Gioconda de Vito

[Barbirollians]

Not an artist really known to me except as allegedly being partly blamed by Ida Haendel for EMI not making more records with her after the early 1950s as de Vito was married to David Bicknell and became EMI's preferred female violinist .

In my search for more Edwin Fischer recordings I came across a cheap second hand copy of the Testament reissue of her recordings of the Brahms sonatas with Fischer in 1 and 3 and Tito Aprea in 2.

They are exceptionally fine IMO . Apart from some radio recordings the rest of her output appears never to have been reissued except in a short lived box .

anyone know other recordings or even heard her - she retired in 1961 apparently as she felt she would only go downhill after that .

[pastoralguy]

There was an 11 disc set compiling her work issued a couple of years ago. However, it seemed to have had a limited print run since its not available on Amazon and an unopened set just sold on eBay for £155!

IMHO, she was a very fine player although, inevitably, I don't think she possessed the fire that the great Ida did. Very 'smooth', tidy playing, I feel.

Yes, I think Ida Haendel was very unlucky there with EMI. However, she was contracted to Decca during the 40's and made a few recordings with them. I suspect that the war caused her career to stall somewhat. (As it did for so many others!) and she wasn't nearly as well established as Menuhin, also an EMI artist, was.

I suppose it proves that one can be incredibly talented but luck also plays its part.