FFMC - Fonoteca della Facoltà di Musicologia di Cremona

02/06/2021

In the website of the Department of Musicology there is a first attempt to collect and publish info about the Italian piano roll company F.I.R.S.T. (Fabbrica Italiana Rulli Sonori Traforati), along with info about the local piano roll collection (about 6000 items to date): see http://mbc.unipv.it/pagina-iniziale-first.
Very recently, under "Storia della F.I.R.S.T." (http://mbc.unipv.it/storia-della-f-i-r-s-t), the guestbook of the company has been published, with pictures, transcription, and English translation of each item. The guestbook collects the impressions of visitors, buyers and musicians who had contact with the company’s operative office in Cremona or with the administrative office in Milan.
Their testimonies are expressed in form of letters or cards received by the company or even in form of subscriptions entered directly into the volume. They attest to their appreciation of the rolls, both in terms of the choice of repertoire and the quality of the musical arrangements made by the director of F.I.R.S.T., Michele D’Alessandro.
Particularly relevant are the statements of the composers (among which also Puccini, Respighi, Cilea, Zandonai and many others) concerning their interest in having their music included in the company catalogue and the attestation of the fidelity of the rolls in the sound rendering of the original music.

Storia della FIRST (Fabbrica Italiana Rulli Sonori Traforati)

15/04/2019

Although very slowly, and interrupted by many other work tasks, we continued to catalog the shellac 78 rpm records, mainly from the Latanza collection, but also from other smaller groups of records from other donors.
Here you will find our partial catalog, which deals with the records of the Italian company Cetra: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13hbNwI57vfmytNKeqCeqgVr-1PrlYoFh/view?usp=sharing
Special thanks to two students, who helped us: Matteo Carbone and Francesco Samperi

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29/12/2018

In the past months we received, among others, a huge collection [something less than 3000 items] of 78 rpm shellac discs from Antonio Latanza, music collector and scholar, past director of the National Museum of Music Instruments in Rome.
We are now organizing the disc collection, grouping the discs by companies and labels, and then cataloguing them.
The most recent (partial) catalog, concerns the discs issued by the Italian company Fonit: have a look at

09/12/2018

You probably don't know that in our collection of audioresources there are also some 30 perforated cardboards for Racca's Piano Melodico.
Unfortunately our instrument is in bad condition and isn't working, and therefore we can't listen to our cardboards.
Luckily, the friends of the AMMI-Lab (the technical laboratory of the Associazione Musica Meccanica Italiana) have designed and built a (second) prototype of scanner for cardboards, as well as the necessary software to convert the scanned image in an actual sound file.
How does it work? Watch the video to find out:

www.ammilab.it: musical cardboard scanner 2.0. Assembling and testing it, stop-motion (passo uno). Piano Melodico Racca cardboard 73 keys with Colorito Autom...

02/12/2018

Between 4th and 8th October 2016 Cremona hosted the 43rd International Viola Congress.
The Department celebrated the event releasing the 8th - by now the last - 2-CD-set, entirely devoted to the repertory for viola. The CDs contains old recordings from 1950 to 1962 with compositions by Ariosti, Vivaldi, Händel, Telemann, Tomasini (actually: Casadesus), Rolla, Mozart, and Berlioz. Among the performers: Emil Seiler, Johan van Helden, Emanule Vardi, Heinz Kirchner, Marius Casadesus, Paul Doktor, Bruno Giuranna, and Dino Asciolla.

To listen to the beginning of the tracks and to read (and free download the booklet) please check out following link: http://musicologia.unipv.it/dipartimento/Stauffer/stauffer-008.html

For further info, please write to [email protected]

21/11/2018

The next CD-set we produced (the 7th) - still with the crucial financial help of the Stauffer Foundation - is again entirely devoted to Ukrainian-born pianist Alexander Brailowsky. Most of the tracks (spanning from Chopin to Ljadov, from Bach to Skrjabin, from Schumann to Franck and some more) have never been issued on CD form before.
We had the privilege to send a copy of the CDs to the late Prof. Alexander Karczmar, American neuroscientist and brother-in-law of Brailowsky, who appreciated to listen again to the performance of his relative.

To listen to the tracks, download the booklet or get more infos, please check out following link: http://musicologia.unipv.it/dipartimento/Stauffer/stauffer-007.html

13/11/2018

Coming back after only 6 years since last post, we are glad to introduce some further CDs produced with the financial support of Stauffer Foundation.
#5 and #6 of the series are two 2-CD-sets, with the complete recordings done by the Ensemble "I Musici" from Rome for Columbia in the years 1953-1954.
If you want to see more details, read and free download the booklets, and listen to the single tracks, please check out the following links:

http://musicologia.unipv.it/dipartimento/Stauffer/stauffer-005.html
http://musicologia.unipv.it/dipartimento/Stauffer/stauffer-006.html

Enjoy!

17/12/2012

E' uscito in questi giorni il quarto cofanetto realizzato con la consueta perizia da Paolo Zeccara e grazie al finanziamento della Fondazione Stauffer a partire dai vinili della FOnoteca. Si tratta di un doppio CD con gruppi quartettistici italiani che eseguono quartetti (originali o trascrizioni) di compositori italiani, da Giovanni Gabrieli ad Antonio Bazzini.

03/02/2012

E' comunque già disponibile l'intero catalogo visuale [http://musicologia.unipv.it/Gilli/pdf/catalogo_visuale_vinili_Gilli.pdf] così come l'elenco di tutti i dischi di quel fondo che sono stati digitalizzati [http://musicologia.unipv.it/Gilli/pdf/cover_Gilli_dischi.pdf]

03/02/2012

Ho il piacere di comunicare che i vinili a 33 giri del fondo Gilli [http://musicologia.unipv.it/Gilli/] sono in fase avanzata di catalogazione nell'Opac di facoltà.

Sito ufficiale della Facoltà di Musicologia, sede distaccata a Cremona dell'Università degli Studi di Pavia

04/06/2011

Finalmente è iniziata la catalogazione dei dischi del fondo Gilli !!!