Guiomar Novaes’ large discography for the Vox label in the 1950s tends to overshadow her earlier recordings on 78s. Roger Beardsley rectifies the situation in this excellently curated, wide-ranging selection from the pianist’s shellac RCA Victor and Columbia output. The Victor sides capture Novaes at her colorful, uninhibited best. Her sparkling fingerwork and perfectly judged rubatos deliciously enliven Liszt’s Gnomenreignen, Isador Philipp’s fluffy Feux-Follets, Moskowski’s delectable Guittarre, Macdowell’s Witches’ Dance, and Alexander Levy’s little-known Brazilian Tango. Gottschalk’s Grande Fantasie Triomphale, based on the Brazilian national anthem, is a huge piece of pianistic claptrap that Novaes played better than anyone else. Her first and finest recording sizzles with a sense of abandon and danger you don’t immediately associate with the intimacy and tonal refinement of her Columbia Bach D major Toccata BWV 912 (labeled “Fantasia and Fugue” here) or Chopin Third Ballade.
Although her brisk, pianistically-oriented Mozart A minor Rondo is a shade flippant and trivial compared to the harmonic tension and dramatic urgency Schnabel uncovered in his unforgettable version on 78s, you can’t fault her loving, idiomatic renditions of a selection from Villa-Lobos’ folk song miniatures, Octavio Pinto’s Memories of Childhood, Mompou’s Jeunes filles au jardin, or Guarnieri’s Toccata. Collectors familiar with Novaes’ Vox recording of the Saint-Saëns Caprice on the Air de Ballet from Gluck’s Alceste may prefer this earlier Columbia version, where the pianist’s long chains of trills are more evenly contoured. Roger Beardsley’s transfers seem to administer large doses of noise reduction without compromising the pianist’s basic sonority. But I hear more presence and clarity of note attacks in Music and Arts’ noisier transfers of the complete Novaes Victor sessions. Make sure you own the latter before you investigate the Pearl disc.
