Erica Morini (violin)
The Complete Victor Recordings
rec. 1921-45
Pristine Audio PASC714 [2 CDs: 123]

In 2023 DG released a 13-CD box devoted to Erica Morini (1904-95) which contained recordings made for the yellow label, Westminster and US Decca in the 1950s and 60s. Now Pristine Audio releases a two-disc set which takes her discography much further back – to her very first acoustic sessions, in fact, from 1921-24 – and adds her 1941-45 Victor recordings of which the major work is the Tchaikovsky Concerto, made in Chicago with Désiré Defauw. This second disc revisits transfers that Mark Obert-Thorn made for Biddulph nearly a quarter of a century ago (80168); see review.

You can pursue some biographical details there as well as some references to the Music & Arts and Arbiter releases devoted to her art which preserved much important broadcast material. Relevant to this latest release is the fact that she recorded the Tchaikovsky twice, first with Defauw and later with Rodzinski, with a live example with Horenstein surviving from a Parisian broadcast in 1957. Otherwise since these are essentially the same transfers, I’ll repeat what I wrote then.

“This Defauw led recording, made with his Chicago orchestra in December 1945, is the fleetest and most technically adroit of the surviving traversals. It helps that her conductor was himself a violinist and a most sympathetic collaborator. Even judged against her contemporaries in this repertoire, the molten if slow Elman, the intense razor-sharp Heifetz, the patrician elegance of Francescatti, the muscularity of Stern, the expressive depth of Oistrakh, she still managed to carve out her own niche. Though she had a small tone with a limited vibrato – her training with Ševčik was quite distinct from that of, say, her Russian contemporaries – she was still able to compete in the romantic masterpieces. Others before her who lacked opulent tonal resources, Zimbalist say, managed to compete in the competitive American market, albeit at a lower level. The clarity of her bowing in the opening movement is without question and her technique is strong and resilient. She’s stylish with some occasionally business-like passagework; tonally speaking her lower two strings don’t sound quite as much as the upper two but I liked her easeful slides in the Andante at a good forward tempo. The portamenti are endemic in this movement but are executed with such sophisticated taste as to be natural constituents of her armoury of expressive nuance. Her finale is energized but not motoric – much faster than Horenstein, significantly more incisive than Rodzinski.

We also have a mixed programme of Victors recorded between 1941-45. Her Vivaldi in the Respighi arrangement is very cleanly articulated with delicious diminuendi and crescendi. Her vibrato in the little Largo is quite fast and the finale is lightly and discriminatingly projected, not at all masculine. She was always fond of Wieniawski – Arbiter has issued a complete Second Concerto – and the Capriccio-Valse is a delicious example of her affinities. Her Ravel isn’t sensuous in the Thibaud mould and nor is her Brahms cut from Toscha Seidel’s cloth. The Hungarian Dances are more Viennese than Magyar, puckish, rather small-scale but elegant and full of teasing rubato.”

The first disc, however, presents her Victor acoustics in full for the first time. She made electric discs from 1927 to 1929 for other labels so her Electrolas, Polydors and HMVs aren’t here. She was hardly the first 17-year-old to make discs but these April 1921 sides, which followed so soon after her sensational American debut at the Metropolitan in January that year with Artur Bodanzky, are nevertheless remarkable indices of her dexterity and skill. 

Her Sarasate Romanza andaluza was her very first issued recording and is full of those features that distinguish her playing – piquantly employed portamenti, restrained use of vibrato, and a crystalline trill. Victor was to re-record some of the acoustics in the 40s when she returned to the label, as was the case with Wieniawski’s Capriccio-Valse (and you can find it and the others on CD2). One of the good things about these acoustics is the excellently balanced – and very audible – piano of Morini’s sister, Alice, who accompanies on five of the sides. Morini was also accompanied by good players on other sides, though probably only Emanuel Balaban and Nathaniel Shilkret will be remembered today. Zarzycki’s Mazurka came from a November 1921 session and received at least ten takes – No.10 was the issued one – which shows the care taken by both artists and record companies to get things right, a consideration shared by even greater artists like Kreisler. Victor’s largesse, and their concern for precision and optimum presentation of their artists’ recordings, contrasts starkly with the ‘two takes only’ approach of other contemporary companies.

Morini often played Wieniawski’s Second Concerto and there are two recordings of the central Romance here, the first from 1921 and the other from 1941. She plays it with deft refinement – nicely scaled and very sympathetically done and she was hardly one to espouse the Russian Sound in a work such as this. The acoustic sessions preserve little character pieces in the main, along with a couple of concerto slow movements – in addition to the Wieniawski, there’s the Godard Canzonetta from his Concerto romantique – and all reveal the essential facets of her appealing art, which are deftness, stylishness and refinement. Her Svendsen may sound small-scaled to ears saturated with a century’s worth of bulky tonalists but it’s lovely on its own terms.  

All the transfers are by Mark Obert-Thorn and are first rate. He has, for example, tidied up the tough-sounding side-join at the start of the Tchaikovsky which was rather noticeable on his Biddulph transfer. He’s also written a single-page note.

Morini remained a charmer to the end of her career. Her spiccato was famous, as we know, but her art was more than her spiccato. It was virtuosity, elegance and charm personified.

Jonathan Woolf

Availability: Pristine Classical

Contents
CD 1
Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)
Romanza Andaluza from Danzas españolas, Op.22 (1879)
Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)
Capriccio-Valse in E, Op.7 (1852)
Pablo de Sarasate
Faust Fantasia, on themes from the opera by Gounod; Waltz (1874)
Aleksander Zarzycki (1834-1895)
Mazurka in G major, Op.26 (pub 1884)
Henryk Wieniawski
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.22; Romance (1862)
Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)
Concerto No.1 in A, Concerto Romantique, Op.35: Romance (1887)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Duets; No.9 At the Fountain, Op.85 (1849)
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
German Dances No.3 in B flat Valse sentimentale, D.783 (1824) arr Franko
Johan Svendsen (1840-1911)
Romance in G major, Op.26 (1886)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
The Seasons; June (Barcarolle) in G, Op.37b (1875-76)
Enrico Toselli (1883-1926)
Serenata ‘Rimpianto’, Op.6 No.1
Gustav Lange (1830-1889)
Blumenlied, Op.39
Pablo de Sarasate
Carmen Fantasy, on themes from the opera by Bizet, Op25 (1883)
Theodore Tobani (1855-1933)
Hearts and Flowers, Op.245 (1899)
rec. 1921-24, Victor Studios, Camden, New Jersey and NYC
Alice Morini, Emanuel Balaban, Sàndor Vas, Kurt Hetzel, Nathaniel Shilkret (pianos); Orchestra with unidentified conductor

CD 2
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Violin Sonata in D, RV10, F.X111 No.6 PS5 No.10 arr. Respighi
Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)
Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.22; Romance (1862)
Capriccio-Valse in E, Op. 7 (1852)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Pièce en forme de Habañera (1907) arr Catherine
Pablo de Sarasate
Faust Fantasia, on themes from the opera by Gounod; Waltz (1874)
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Hungarian Dances (1852/1869) arr. Joseph Joachim
No. 17 in F sharp minor: No. 6 in B flat: No. 5 in G minor: No. 7 in A: No. 8 in A minor:No. 1 in G minor
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto in D Op. 35 (1878)
rec. 1941-45, RCA Studio No.1 and Orchestra Hall, Chicago (Tchaikovsky)
Max Lanner and Artur Balsam (pianos)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Désiré Defauw