Guido Cantelli - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5, Op. 64 (Remastered) (2020) [Hi-Res]

Newly remastered - These transfers come from a newly-acquired archive of the complete NBC broadcast recordings of Guido Cantelli, very gratefully received here at Pristine, which promises many further treasures to come. The two concerts form which the recordings were drawn took place a month apart at the start of 1952, and our source material was, by and large, excellent. If there is a slight difference in quality it is to be heard in the Shulman, where the upper treble is less well captured than in the two Tchaikovsky pieces.

The latter, by contrast, were excellent. Happily both concerts took place in Carnegie Hall, rather than the NBC studio from where Toscanini broadcast the majority of his NBC SO concerts. Thus we get the benefit of a much more sympathetic acoustic - something that really adds to these superb performances - rather than the dry and claustrophobic sound associated with the orchestra as heard in Studio 8H.

The audiences were exceptionally quiet, especially so in the second of the two concerts; occaisonal coughing and other unwanted noises have been removed from the Romeo and Juliet recording. I'm grateful once more to Keith Bennett for his insight and excellent notes to what is a fabulous Cantelli release. (Andrew Rose)

"The performances are fantastic and show why the loss of Guido Cantelli at the age of just 36 was such a crippling blow to the world of music" (MusicWeb International)

Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala
NBC Symphony Orchestra
Guido Cantelli, conductor