Record collecting: hobby or obsession?(Column)

Recently I presented a remembrance of the great soprano Frida Leider on my nationally syndicated radio program, The Vocal Scene. The concluding paragraph contained this statement: "Except for collectors, she is now unknown to the American public." Thinking back on the thirty-four years of my program, I must have repeated or paraphrased that statement many times.

Who are those wise and knowledgeable vocal music "collectors," and what makes a music-lover into a collector? As a collector for more than sixty years, I can illustrate the experience by my own example.

As a violin student since my preschool years, I became infected by the opera virus, with far-reaching consequences. The Hungarian Royal Opera House was a short walk from where we lived, and I and an inseparable schoolmate and occasional chamber-music partner became addicted. We both became subscribers (thanks to our supportive parents) and rabid fans. I recall attending 150 performances per season during the 1937-39 period. The opera house had a long season and, luckily for me, a large repertoire. The Italian broadcasts from Radio Rome or Milan provided another powerful stimulus, and I began my record collection with a single-faced acoustic disc of Caruso's "Di quella pira," acquired at an antique shop for what seems like twenty-five cents in present currency.

I enjoyed a generous allowance from my parents, and my collection grew rapidly. I discovered a shop specializing in vocal recordings new and old. (In those days, it was still possible to locate mint copies of acoustic HMV discs.) As my operatic knowledge broadened, I began buying arias and ensembles from the operas I liked, and I soon discovered fascinating singers, many of them superior to the by-no-means-inferior home talent. My attraction to Caruso's art never lessened; his voice introduced me to the music of Halevy's La Juive, Meyerbeer's L'Africana, and The Queen of Sheba, by both Gounod and Goldmark. The tremendous voice of Titta Ruffo left an impression on me that lasted for a lifetime. Gigli came to Budapest as a guest artist; so did Gina Cigna, Aureliano Pertile, Francesco Merli, Helge Roswaenge and many others. For reasons I cannot recall, I missed Jussi Bjoerling's Hungarian debut, but I bought up many of his recordings, including the astounding "Au mont Ida" from La Belle Helene. Other early acquisitions included Tancredi Pasero's "Dormiro sol" from Verdi's Don Carlo, my favorite opera then (and now, more than sixty years later). I discovered Elisabeth Rethberg in HMV's "Nile Scene" series, with Giacomo Lauri-Volpi and Giuseppe de Luca, a standard by which I came to judge all subsequent versions.

Those were dangerous years, and it was hard to concentrate on opera in the period between 1937 and 1939. For me, ...