How interesting that
the first ever recording of "The
Seasons" should have come from
wartime Italy. A detailed and fascinating
essay by G. Paolo Zeccara – also very
well translated by Nigel Jamieson –
gives us chapter and verse of the fairly
meagre history of Haydn performances
in Italy between 1938 and 1947. Actually,
things were not much better anywhere
else, and in most countries there was
just one man who really laboured to
put Haydn on the map while other musicians
just had one or two well-tried works
in their repertoire. In England it was
Sir Thomas Beecham, in Denmark it was
Mogens Wöldike, and in Italy it
was Vittorio Gui. But, aside from the
curiosity angle, does it actually have
anything to offer for us today?
Well, it’s sung in
Italian, which I suppose is no sillier
than singing it in English, as several
subsequent versions have, except that
most readers of this review will be
English speakers who would prefer either
the original language or the one they
understand best. It’s also fairly heavily
cut, but so were some other early versions.
On the credit side, singers of whatever
native language are usually taught to
cut their teeth on Italian 18th
century arias because Italian is a very
easy and natural language to sing in,
and in fact the singing here, solo and
choral, exudes a natural love of the
human voice which Haydn would no doubt
have applauded. The recording itself
is remarkably good for its age and provenance;
the chorus is obviously a little fuzzy
but the orchestral detail is fairly
clear and the solo voices are well-caught.
There is some pitch wavering which mostly
affects slow orchestral passages and
the surfaces of some of the discs are
heavier than others.
On the downside, Gabriella
Gatti has the sort of slightly shrill,
tightly produced voice which we might
today find a little "soubrettish";
her production and intonation are secure,
but she tends to slide between notes,
or to attack them from below, in a way
that sounds to modern ears a little
out of place in this type of music.
The tenor also has this tendency; he
has an attractive voice, quite light
but with a certain baritonal quality
which gives his timbre body as well.
The bass, Luciano Neroni is cleaner
in style than his colleagues and his
well-focused singing – warmly baritonal
rather than a big, black bass – gives
pleasure. The choir, too, has a tendency
to slide between notes – obviously portamento
was in the Italian bloodstream in those
days. The orchestral playing is extremely
good.
However, if there is
still any reason for buying this recording,
it is for the sake of Vittorio Gui.
Today, this conductor is remembered
in England for his work in Glyndebourne
as a successor to Fritz Busch (but you’d
have to be fairly old to have actually
attended any of his performances there)
and for the three immortal sets of Rossini
operas he recorded during this period.
Some might also add his well-regarded
version of "Le Nozze di Figaro".
These, plus his other recordings – the
Cetra "Norma", a "Mefistofele"
for EMI and a series of live resuscitations,
some more official than others – have
given people the idea that he was just
another of those Italian conductors
who were able to lead operas very competently.
He was in fact a great conductor whom
Bruno Walter considered in some ways
his spiritual heir – he invited him
to Salzburg in 1933. Like his elder
compatriot Toscanini, he was active
in favour of contemporary music in his
earlier days and tirelessly worked to
give opera-dominated Italy a decent
concert repertoire. His interests were
concentrated on the German-Austrian
classics (he was a famous champion of
Brahms) and the French repertoire, Debussy
in particular. Overtly emotional composers,
such as Tchaikovsky, do not appear to
have attracted him. He also liked to
explore baroque music and maybe acquired
a love of Handel during his Glyndebourne
sojourn – he himself translated at least
one of the oratorios into Italian. If
from one point of view this could seem
a somewhat circumscribed repertoire,
within these limits he frequently sought
out the more neglected corners of his
chosen field. As late as his 86th
year he programmed a rare suite by Roger-Ducasse.
His conducting of Haydn is here splendidly
clean-limbed, vigorous, bucolic and
poetic as required. Better conducted
recordings of this work would be hard
to find, but whether this will commend
the set to you in spite of the other
drawbacks will depend on your intellectual
curiosity towards the cultural environment
in which it was made.
Another reason for
acquiring the set might be the arias
which complete it. We are not told who
realized the orchestral part of the
Monteverdi (it has about as much to
do with Monteverdi as the Giazotto Adagio
has to do with Albinoni); very likely
someone like Malipiero, who was active
in that field. It sounds like a piece
of verismo with archaic leanings
– an innocent ear might guess it to
be by Respighi. But, having got over
the shock that it isn’t Monteverdi as
we know him today, in its own right
it is a highly effective piece and the
real point is that it suits Gabriella
Gatti perfectly. All those slidings
come into their own here and one can
enjoy fully the fact that she actually
has a very beautiful voice. This is
really a rather wonderful period piece
– you just couldn’t do anything like
it today. Her Mozart is well-schooled
– I didn’t find any objectionable features
here – but it is her Weber which again
comes into the "weird and wonderful"
bracket. Singing in Italian, and in
full agreement with her conductor that
Weber is to be seen from a late-romantic
standpoint, the actual result is very
far from what would be seen as authentic
today, but wonderfully compelling in
its way.
In three of his arias,
Luciano Neroni simply sings well, but
his version of "La calunnia"
is a splendid piece of singing-acting,
even though he belongs to the school,
prevalent at the time, that believes
you can sing any notes but the ones
Rossini actually wrote.
But back to Vittorio
Gui, and it would be nice to think that
this set might herald a new interest
in his work, much of which is buried
in the Italian Radio archives. At one
time Fonit Cetra was the commercial
outlet of the RAI – does this agreement
still hold now that they are under the
Warner umbrella? Alternatively, might
Arts Archives, who have recently issued
some recordings conducted by Peter Maag
under an agreement with RAI TRADE, take
a look at the Gui legacy? Just to give
you an idea of what there is, let me
conclude by listing some recordings
which I know to exist. This is not intended
to be a complete list, it is simply
based on tapes which were re-broadcast
between the late 1980s and the early
1990s, and I have ignored short pieces
and concerto accompaniments. Obviously
the material needs careful sifting –
the orchestras have their limits, though
they played better for Gui than for
most other conductors, the recording
venues often suffer from dry acoustics,
and performances after the conductor’s
80th birthday sometimes sound
tired. Still, here goes:
BACH: Cantatas 199
(Naples 1971), 209 (Venice 1963, with
Martina Arroyo), 212 (Naples 1959),
Suite no.3 (Naples 1961)
BEETHOVEN: Fidelio
(Rome 1952, with Gré Brouwenstijn
as Leonora)
BRAHMS: Symphonies
3 (Rome 1953) and 4 (Rome 1958), Serenade
1 (Naples 1965), Requiem (Turin 1966)
CHERUBINI: Requiem
in C minor (Rome 1960)
DEBUSSY: Prélude
à l’après-midi d’une faune,
Images (Rome 1962), Children’s Corner
(Naples 1968)
DUKAS: La péri
FRANCK: Les Béatitudes
(in Italian, Rome 1953), Prélude,
Aria et Final, in his own orchestration
(Milan 1960)
HANDEL: Concerti Grossi
op.6 nos.5 (Naples 1965) and 8 (Naples
1971), Dettingen Te Deum (with Kim Borg,
Rome 1959), Funeral Music for the Queen
(Turin 1959)
HAYDN: Symphony 44
(Naples 1968), The Creation (in Italian,
with Pagliughi, Monteanu, Capecchi,
Rome 1951)
LISZT: Orpheus, Petrarch
Sonnet 104 arr. Busoni (Milan 1966)
MASSENET: Manon (in
Italian, with Carteri, Prandelli, Milan
1952)
MOZART: Symphonies
19 (Naples 1967) and 39 (Naples 1961),
Sinfonia Concertante (with Brengola,
Asciolla, Rome 1963), Requiem (Turin
1960), Così fan Tutte (Rome 1957)
ROGER-DUCASSE: Suite
(Naples 1971)
SCHUBERT: Symphony
no.9 (Turin 1958)
STRAUSS, R: Don Juan,
Metamorphosen, Don Quixote (Rome 1964)
WAGNER: Parsifal (in
Italian, with Panerai, Christoff, Callas,
Rome 1950)
WEBER: Oberon (in Italian,
with Picchi, Cerquetti, Pirazzini, Milan
1957)
Christopher Howell
Luciano Neroni (bass), with Giuseppe Manacchini
(baritone) (7), Orchestra Sinfonica dell’EIAR/Mario
Rossi (4), Alfredo Simonetto (5), Ugo Tansini
(6, 7) 
