the treasures saved from oblivion from The Lost Recordings label

On March 12, 1959, the prestigious Hochschule für Muzik in Berlin welcomed Claudio Arrau. The Chilean pianist, at the height of his art, has chosen to perform three sonatas by Ludvig van Beethoven. A recorded concert, unforgettable for music lovers present and yet asleep since in the archives of Berlin radio.

It took all the passion and patience of fans of The Lost Recordings Label so that sixty years later, today’s music lovers can hear a world premiere of this concert, of which ten tracks have been unpublished.

The Lost Recordings is the story of a meeting of four music and sound enthusiasts: Frédéric D’Oria-Nicolas, founder of the Fondamenta label, Quentin Sannié, founder of Devialet, Michel Navarra, son of cellist André Navarra and Antoine Petroff, engineer specializing in audio signal processing.

One day Michel Navarra entrusted Frédéric D’Oria-Nicolas with an unpublished recording of his father for tests. When he returns to listen to it two weeks later, he is overcome with emotion. In the meantime, the analog tape has been cleaned of noise by a process unique in the world of Phoenix Mastering.

There are millions of sound archives in Europe. Among them, concerts like that of Claudio Arrau in Berlin. So fans of The Lost Recordings will metamorphose into archaeologists of sound. From London to Prague, from Moscow to Amsterdam, they will set off in search of this forgotten musical heritage. They are attached to legendary artists whose performance in a timeless repertoire has been recorded in an exceptional manner.

This is how they discovered the recording of a legendary concert by Sarah Vaughan at the Berlin Philharmonic in 1969. That day, the African-American icon, accompanied only by a trio, chose the return to the sources, to the simplicity which magnifies his voice with an incredible range. You only have to close your eyes for the quality of the recording and the work done by The Lost Recordings to take us back in time in first class.

For this, the label entrusted the production of vinyl lacquers to a Californian company. Lacquers whose dies will be made in Kansas and pressed in Germany. The choice was made to produce only 2,000 hand-numbered vinyls sold for 58 euros.

Sarah Vaughan Live at The Berlin Philharmonie 1969 will be the first gem released under the label. Then will come The Unreleased Recital at The Concertgebouw by Emil Gilels recorded in 1976. That day the Russian virtuoso offers a sumptuous recital. He embraces with equal happiness the repertoires of Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Prokofiev and Bach.

The Lost Recordings catalog continued to grow with the concert given by Ella Fitzgerald in this same Concertgebouw in 1961. It was also the occasion to hear, for one of the last times in concert, the unforgettable Take five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded in 1967 at the Kurhaus hotel in Scheveningen in the north of the Netherlands. Or even Dizzy Gillespie and Mike Longo at the Singer Concert Hall, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans Trio, Oscar Peterson Trio, Art Blakey … And of course a 6 CD box set by cellist André Navarra containing the unreleased track record that had brought tears to his son Michel: the starting point of a great French adventure. For the holidays, a magnificent journey through time with your eyes closed.