Operation SORET: Finally, the first minutes of the "Rêve de France" Symphony

We are extremely happy to announce that the recently launched Operation Soret has marked an important step forward. Thanks to your generous support, we are continuing the process of digitally downloading the audio material of the Symphony "Rêve de France," written by French composer Maurice Soret in Stalag 3B Fürstenberg an der Oder . The score has been lost; only the recording of the work on two Pyral discs by Radiodiffusion Française, conducted by the composer after the war, remains.

In recent days, Tommy Cavalieri , renowned sound engineer and head of Sorriso Studios in Bari, carried out a preliminary thorough cleaning of the records; encrusted dust and other impurities present on the sides of the two records and inside the grooves, clearly visible under the microscope, were delicately removed. Since these are sealing wax records—unlike regular vinyl—and have a very narrow groove, special styluses were used during the cleaning process.

The entire transfer process from discs to digital will be performed at less than half speed, to ensure smooth playback. Digitization will obviously be in high resolution; the resulting audio files will be restored to natural speed, even further optimized compared to the original, given that many analog recordings made in the early second half of the last century—including the two Pyral discs— suffered a physiological lowering of the original pitch.

Side 3 (the second disc) presents an unexpected problem, namely a significant scratch on the side. Reconstructing side 3 will therefore be very complex and difficult, and the process of reading the side will also necessarily require particular attention, and the loss of a few seconds of the original sound will likely be inevitable. However, in the subsequent score reconstruction phase, the small amount of missing material will be extracted from the main lines of the musical material, carrying out diligent logical and philological work.

We can't hide our great satisfaction in letting you listen (from minute 1:13 of the video) to the audio of the beginning of Soret's Symphony* after a preliminary noise filtering treatment by Tommy Cavalieri; listening to these first few minutes of a work that was thought to be buried and forgotten arouses a profound emotion.

WE STILL NEED YOUR HELP : While thanking everyone who has already donated financially to Operation Soret, we invite Friends of the ILMC Foundation to contribute to reviving this wonderful piece of concentration camp music. You can support us by following these instructions:

You can send your financial contribution via bank transfer to: Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria BANK: INTESA SanPaolo BRANCH: 55000 - Fil Accentrata Terzo Settore IBAN: IT94 Y030 6909 6061 0000 0103 682 SWIFT CODE: BCITITMM REASON: Soret Operation

Or you can send a check made out to: Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria In this case please send by registered envelope to: Istituto di Letteratura Musicale Concentrazionaria Via V. Marone 38/C - 76121 Barletta (BT) - Italy

Or you can make the payment via Paypal by clicking on the following link: https://www.fondazioneilmc.it/sostienici REASON (optional): Operation Soret

The ILMC Foundation will issue a regular receipt.

* Thanks to lawyer Nico Regina for making the clip shot in the recording studio available to the ILMC Foundation.