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The Mapleson Cylinders - Program Notes |
| Libretti |
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| SUPPLEMENT |
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| Band 7 |
Ponchielli: LA GIOCONDA -- Dance of the Hours excerpt
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra -- Phillippe Flon
March 2, 1902
[The Glackens-Bishop inventory lists two cylinders apparently from the "Dance of the Hours." No. 76, dated "March 2?, 19?," is described as "cracked"; No. 92 is "Gioconda galop -- March 2, 1902." This is presumably the second of two (though it does not include the final section of the piece, to which the term "galop" might be properly applied). Gioconda was not in the Met repertory during these years, and the piece was played only on the Sunday-evening concert of that date -- at which Mapleson may have also recorded some songs sung by Campanari and possibly the Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre (see Side 4/Band 14).]
The excerpt begins near the end of "the hours of day" (about eight measures before letter E in the Ricordi score), and continues through "evening" into "night." Two bars after letter G, Mapleson appears to have stopped his machine; at any rate, the transitional passage, with harp arpeggios, is missing; more curiously, when he resumes at "Andante poco mosso," the first eight measures of cello melody are repeated -- at which point the recording breaks off.
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