Lani Spahr became a member of the SOMM family in 2014 when I was presented by mutual friends Andrew Neill and Arthur Reynolds with a 4-CD set of “Elgar Remastered” (SOMMCD 261-4). This consists of Lani’s miraculous sound restorations of the 1928 studio sessions of the Cello Concerto with Beatrice Harrison as well as several unused takes and stereo realisations of other major works, all drawn from Elgar’s personal library of 78s.
This was the beginning of a fascinating journey of previously unheard of recordings and live broadcasts during the 1940s – 1960s in the company of Sir Adrian Boult, Sir John Barbirolli and Sir Malcolm Sargent, Toscanini et al, exploring anything from music by Sir Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams and E.J. Moeran to Sir Arthur Bliss with sound wonderfully restored by the extraordinary Lani Spahr!
We didn’t stop there. During the 200th Anniversary of Anton Bruckner we issued previously unheard of recordings and broadcasts of the complete symphonies in collaboration with John F. Berky, responsible for maintaining the Bruckner Archive containing over 11,000 recordings, and booklet notes written by prominent Bruckner scholar Professor Ben Korstvedt, President of the Bruckner Society of America. Here again Lani Spahr excelled himself. The reviews speak for themselves.
If you would like to stay informed of progress, Lani has been busy restoring the sound in SOMM’s new issues of The Beecham Collection, Szell in New York, Elgar from the Archives up to Vol 4 so far and many more!
Lani Spahr’s work for SOMM has enlarged and enriched the SOMM catalogue beyond measure and we are proud to include him in the SOMM family. Long may it last.
—Siva Oke, Founder and CEO, SOMM Recordings