The new series "Master of The Guitar" is dedicated to the players that made the history of 20th c. guitar. This first volume, Spain: 1925-63 includes rare recordings by the most important Spanish performers, many coming to us in precarious sound quality that has been restored with new digital re-mastering, allowing listeners to appreciate the beauty and art of the performances. An example of the re-mastering job can be heard on the tracks of Llobet e Narciso Yepes, unlistenable until now because of their technical flaws, here restored to their original, acoustic-era quality.

The complete Carnegie Hall debut of the then 25 year old Martha Argerich in 1966 is the subject of this marvelous collection highlighting as it does her incipient musical gifts that continue to enthrall audiences today. Argerich's performance can be appreciated with the uncommonly good technical quality this recording possesses, and her program which included Prokofiev, Liszt, Chopin and Schumann hint delectably at the nascence of the legend she would go on and continues to build.

Classical Music

• 2014 marks the 250th anniversary of Locatelli’s death • I Musici”, founded 1951, made this very important recording of Locatelli’s Tre Concerti Grossi op. 1 in 1959 • This performance is still considered as one of the best ever realized of this little known masterpieces. • At the end of this CD there are the Vivaldi’s three Concerti, op. 4, recorded 1962

Lazar Berman (1930-2005), a Soviet Russian pianist of stupendous technique, is once again featured in the IDIS label’s ongoing Rarities series devoted to his performances. Vol. 3 features two works of the Austro-German late-Classical, early-Romantic era that a pianist such as Mr. Berman was made to play: Haydn’s Sonata №. 27 in G and Beethoven’s towering masterpiece, the ‘Hammerklavier’, op. 106 in B flat. Recorded live in Milan, Italy in 1972 and 1975 respectively, these newly re-mastered recordings are a further boon for Berman, and piano, aficionados.

Classical Music

- Alexandre Lagoya (1929-99) and his wife Ida Presti (1924-67) became, from 1950, one of the great classical guitar duos of the 20th c. - Ms. Presti's early death eclipsed what would have continued to be a brilliant career and allowed for her, and the duos, brilliance to fade from memory. - This third volume in the IDIS Lagoya/ Presti reissue series, all 1963 recordings, features four concertos - two by Vivaldi and one each by Marcello and Joseph Haydn (a transcription of a double hurdy-gurdy concerto) with Kurt Redel conducting, plus several duo encore and short sonata pieces by Spanish composers.

Glenn Gould maintained a very peculiar relationship, a sort of love and hate, with Beethoven's music, which he performed out of any traditional scheme or system. This CD presents two further Beethoven rarities in live recordings by the Canadian pianist, the first being the Piano Concerto No.1 in C, op. 15, recorded in Turin, Italy on 23 January 1951 when Gould was only nineteen. The Piano Concerto No.3 in c, op. 37, with the Canadian Radio Orchestra under conductor Heinz Unger, was recorded four years later, on 21 February 1955. This very significant addition to the discography of Glenn Gould furthers the image of this eclectic, fascinating and singular artist.

Classical Music

Classical Music

These recordings, made between 1965 and 1966, feature a very young Martha Argerich at the start of her career. The first seven Chopin works featured on this disc were recorded during the final of the Warsaw Chopin Award in 1965, which she won. The live recordings from 1966 were all recorded for German television and have never before been released on CD. Martha Argerich still performs today, and is widely regarded as one of the best pianists of the second half of the twentieth century. Earlier this year, she received The Kennedy Center Honors.

With the advent of stereo recordings in the late 1950s, many important soloists, including Jascha Heifetz, began remaking many of their favorite compositions in stereo that they'd previously recorded only in mono. Between 1961-62, as heard on this Idis CD, Heifetz came back to the studio to re-make three of his most famous pieces he'd previously recorded in mono during the '40s and '50s: Bruch's Concerto no. 1 and the Scottish Fantasy, and Vieuxtemps's Concerto No 5. The CD concludes with Tchaikovsky's Serenade M�lancolique op. 26, in a mono recording from 1954.

Joan Sutherland is known for her great recordings made during the sixties of Donizetti and Bellini alongside powerhouse Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti. Sutherland, however, had other remarkable stage partners. Among them was Alfedo Kraus. This live recording was made in San Francisco in 1966. The partnership of Alfredo Kraus and Joan Sutherland in this opera is a matchless experience, and makes listeners realize the formidable performing needs of the Italian Romantic Opera.

The Glenn Gould wonderful musical talent was very precocious in all his provocative originality. Goul’s approach to the traditional repertoire left the audience completely amazed and admired at the same time. His Beethoven and mainly his Bach had that was predictable both for performance and choice of repertoire. In this CD , some very rare recordings are collected, realized by Gould when he was just twenty for the Canadian Radio

BEETHOVEN Piano Trio in Bb, op. 97, “Archduke.” SCHUBERT Piano Trio in Bb, op. 99 • Tr di Trieste • INSTITUTO DISCOGRAFICO ITALIANO 6678, mono (69:52)


These recordings are taken from radio air checks in Cologne on March 12, 1958 (Schubert) and September 23, 1959 (Beethoven). I do not believe these are the same performances by this long-lived, estimable ensemble that can be heard in Deutsche Grammophon’s five-disc compilation of the Trio di Trieste’s complete recordings, but I wouldn’t swear to it since I don’t own that set.


The Trio di Trieste was one of the 20th century’s longest-surviving piano trios, and one that has often been compared to the Serkin-Busch and Cortot-Thibaud-Casals Trios. The comparison is more apt, I think, to the latter than it is to the former, for these are readings of a fairly Romantic persuasion, with tempos, dynamics, and phrasing undergoing frequent adjustments to fit the mood of the moment. Within that interpretive paradigm, however, it has to be said that the playing of Renato Zanettovich, Lebero Lana, and Dario De Rosa is of a beguiling beauty that simply silences any criticism of the ensemble’s stylistic approach.


My only regret is that I never got to see and hear the Trio di Trieste perform live—though I suppose these air checks are the next closest thing to it—for whatever one might point to that the players don’t do right in terms of observing the absolute letter of the scores, one cannot cite a single thing they do wrong in terms of intuiting the music’s spirit and emotional core. These performances simply transcend any mundane considerations as they ascend into the realm of the sublime. For a glimpse of the starry firmament Beethoven reveals to us, listen to the hushed, almost trembling awe the players convey in the closing measures of the “Archduke” Trio’s great Andante . It will make you want to fall to your knees in wonderment. This is the performance of this movement I have sought my entire life, and finally I have found it. All else, as the sage said, is mere commentary.


In closing, let me just say that the sound of these recordings is so good it’s not even necessary to qualify it with an excuse about their source. If I were not writing this review for the regular composer section of the magazine, I could easily see submitting it as an entry to the Classical Hall of Fame. Is further recommendation needed?

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins