupt halt this time to avoid that
top Bb altogether, though he does make amends in Tosca. The first
time you hear 'Vesti la giubba' from Pagliacci (which would become
Caruso's virtual signature tune) that demonic laughter and heart-rending
tearful ending will send shivers down your spine.
By 1904 the improvement in Caruso's voice is remarkable (track 7 on Vol.
2 finally produces 'Celeste Aida' as Verdi intended it to be sung), hugely
confident and devoid of vocal inhibition, buoyed up by a new contract with
Victor, and more importantly by his conquest a year earlier of New York's
Metropolitan Opera, whose winter season he would dominate until his early
death at 48 in 1921. He developed a large repertoire of roles and, according
to Gaisberg's reckoning, had earned himself $5 million in recording fees
by his death (a staggering amount when translated into today's value). Not
only is all this reflected in his now ringing tones, but more importantly
by 11th February 1906 Caruso's voice gets the support it expects
in the opera house with the accompaniment provided for the first time by
an orchestra (track 20 Vol.2) in an aria from Flotow's Martha delivered
with astonishing breath control and style (also true a couple of tracks later
of his tenderly impassioned singing of Faust's aria from Gounod's opera of
the same name). The following heroically sung 'Di quella pira' is not quite
the same a semitone lower, the ringing top C here a B but still exciting.
By Volume 3 horizons have been broadened (despite beginning with another
'Celeste Aida' - occasionally with misjudged breathing here - but now of
course with orchestra). These are the years 1906-1908 and though the diet
of composers remains largely the same (Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti, the French
staple diet and those popular Neapolitan songs) Caruso is now joined by
colleagues in duets, trios, quartets etc, including artists such as Antonio
Scotti, Geraldine Farrar, Nellie Melba, Marcella Sembrich, and Louise Homer.
The sound is now clearer, despite the orchestra still sounding uncomfortably
like background music to an early Disney cartoon in their oompah-arrangementsand
hurried introductions or postludes, but even this is successfully overshadowed
by wonderful singing. The close friendship between Scotti and Caruso shines
through in the fine blend and perfect match of tone in their duets from La
forza del destino, La Boheme, and especially Pearl Fishers,
but of those in the Rigoletto quartet (here with another downward
transposition of a semitone) it is Caruso who inevitably dominates.
If you want a short cut through all this then ASV provide a two-disc CD covering
the years 1903-1920 but it is a far less comprehensive journey despite the
familiar territory of repertoire and singing colleagues. Try it as a taster
but then start building your Caruso library with Naxos Historical.
Christopher Fifield
Footnote
Information supplied by Howard
S Friedman (January 2008)
In the fall of 1994 Peter Martland
dispelled all of the mythology surrounding
Caruso's first recording session. Martland
quoted generously from extant telegrams and
letters between Alfred Michaelis, the Italian
Branch Manager, and William Barry Owen, the
Managing director of the Gramophone Company
in London. Martland dispels completely the
myth of the supposed cable from London forbidding
payment of Caruso's exhorbitant fee.
Association for Recorded Sound
Collections Journal,
Martland, S. P. Caruso’s First Recordings:
Myth and Reality, in ARSC Journal, Vol. 25
No. 2, pp 193-201, Fall, 1994
Performance 
Recording
(historical)
Naxos Volume 1
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Naxos Volume 2
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Naxos Volume 3
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ASV
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NAXOS HISTORICAL 8.
110703/04/08 [72.19/73.52/69.22]
