GIOCONDA DE VITO Brahms Violin Concerto D 1950s UK1stP HMV LP VG+ ALP 1104 RARE

£ 94

$ 125

£ 94 Sold For

Apr 14, 2012 Sold Date

Apr 4, 2012 Start Date

9 Number Of Bids

Great Britain Country Of Seller

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Description

ARTIST: GIOCONDA DE VITO

TITLE: BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.77

With the PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA, conducted by RUDOLF SCHWARZ

LABEL + YEAR: HMV ALP 1104, red & gold label, (see photo), both labels are Near Mint; 1950s UK 1st Press Mono; very thick & heavy vinyl

CONDITION VINYL: VG+ due to a small fleck of brown ‘material’ which must have been pressed in the vinyl: (this almost looks like a small fleck of tobacco & is approximately one third of the way through Side 1), this creates seven very low-level background clicks. The rest of the album is in fantastic condition for its age and were it not for this small blemish the album would be graded a strong Excellent

Matrix details are:

Side 1: 2XEA 327-2N

Stampers: R 1

Side 2: 2XEA 328-4N

Stampers: G 1

CONDITION SLEEVE: VG+ due to a very small amount of flip-back missing from the top edge on the rear of the sleeve; plus a small amount of laminate is missing from the lower rear opening edge of sleeve.

Also, you will notice a line runs from the code on the rear of the sleeve at top left across to the code on the right: this is a crease under the laminate and has been caused by a laminate pressing fault at the time of production, (this transfers through to the left front top area, see photo)

The seams and spine are free from splits, no writing etc.

With Original paper, greaseproof-type, Inner sleeve

DESCRIPTION:

Side 1:

First Movement – Allegro non troppo – Cadenza (by Joachim) – Tempo 1

Side 2:

Second Movement – Adagio

Third Movement – Allegro glacoso, ma non troppo vivace – Poco più presto

Recorded at Kingsway Hall, London in 1953

This is a really difficult LP to find!

Gioconda de Vito

Gioconda de Vito was born in the south Italian hill town of Martina Franca. She was picking out tunes on the mandolin before she was four, but soon switched to the violin. At 17 she won a violin professorship at the Bari conservatory.

Her family objected to an international career, and De Vito did not seem to mind staying at home. She did go to Paris in the early '30s, and played Bach for an enthusiastic Arturo Toscanini. "That's the way Bach should be played," said the Maestro. But De Vito had no great interest in becoming a touring soloist. What pleased her most was the unique honor of being named, in 1944, a lifetime professor at Rome's St. Cecilia Academy, one of the oldest musical institutions in the world. The Italian government also sent one of its prize possessions, the "Tuscan" Stradivarius, which it bought this year for about $50,000 and lent to Violinist de Vito for life.

In 1946 De Vito travelled to England, where she met David Bicknell, an executive of the H.M.V. record company. He promptly persuaded her to make some recordings and to appear with several British and European orchestras, and her true international career began. In 1949 she married David Bicknell, and so spent much time in the UK. A perfectionist, she worked on the Brahms concerto for eleven years before she decided it was ready for the public.

Gioconda de Vito (26 July 1907 – 14 October 1994) was an Italian-British classical violinist. (The dates 22 June 1907 and 24 October 1994 also appear in some sources

Life

She was born, one of five children, in the town of Martina Franca near Lecce in southern Italy, to a wine-making family. Initially she played the violin untaught, having received only music theory lessons from the local bandmaster. Her uncle, a professional violinist based in Germany, heard her attempting a concerto by Charles Auguste de Bériot when she was aged only eight, and decided to teach her himself. At age 11, she entered the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro to study with Remy Principe. She graduated at age 13, commenced a career as a soloist, and at age 17 became Professor of Violin at the newly founded conservatory in Bari. In 1932, aged 25, she won the first International Violin Competition in Vienna. After she played the Bach Chaconne in D minor, Jan Kubelík came up to the stage and kissed her hand (she later appeared under the baton of Kubelik’s son Rafael Kubelík).

She then taught at Palermo and Rome, at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. She had earlier been presented to Benito Mussolini, who greatly admired her playing, and he used his influence to get her the Rome post. World War II interrupted what would otherwise have been the most productive period of her burgeoning career. In 1944 she was given the unique honour of a lifetime professorship at the Academy.

In 1944 she premiered the Violin Concerto of Ildebrando Pizzetti. She made the first of her relatively few recordings after the war. In 1948 she made her London debut under Victor de Sabata, playing the Brahms concerto. This was very successful, and led to performances at the Edinburgh Festival and with fellow artists such as Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. By 1953, she was considered Europe's No. 1 woman violinist, while remaining virtually unknown in the United States.

She played under Wilhelm Furtwängler a number of times, and had a great affinity for his approach. In 1957 they also played a Brahms sonata at Castel Gandolfo for Pope Pius XII, the choice of Brahms being the Pope's own request. The following year she played the Mendelssohn concerto for the pontiff. A member of the audience later sent her a letter saying that he was no longer an atheist, because her playing of the slow movement had made him realise there was a God.

During that concert, she realised she had reached the pinnacle of her career, and decided to retire in only another three years. She told the pope of her decision. Pius XII tried for an hour to dissuade her, saying she was far too young to retire so early, but to no avail. But she still had three years. During that time, Gioconda de Vito collaborated with Edwin Fischer, who was near the end of his career. During their recording sessions for the Brahms sonatas Nos. 1 and 3, he had to go to London for medical attention; and he died soon after.

She retired in 1961, aged only 54, not just from concert appearances, but from playing the violin at all. She preferred not even to teach. On one occasion, on holiday in Greece, she encountered Yehudi Menuhin on a beach, and she agreed to play some duets with him at his villa. When they got back there, he realised he did not have a spare violin, so that sole opportunity to play once more came to nothing.

She never played in the United States, although Arturo Toscanini and Charles Munch repeatedly asked her to. (She had played Bach for Toscanini in Paris in the 1930s, and he commented: "That's the way Bach should be played". However, she did appear in Australia (1957 & 1960), Argentina, India, Israel and Europe; and in the Soviet Union, where she was juror for the first Tchaikovsky Violin Competition, at the invitation of David Oistrakh.

Her repertoire was small. It excluded most works written after the 19th century (for example, the Elgar, Sibelius, Bartók, Berg, Bloch and Walton concertos) – the sole exception seems to be the Pizzetti concerto. Her particular favourites were "the three Bs" - Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Her major recordings were issued in 1990 as "The Art of Gioconda de Vito". They include a Bach Double Violin Concerto with Yehudi Menuhin, conducted by Anthony Bernard.

Private life

In 1949, she married a Briton, David Bicknell, an executive with EMI, and she lived in the UK from 1951, although her English was always rudimentary and she often needed a translator. Bicknell died in 1988, and Gioconda de Vito died in 1994, aged 87.

POSTAGE RATES

1st class

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Air mail

REST OF WORLD

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1 LP or Picture / Shape Disc

2.75

4.00

7.50

2 LPs (or double LP)

3.80