Now here, sure enough, is the Schipa magic. He begins with the tune that our music-halls, with a keen ear for a winner, appropriated for the refrain of Two lovely black eyes. Caruso sang it too, and with prodigious voice; but, set his forza against Schipa’s grazia and, well, there’s a time for everything, but I’d give Schipa six days of the week and reserve just a singer’s sonorous sabbath for Caruso. Schipa lightens so that even in the first phrase he wins a smile. Buzzi-Peccia is the next composer (or the first maybe, for Vieni sul mar is marked “tradit”), and his Mal d’amore is a thoroughly charming essay in Neapolitan melancholy. Guapparia by Falvo, another master of the genre, brings the gaiety: “Come all you shady characters and hear me serenade Margarita” is an invitation not to be declined. Other delights include Pesca d’amore by Richard Barthelemy, Caruso’s accompanist for some years, with its tenuous line of melody stretched as it were from branch to branch on a seemingly endless supply of breath. Mandulinata a Napule is the essence of all: again perfect, unmatchable.
“But isn’t this a Nimbus disc?” some will say. “You mean you like their transfers?” I certainly mean that I enjoyed this one. But yes (to the larger question): I do generally settle down with some confidence of pleasure. It’s a peculiar sound that comes through their horn gramophone; it matches (satisfies, expresses) my own peculiar love for these old records. It also does so much more than do those transfers which seek as a first principle to ‘relay information’ from the original to the maximum, and in so doing introduce a harshness far more unmusical and unjust to the singer than any loss of ultimate upper frequencies. I like, too, various incidentals such as the generous gap left between items and the easing-in of the record as when playing a 78rpm original: it reminds me that this is an old record, to be listened to accordingly and not the aural equivalent of mutton dressed as lamb. I’m also grateful for the synopses of these songs, none too easy to find nowadays, and if it’s in response to any pestering in these columns, the gratitude is doubled.'