This album is included in the following sets:
This set contains the following albums:
- Producer's Note
- Full Track Listing
- Cover Art
Erica Morini was born in Vienna in 1904. Her father had trained as a violinist and ran a music school. Although she began ballet lessons at the age of four, her musical talents were quickly recognized, and she entered the Vienna Conservatory at seven as its youngest (and first female) student. She made her Viennese debut at the age of twelve, and by the following year played the Beethoven concerto under Nikisch, who proclaimed “This is not a Wunderkind, it is a wonder.”
In January, 1921, she made a sensational American debut in New York at the age of seventeen, with critics comparing her to Heifetz. She continued to appear in the USA, Britain and the continent with Vienna as her home until the Anschluss forced her, among many other prominent Jewish artists, to relocate to America. She continued to concertize regularly until the mid-1960s with one final recital in 1976, and died in New York in 1995. New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg called her “probably the greatest woman violinist who ever lived,” although Morini herself said “[a] violinist is a violinist, and I am to be judged as one – not as a female musician.”
Morini’s recording career began shortly after her New York debut with a series of acoustic discs for the Victor Talking Machine Company. As was their practice at the time with other violinists on their roster, such as Kreisler, Elman and Heifetz, Morini was asked to record short, encore-like works that would fit on a single side, even if this meant abridgement (as in the case of the Sarasate Carmen Fantasy). The high number of takes for some of the sides (thirteen for the Toselli Serenade alone) document her struggle for perfection.
Already, at the age of seventeen, the hallmarks of her playing can be discerned: her amazing technical facility, her generous portamento, and the smoky, viola-like tones she could produce when called upon. A handful of her fourteen acoustic sides have been reissued over the years, but this is the first time they have been collected together since they were recorded, a hundred years ago and more.
After a three-year hiatus from the recording studio, Morini made a series of discs for Polydor and Electrola in Germany and for HMV in Britain from 1927 through 1929. A dozen further years away from the microphone lay ahead before she rejoined Victor to record the six sides heard at the beginning of the second half of our program. Interestingly, she remade three of the titles she had first waxed for the label twenty years earlier – the two Wieniawski works and the Sarasate Faust Waltz – while adding a Vivaldi Sonata that would point toward the kind of repertoire she would explore in greater depth in her 1950s LP recordings for Westminster.
Nearly four more years would pass until her next group of Victor sessions. The Brahms Hungarian Dances were recorded in numerical order, but originally presented as they are here. They are characterful readings, played with immense panache. Three months later, her final recording for the label would also be her first concerto recording, the Tchaikovsky, with the Chicago Symphony under its Belgian-born music director, Désiré Defauw. The recording, well-made for its time, virtually leaps out of the speakers with virtuosic excitement. Morini presses Defauw to keep up with her speed in the first movement; and throughout, each minor detail seems to have been carefully considered, and beautifully rendered, by the soloist.
Morini was among the last of the “old school” of Viennese violinists like Kreisler; and even during her career, her popularity was eclipsed by the rising number of Russian-trained fiddlers such as Heifetz, Milstein, Oistrakh and others who were influenced by them (Stern, Perlman). She is remembered today by few other than collectors of old violin recordings. It is to be hoped that reissues such as this will help remedy the situation, by bringing her considerable achievements to the fore once again – still a wonder, a century onward.
Mark Obert-Thorn
ERICA MORINI The Complete Victor Recordings
disc one: Acoustic Recordings (1921 – 1924) (53:12)
1. SARASATE Romanza andaluza from Danzas españolas, Op. 22
(4:59)
Recorded 6 April 1921 · Matrix: C 25125-4 · First issued on Victor 74692
2. WIENIAWSKI Capriccio-Valse, Op. 7 (4:20)
Recorded 6 April 1921 · Matrix: C 25128-5 · First issued on Victor 74686
3. SARASATE Waltz from Fantasy on Gounod’s Faust,
Op. 13 (2:39)
Recorded 6 April 1921 · Matrix: B 25129-4 · First issued on Victor 64979
4. ZARZYCKI Mazurka in G major, Op. 26 (4:47)
Recorded 4 November 1921 · Matrix: C 25126-10 · First issued on Victor 74727
5. WIENIAWSKI Romance from Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.
22 (4:35)
Recorded 4 November 1921 · Matrix: C 25127-9 · First issued on Victor 74717
6. GODARD Canzonetta from Concerto romantique, Op.
35 (3:03)
Recorded 4 November 1921 · Matrix: B 25124-3· First
issued on Victor 66038
7. SCHUMANN At the fountain (2:46)
Recorded 3 April 1922 · Matrix: B 26193-1 · First issued on Victor 66074
8. SCHUBERT (arr. Franko) Valse sentimentale No. 10 from
D.783 (2:24)
Recorded 3 April 1922 · Matrix: B 26400-1 · First issued on Victor 66086
9. SVENDSEN Romance in G major, Op. 26 (4:29)
Recorded 4 January 1923 · Matrix: C 26194-6 · First issued on Victor 74797
10. TCHAIKOVSKY June (Barcarolle) from The Seasons, Op.
37a (3:43)
Recorded 4 January 1923 · Matrix: B 27372-1 · First issued on Victor 66186
11. TOSELLI Serenata ‘Rimpianto’, Op. 6, No. 1 (2:34)
Recorded 6 February 1923 · Matrix: B 26199-13 · First issued on Victor 66153
12. GUSTAV LANGE Blumenlied, Op. 39 (4:24)
Recorded 7 January 1924 · Matrix: C 27373-4 · First issued on Victor 6454
13. SARASATE Fantasy on Bizet’s Carmen, Op. 25
(3:46)
Recorded 7 January 1924 · Matrix: C 29253-3 · First issued on Victor 6445
14. TOBANI Hearts and Flowers, Op. 245 (4:37)
Recorded 27 March 1924 · Matrix: C 29254-10 · First issued on Victor 6454
Alice Morini, piano (Tracks 1 – 3, 9 – 10)
Emanuel Balaban, piano (Tracks 4 – 8)
Sàndor Vas, piano (Track
11)
Kurt Hetzel, piano (Track 12)
Orchestra/Unidentified Conductor (Track 13)
Nathaniel Shilkret, piano (Track 14)
Recorded in the Victor Studios, Camden, New Jersey (Tracks 1 – 13) and New
York (Track 14)
disc two: Electric Recordings (1941 & 1945) (70:09)
VIVALDI (arr. Respighi) Violin Sonata in D major, RV 10
1. 1st Mvt. – Moderato (2:12)
2. 2nd Mvt. – Allegro moderato (2:22)
3. 3rd Mvt. – Largo (1:29)
4. 4th Mvt. – Vivace (2:31)
Recorded 8 December 1941 ∙ Matrices: CS 068393/4 ∙ First issued on Victor
11-8671
5. WIENIAWSKI Romance from Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.
22 (4:23)
Recorded 8 December 1941 ∙ Matrix: CS 068392 ∙ First issued on Victor
11-8761
6. WIENIAWSKI Capriccio-Valse, Op. 7 (4:30)
Recorded 7 November 1941 ∙ Matrix: CS 068172 ∙ First issued on Victor
11-8761
7. RAVEL (arr. Catherine) Pièce
en forme de Habenera (2:26)
Recorded 7 November 1941 ∙ Matrix: BS 068169-3 ∙ First issued on Victor
10-1011
8. SARASATE Waltz from Fantasy on Gounod’s Faust,
Op. 13 (2:33)
Recorded 7 November 1941 ∙ Matrix: BS 068171-2 ∙ First issued on Victor
10-1011
9.
BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 17 in F-sharp minor
(2:51)
Recorded 28 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-651 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1213 in album M-1053
10.
BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 6 in B-flat major
(3:20)
Recorded 28 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-648 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1213 in album M-1053
11. BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor
(2:37)
Recorded 28 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-647 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1214 in album M-1053
12. BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 7 in A major
(2:10)
Recorded 25 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-649 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1214 in album M-1053
13. BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 8 in A minor
(2:42)
Recorded 28 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-650 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1215 in album M-1053
14. BRAHMS (arr. Joachim) Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor
(3:03)
Recorded 25 September 1945 ∙ Matrix: D5-RB-646 ∙ First issued on RCA Victor
10-1215 in album M-1053
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
15. 1st Mvt. – Allegro moderato (16:54)
16. 2nd Mvt. – Canzonetta: Andante (6:02)
17. 3rd Mvt. – Finale: Allegro vivacissimo (7:57)
Recorded 12 December 1945 ∙ Matrices: D5-RC-1646/53 ∙ First issued on RCA
Victor 11-9867/70 in album M-1168
Max Lanner, piano (Tracks 1 – 8)
Artur Balsam, piano (Tracks 9 – 14)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Désiré
Defauw conductor (Tracks 15 – 17)
Recorded in RCA Studio No. 1, New York (Tracks 1 – 14) and Orchestra Hall,
Chicago (Tracks 15 – 17)
Erica Morini, violin
Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn
Special thanks to Jim Cartwright of Immortal Performances, Inc. for
providing the acoustic recordings
Total duration: 2hr 3:22
