Italian conductor Guido Cantelli stirred quite a bit of excitement in the years after World War II, and his career was just reaching its highest level when he was killed in a 1956 plane crash. He was one of a long line of Italians who began their musical lives as small-town church organists. As Italy fell apart in the last days of World War II he spent time in a German labor camp and was taken hostage by Italian Fascists. Arturo Toscanini heard Cantelli conduct after the war and was uncharacteristically effusive in his ...
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Italian conductor Guido Cantelli stirred quite a bit of excitement in the years after World War II, and his career was just reaching its highest level when he was killed in a 1956 plane crash. He was one of a long line of Italians who began their musical lives as small-town church organists. As Italy fell apart in the last days of World War II he spent time in a German labor camp and was taken hostage by Italian Fascists. Arturo Toscanini heard Cantelli conduct after the war and was uncharacteristically effusive in his praises, remarking (according to Robert Matthew-Walker's highly readable booklet notes) to a companion, "That is me directing this concert." In New York, Cantelli emerged as something of an heir apparent to Toscanini, often conducting the New York Philharmonic (then cumbersomely named the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York) and Toscanini's NBC Symphony. The recordings on this historical release, made in 1951 and 1953, are taken from radio broadcasts of this period. Sound was...
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