Les cylindres Edison moulés sur or
This is a major issue by Malibran. Those Edison recordings last up to 2 minutes and a half maximum. Due to that limitation, many pieces had to be shortened either by suppressing the introduction, the instrumental part at the end or more curiously by cutting off the coda of the arias. For example, the tenor Gluck stops before the end of Celeste Aida or La fleur que tu m'avais jetée. The recordings of those cylinders were made using the state of the art machine (Archéophone) created by Henri Chamoux. The cylinders themselves are in fine condition. This first volume contains the voices of: Jaume (many unknown recordings), Noté, Gluck (also many unknown recordings), Vallier, Baër, Albers, Mathieu, Fournets, Stamler, Muratore and his wife, Demédy, Merguillier, Dinh Gilly, Deschamps-Jéhin, Decléry, Cerdan, Gilibert, Weber, Sylva, Dathané, Sardet, Boyer de Lafory, Bartel, Revel, and Cornubert; 72 recordings in all. It also has a picture of Gluck, not seen before. The result of the reproduction is amazing in terms of the presence of the voices. Mary Garden recorded three cylinders for Edison, hopefully they will be part of the next set. Highly recommended. The cylinders came from the collections of Daniel Marty (the Swiss baritone who also provided the documentation and iconography) and Jean Nirouët. The restoration was done by Carlo Ciabrini and Jean Nirouët. |
