An extremely pleasant discovery! Recently, I happened to come across a couple of old Westminster issues conducted by Argeo Quadri, a name that honestly meant nothing to me. This will be the first of two transfers and based on the musical evidence here, I am at a loss on why I do not know Quadri.
Argeo Quadri was for most of his career an opera "house" conductor and his career was Europe centered and based out of Vienna. For whatever reason, his discography is small but certainly vital, consisting of a handful of orchestral issues, full length operas and "recital" accompaniment albums. This recording in question, Rimsky Korsakov's masterpiece Scheherazade, is truly outstanding, brilliantly interpreted and played with a vitality that I find lacking in many recordings of this overplayed warhorse. In Quadri's hands, the work comes alive and the you can sense that the Viennese musicians are playing on the edge of their seats. This is one time where the overworked and often under rehearsed Vienna State Opera Orchestra sound positively razor sharp and whip smart. Quadri's sense of story telling and structure is second to none and his Viennese musicians play with a wonderfully idiomatic flair!
I want to stress that this was a great surprise for me. An Austrian orchestra under an Italian opera conductor playing the socks off of a piece that has had gazillion recordings by some of the greatest maestros of the last 75-80 years. I will be offering Quadri's magnificent traversals of the Pines and Fountains of Rome as my next post.
This recording was released in 1953. By the way, I want to point out the wonderful cover art by Otto Rado. Really exquisite isn't it? Enjoy!
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