Word: ricordi
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...Casa Ricordi in Milan is the world's most fabled storehouse of Italian opera. In 17 zinc cases sunk 45 ft. below the ground, the firm has stored away original operatic manuscripts by most of the great Italian composers, including Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and Puccini. One discordant note in this musical melange: the firm is under heavy criticism for permitting errors by the thousands to creep into its printed scores-and for refusing to let outsiders compare them with the originals. Last week the criticism grew so loud and bitter that the Italian Senate considered new copyright rules that...
...dispute was touched off by Australian-born Conductor Denis Vaughan. While studying Italian opera in Italy, Vaughan, 34, was struck by the variations between different printed editions of Puccini's operas. He visited Ricordi, turned his attention to Verdi and began comparing printed scores with manuscripts. Eventually, Ricordi officials confiscated Vaughan's notes and banned him from the archives, but not before he had made some surprising discoveries: there are 27,000 errors in printed versions of Falstaff, 8,000 in the Requiem, 18,000 in Tosca. Examples, from Falstaff...
Giovanni's son Tito took over the firm, but the dynasty's organizational genius was Grandson Giulio, an ironic, meticulously dressed man, who dabbled in poetry and chamber music, negotiated so shrewdly that Casa Ricordi realized as much as 65% from the earnings of its composers' work. With a near-monopolistic control over Italian opera, Giulio attended rehearsals at La Scala, recommended the hiring or firing of singers, publicly castigated conductors. A pet hate for a time: Toscanini, whose style he once likened to a "mastodonic mechanical piano." Above all, Giulio commissioned Arrigo...
...Dogs. The last of the Ricordis to head the firm was Tito II, who expanded Casa Ricordi into the sprawling complex that now has branch offices in a dozen countries, and a chain of Italian retail stores. But Tito was unpopular and dictatorial, resigned in 1919. The business passed to Accountant Renzo Valcarenghi and Composer-Stage Designer Carlo Clausetti, whose sons now run the firm. Today Casa Ricordi is doing brisker business than ever, despite World War II bomb damage. The firm remains stiffly self-conscious about its artistic obligations, maintains a string of opera scouts throughout Italy. Says...
...Ricordi's European copyrights on the works of Verdi will expire, to be followed before too long by the works of Puccini.*The firm may then become largely a record company (present U.S. distributors: RCA Victor, Mercury and Westminster). Artists-and-repertory chief of its burgeoning record division: Carlo Emanuele ("Nanni") Ricordi, 26, great-great-great grandson of Giovanni...