Brahms from De Vito and Baldovino

Brahms is one of my favorites, but his music has appeared here much too infrequently. So I thought I would make amends by this quick post of an excellent performance of the composer's Double Concerto. The distinguished soloists are the violinist Gioconda de Vito (1907-94) and cellist Amadeo Baldovino (1916-98). Rudolf Schwarz (1905-94) conducts the wonderful Philharmonia Orchestra in this 1952 recording.

Gioconda de Vito

Of the soloists, de Vito is the better known, although to call her famous might be stretching things. She is, however, renowned among violin aficionados, and her records sell for hundreds of dollars - or did at one time. Born in Italy, she moved to Britain after the war, where she had a very successful career until her 1961 retirement. 

De Vito had a narrow repertoire concentrating on 19th century composers and earlier. Among more modern music, she apparently performed only the concerto by Ildebrando Pizzetti, which she premiered.

Amadeo Baldovino

Baldovino was a talented performer, known primarily for his work with the Italian String Trio and the Trio di Trieste. As a soloist, he recorded Bach, Boccherini and Haydn. Born in Egypt, Baldovino was resident in Italy for most of his life. He first gained notice for his playing following a 1951 performance of this same concerto, also with de Vito but with Malcolm Sargent conducting.

Rudolf Schwarz by Louis Kahan

On this occasion, the conductor is Rudolf Schwarz, who was born in Austria. He emigrated to the UK after the war, after being held prisoner in a concentration camp. In Britain, he was successively conductor of the Bournemouth Municipal Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the BBC Symphony and the Northern Sinfonia.

HMV recorded the concerto in perhaps the greatest recording locale of all time, London's Kingsway Hall, known for its glorious resonance. There is a little too much of that glory in the sound here, but not enough to detract from a enjoyable performance by all involved (although the central Andante becomes quite a leisurely stroll in their hands).

This recording comes from a lossless needle drop found on Internet Archive and cleaned up by me. The original was on UK HMV, but this transfer is from a US RCA Victor pressing, issued during the short time when Victor was the HMV licensee in the States.