Guide to the Girard-Farwig Collection
ARS.0125
Finding aid prepared by Franz Kunst
Archive of Recorded Sound
Braun Music Center
541 Lasuen Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, California, 94305-3076
650-723-9312
soundarchive@stanford.edu
© 2012
The Board of Trustees of Stanford University. All rights reserved.
Descriptive Summary
Title: Girard-Farwig Collection
Dates: 1932-1979
Collection number: ARS.0125
Collection size:
20 boxes
: 567 open reel tapes (49 5" reels ; 518 7" reels) ; 20 folders
Repository:
Archive of Recorded Sound
Abstract: The Girard-Farwig Collection consists unpublished recordings of opera, vocal and orchestral music from the collection of Victor
Girard and Stan Farwig.
Language of Material: Multiple languages
Access
Open for research; material must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Contact the Archive for
assistance.
Publication Rights
Property rights reside with repository. Publication and reproduction rights reside with the creators or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Head Librarian of the Archive of Recorded Sound.
Preferred Citation
Girard-Farwig Collection, ARS-0125. Courtesy of the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
Source
The Girard-Farwig Collection was donated to the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound by Michael Hertz in 2003.
Sponsor
This finding aid was produced with generous financial support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
Scope and Contents
The Girard-Farwig Collection consists unpublished recordings of opera, vocal and orchestral music from the collection of Victor
Girard and Stan Farwig. Girard and Farwig were discographers and researchers who lived and worked together in Oakland, California.
As with many such collections, recordings were obtained from a network of traders and collectors, and many tapes were originally
recorded from radio broadcasts (such as KPFA and KKHI, locally). Some are copies from commercial issues; however there are
several RCA Victor tapes that appear to be pre-production reference dubs, with notes about the recording quality on the tape
boxes. Original concert programs are enclosed with some tapes. The collection features works by composers such as Bellini,
Berlioz, Busoni, Donizetti, Janacek, Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, and Wagner, as well as more contemporary
works such as Joplin's Treemonisha, Berg's Lulu and Wozzeck, and Milhaud's Bolivar.
Aside from 78 transfers, the collection's earliest recording is the San Francisco Opera production of Tosca from October 15th,
1932. There are also SFO Toscas from 1965, 1970 (several from the same run), 1972, and 1976. Other San Francisco Opera and
Symphony recordings include Rossini's La Cenerentola, Janacek's Jenufa, Berlioz' Les Troyens, Schuller's Visitation (with
a jazz group including John Handy and Mike Nock), Puccini's Manon Lescault, Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, Verdi's Aida and
Un Ballo in Maschera, Stravinsky's Rake's Progress, Strauss' Rosenkavalier, Milhaud's Christopher Columbus, and Schoenberg's
Ewartung. Other prominently featured performances are by Toscanini and the NBC Symphony, the Oakland Symphony, and the Cincinnati
Symphony. Girard and Farwig appeared to be especially big fans of Dorothy Kirsten as well, and among the many recordings of
her singing there are three reels of a KPFA biographical feature.
1. Discographies
Scope and Contents
These print-outs of discographical databases were a work in progress, and may be of limited value today, except as a corollary
to their collection of recordings.
Box 14
NBC Airchecks, Chronological
Physical Description:
1 folder
Box 14
Title Index A-Z
Physical Description:
2 folders
Box 18, Box 16, Box 17, Box 14, Box 15
Performer Index (missing "A")
Physical Description:
17 folders
Box 7, Box 6
Unnumbered 5"
Physical Description:
40 5" open reel tapes
Box 3, Box 4, Box 5, Box 1, Box 2
Unnumbered 7"
Physical Description:
154 7" open reel tapes
Scope and Contents
Most are minimally annotated.
Box 5
Old handwritten labels
Physical Description:
27 7" open reel tapes
Scope and Contents
Tapes in this series share the same handwriting on boxes. Works by Mahler, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Puccini and others. Many are
conducted by Bruno Walter. Some are Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. There are several pre-production reference copy tapes from
RCA, containing notes such as "approved CP," "OK for prod.," and "high peaks, approved for Red Seal."
Box 5, Box 6
Typed labels
Physical Description:
36 7" open reel tapes
Scope and Contents
Material is similiar to those tapes with handwritten labels. Also some RCA reference copies here.
Box 8, Box 7
San Francisco Opera and Symphony
Physical Description:
40 open reel tapes
: 9 5" reels ; 31 7" reels
Scope and Contents
Please note that the main numbered tape series also contains San Francisco recordings (the unnumbered tapes may also contain
unidentified San Francisco performances). Includes Otello 11/70 ; Falstaff 10/70 ; Nozze di Figaro 1973 ; Makropulos Case
11/66 ; Faust 11/72 ; Tancredi 11/79 ; 50th Anniversary, Stern Grove 1972 ; Gala 11/19/78 ; Thais 9/10/76 ; Die Walkure 11/13/36
; Tosca 10/15/32, 1965, 11/72, 10/8/76 ; Boris Godunov 1973; La Cenerentola 11/1/74 ; L'Italiana in Algieri 6/64 ; Ozawa/Symphony
- Mahler 7, Berlioz Requiem.
Numbered (100/200/300 series)
Physical Description:
270 7" open reel tapes
(approximately)
Arrangement
Numbering spans 97-367, with some gaps. A few other short series of numbers (i.e. 1-12 on 5" reels) are probably unrelated
and were disregarded. The "T" series (for transcriptions) is interfiled (this may match the numbers in their NBC discography).
