Today is Record Store Day (third Saturday of April), and my mind goes back to the time when we discovered music by buying records, cassettes, and CDs – for me, that was the 90s. What a feeling of discovery it was, when you’d go home, press play, and hear a work for the first time. And you’d discover something amazing. I don’t know if, in this era of video dissemination via the internet, that sense of discovering something new still exists, which is one of the most vivid memories of my adolescence.

Of course, even now, on some platform or at a concert, I might hear a piece I didn’t know before and feel the joy of discovery, but it’s rarer. And unlike a beloved record or CD, it’s harder to form a bond with your favorite YouTube video – not that I don’t have any; I listen to them quite systematically, especially when some of them are absolutely rare or were never released on any other medium.

Among the many discoveries of that distant era, however, there is one that still stands out – it was perhaps the first time I didn’t discover the work itself, but an amazing performance. And this particular recording I’m sharing is also an anniversary one, as it was made 70 years ago and remains one of my favorite albums in my collection: Mozart’s Don Giovanni with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos from the Salzburg Festival in 1956. It’s a delight from start to finish, thanks to the ideally chosen tempi, the conductor’s untamed energy, and the amazing performers.

Of all the treasures of the recording, I’m sharing here Donna Anna and Don Ottavio’s recitative “Don Ottavio son morta” and Donna Anna’s aria “Or sai chi l’ onore.” Elisabeth Grümmer sings – and not Lisa Della Casa, as is mistakenly stated (she sang Donna Elvira in this particular recording). However, I’m keeping this specific video because it has a more balanced sound (it’s a live recording from a performance!). For me, the singing is a model of style, with the technique so perfectly assimilated that it disappears, leaving only the interpretation.

This particular performance was a revival of the 1953 production, with an almost identical cast, and conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. However, Furtwängler died in 1954, and Mitropoulos was called upon for the revival. It is generally believed that Mitropoulos could have taken a prominent role at the Salzburg Festival had he not also passed away, even more prematurely, in 1960. A professional film was made of the 1953 performances, and here you can see the same excerpt with the same performers, but conducted by Furtwängler. Donna Anna is Elisabeth Grümmer and Don Ottavio is the French-Canadian Leopold Simoneau.

This year, we celebrate a double anniversary of birth and death for the latter (1916-2006), as well as the death of Grümmer (1911-1986) and the birth of Furtwängler (1886-1954) and Mitropoulos (1896-1960). Not that it matters, but it helps our memory and their remembrance.

Concluding with a final thought on record stores and our ‘investments’ in them, I think we weren’t just lucky to buy records and CDs, but also privileged, as we had the access and the opportunity. In the following decade, living in European cities, I discovered not only large record stores but also public lending libraries for music, also a source of inexhaustible discographic treasures. Today, perhaps we are luckier that information is now accessible to almost everyone.

So let’s do our part to spread it – and let’s add our choices to those of the algorithm!