From the archives

Guido Cantelli appeared in the Philharmonia Orchestra’s recent 75th-birthday box, and all those recordings reappear in (): a translucent and exacting Debussy, scarcely dimmed by the 1950s mono sound, a passionate and fieryand 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 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.