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Gentle melomaniacs fellows,

I have to give a public hearing of Titta Ruffo's favourite classic Visione Veneziana, recorded on Victor DA 350, and I would like to do it at its best.

Unfortunately I don't have sufficient knowledge to understand which is the correct pitch for this recording. It seems to me that at 78 RPM it's a bit too fast, but Ruffo has such a peculiar voice tone that it might be correct instead.

This specific take can also be listened to at the DAHR website, although there is no indication of the speed at which the digital sample has been taken:

http://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/m ... _Veneziana

Can anyone please comment on this? Any idea?

Perhaps you could locate the sheet music and adjust the speed of the record to match the key?

Try slowing down to 76.6 RPM, many acoustic Victors play correctly at that speed, some are 75 (such as almost every single Emilio DeGogorza acoustic). Correct playing speeds is never a black and white issue. I use a pitch pipe to locate the correct key while adjusting speed. And don't trust the transfers done over at the ADP site, a large number of them are way too fast.

Sean

The problem is that Visione Veneziana is not an operatic aria with an "official" key. It's a song, although a classic and one of Ruffo's favourites. There are lots of versions sung by tenors, easily found on YouTube f.e. So basically I ignore the recording key.

Thanks, I've already tried to slow down to 76. The voice and the rythm of the song (which has some kind of unusual of off-tempos) sounds more natural to my ears. But, at 76 RPM, it also seems to me that Ruffo falls in the basso rather than in the baritone range.

The one on the ADR site is taken from a (probably old) vinyl LP transfer, there's a few scattered around there like that. Sounds a tad slow and draggy to me at wherever speed the original (78) record was played at.