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Guide to the Girard-Farwig Collection
ARS.0125
ARS.0125
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Table of contents
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Abstract: The Girard-Farwig Collection consists unpublished recordings of opera, vocal and orchestral music from the collection of Victor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
Open for research; material must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Contact the Archive for
assistance.
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.
Girard-Farwig Collection, ARS-0125. Courtesy of the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford,
Calif.
The Girard-Farwig Collection was donated to the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound by Michael Hertz in 2003.
This finding aid was produced with generous financial support from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
The Girard-Farwig Collection consists unpublished recordings of opera, vocal and orchestral music from the collection of Victor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.