From the archives
Andrew Mcgregor finds passion and poignancy in a new box celebrating Guido Cantelli’s short career
Guido Cantelli appeared in the Philharmonia Orchestra’s recent 75th-birthday box, and all those recordings reappear in Guido Cantelli:
The Complete Warner Recordings (Warner Classics 9029538303; 10 CDS): a translucent and exacting Debussy, scarcely dimmed by the 1950s mono sound, a passionate and fiery Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet and a beautifully-shaped account of Brahms’s Third Symphony. But there’s more here to frame those Philharmonia recordings, including some of Cantelli’s first post-war recordings at home in Italy. Aged 29, he recorded Casella’s Paganiniana at La Scala, Milan in 1949, then Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome. The thrilling immediacy and vivacity of his conducting were to remain Cantelli characteristics, and caught the ear of Arturo Toscanini, who introduced the young man to his NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York. In 1954 in they made a recording of the Franck Symphony, issued in mono, but this is the rediscovered stereo master: despite some acidic wind sounds it’s an atmospheric performance, well-paced and balanced.
Back in London, Cantelli and the Philharmonia recorded a scintillating Thieving Magpie Overture, withheld but at last available here. Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony was recorded twice – in 1951 (unreleased) and ’55; both are here, but the later one is slightly preferable, sunnier and relaxed. Mono though, whereas just two days later they recorded Schubert’s Unfinished in stereo, more urgently propelled than some contemporaries and all the better for it. Cantelli’s Mozart is a mixed bag; the Musical Joke is a rather laboured one, but Symphony No. 29 in stereo in 1956 is all grace and elegance. Beethoven 7 is light on its feet, and projected with athletic drive. Beethoven’s Fifth is poignantly incomplete, the first movement missing after the sessions were disrupted by building noise. Cantelli promised to return, but fate intervened. He had just been named musical director at La Scala when he died in an air crash in Paris, still only 36.