[78-L] Mascagni.

[Spats]

Hi!

If that's the tempo that the composer himself wanted, then that's the 
correct tempo, it seems to me.
Forget the critics! ;-)

I think that Toscanini changed the fashion for tempi, he along with 
the maximum length of 78rpm recordings. Tempi became faster, to get 
everything on one side of the record.

I remember the interest in Mancinelli's slow tempo in Ernani (I think 
it was Ernani, anyhow) as discovered on one of those live cylinders 
from the Met. recorded by Mapleson around 1902. Mancinelli was one of 
the finest conductors of his day and certainly employed slower tempi 
than Toscanini!

Tempi were slower in the 19th century, which is when Cavalleria 
Rusticana was composed!

Earl.

At 12:00 pm -0800 07/12/2008, 78-l-request at klickitat.78online.com wrote:
>There's a "Cavalleria Rusticana" conducted by Mascagni himself which has been
>panned by almost every critic as being  conducted at a ridiculously slow
>tempo.
>One never knows eh?
>
>Al S.