Vittorio Gui Conducts Haydn and Mozart

Just about 10 years ago I offered my transfer of this recording, with the Italian conductor Vittorio Gui (1885-1975) leading 1953 performances of Haydn and Mozart symphonies. Recently I pulled out that transfer, but was none too happy with what I had wrought back then. So I found the record and had another go at it. Today's post is the result.

Gui is remembered primarily as an opera conductor because many if not most of his commercial recordings were of opera. Even on this LP, he is leading an opera ensemble, the Glyndeborne Festival Orchestra. Then again, the Glyndeborne band was just another name for the Royal Philharmonic. It appeared under the Glyndeborne banner because Gui was the music director at that festival, where he held sway from 1951-63. He also founded the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1933.

These are fine performances, especially of the Haydn "Il Distratto" symphony. The young Andrew Porter, writing in The Gramophone, was particularly taken with the Haydn, less so by the Mozart Symphony No. 38, which he downgraded for some untidy ensemble and a sluggish first movement. His review is in the download, along with the HMV ad for the LP (see below). Both symphonies are well recorded, with the Haydn being particularly sonorous. My transfer is from a U.S. pressing issued by RCA Victor.

I have a few other Gui recordings that I will be presenting later on - another Mozart-Haydn pairing made during the same 1953 sessions, and a Wagner set from Florence, also recorded that year.

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HMV's offerings for March 1954 - click to enlarge