Philip's Assortment Box

Posted on February 19, 2024March 9, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 4 Comments

Reflet – Sandrine Piau sings French orchestral songs

I know Sandrine Piau principally as a singer of Baroque and Classical music, but she has recently been venturing into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and this is the second disc in a series, which began with a disc of orchestral songs by Strauss, Berg and Zemlinsky entitled Clair-Obscur. The notes accompanying the disc tell us that that earlier disc sought to explore “the confrontation between shadow and light,” whilst this one “evokes the nuances and transparencies of the French mélodie.”

Essentially what we have here is a nicely put together programme of French orchestral song, starting with Berlioz and taking us through to Britten’s early Ravelian Quatre chansons Françaises via Duparc, Koechlin, Debussy and Ravel himself. The programme is not long (under an hour) and is fleshed out with André Caplet’s orchestration of Debussy’s Clair de lune and Ernest Ansermet’s of the sixth of his 6 Epigraphes antiques. Admirably as the orchestra plays throughout under Verdier, these add very little to the programme and I would have welcomed more songs, maybe something by Chausson, Delage or Canteloube, or more by Koechlin, who is not so well represented in the catalogue. If I’m honest, I prefer the Debussy items in their original piano guise. Unlike Ravel’s orchestrations of his own piano pieces, the arrangements don’t really improve on the originals.

The Koechlin songs were new to me, and I rather wish Piau had explored more than the three we have here. If they pique your curiosity, as they did mind, then they are available sung by Juliane Banse, along with a lot more of Koechlin’s vocal works with orchestra, in a two disc set in Hänssler’s Koechlin edition. What we have here is two songs from his early 4 poèmes d’Edmond Haraucourt. Op.7, and one from the slightly later 3 mélodies, Op. 17. If they lack some of Duparc’s natural melodic gift, they are nonetheless lushly orchestrated and rather beautiful and make an excellent partner for the two Duparc songs.

If the Koechlin songs afforded me the most pleasure, that could be because I didn’t know them before and therefore had no point of comparison, whereas I know all the other material rather well. I’ve loved the Britten songs since they were first recorded in the 1980s. Admittedly one can hear the influence of Ravel, particularly of Shéhérazade, but they are remarkably assured from a boy of fourteen and they do not feel out of place here, whilst the sparer textures of Ravel’s Mallarmé settings, written for two clarinets, two flutes, piano and string quartet, provide a nice contrast to the lush orchestrations of the rest.

Piau is now in her fifties and the voice has lost a little of its bloom on high. She also uses what the late John Steane once referred to as a squeeze-box method of vocal production, a tendency to move note by note rather than in a long line, which, once noticed, is hard to ignore. I also hear a slight sense of strain in the Britten songs, particularly at the close of the final song, which is not as radiant as it should be, and as it is in the performances of Jill Gomez, who made the first recording of them for EMI under Simon Rattle, and Felicity Lott, who recorded them for Chandos under Bryden Thomson.

The opening Berlioz Le spectre de la rose is taken a mite too fast for my taste and is a little on the cool side, but it does rather set the general tone of the recital. If you like it, then you will no doubt like the whole disc, but I found Piau a little lacking in involvement, a little detached.

I don’t want to belabour the point too much, because this is a very enjoyable programme, well considered and well put together and, for the most part, Piau’s singing is quite lovely, but, in the Berlioz, Duparc, Ravel and Britten, I found myself inwardly hearing the voices of some of those who have preceded her. Still, if you’re looking for a mixed programme of nineteenth and early twentieth century French orchestral song, then this disc will provide a lot of enjoyment.

Sandrine Piau (soprano) Reflet (Alpha Classics)

Posted on February 5, 2024March 14, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 1 Comment

Callas’s 1959 Lucia di Lammermoor gets the Pristine treatment

Callas’s second stereo recording of Lucia di Lammermoor, which I reviewed when it was reissued by Warner , has always been considered one of her best from a sonic point of view, so, as someone who has not always been totally convinced by some of Andrew Rose’s re-mastering methods, I wondered how, if at all, the sound could be improved upon. Let me say straight away that I found this latest addition to Pristine’s Callas catalogue totally convincing. Using the Warner remaster of 2014 for comparison, I found the sound altogether warmer and much more comfortable to listen to, closer in fact to how I remember the LPs that I used to own (a German EMI Electrola issue, bought as an import). The Warner is perhaps slightly clearer, but the digitalisation tends to add glare to Callas’s top register. Often one is prepared to flinch before the topmost notes, but I had no such problems when listening to this Pristine pressing. I couldn’t say which is the more truthful, but I can say that the Pristine is much more comfortable to listen to and this, in turn, affected my impressions of the set, a recording I have known since my youth and was in fact my introduction to the opera.

Lucia was one of the cornerstones of her repertoire, and she first sang it in 1952 in Mexico. The following year she sang the role again in Florence, where she made her first recording of the role under Serafin. It was also the first recording she made for EMI. Back in those days, the opera wasn’t taken very seriously and was most likely considered a silly Italian opera in which a doll-like coloratura soprano ran around the stage showing off her high notes and flexibility. Callas returned a proper tragic dimension to the role, that most hadn’t even suspected was there. There is a touching story of Toti Dal Monti, an erstwhile famous Lucia herself, visiting Callas in her dressing room after a performance of the opera with tears running down her face and confessing she had sung the role for years with no idea of its dramatic potential.

When Callas first sang Lucia in Mexico and recorded it in Florence, she was at the peak of her vocal plenitude, as she was when she first sang it under Karajan at La Scala in 1954, but by the time she sang the role in Berlin in 1955 post weight loss, when Karajan took the La Scala company there, her voice had started to lighten and her conception of the role had become more inward. We can hear this in the famous live recording of one of the Berlin performances, but, for this 1959 recording, she appears to have taken this approach one step further. This may have had something to do with her by now fading vocal resources, but it results in a particularly touching portrayal of the innocent, young, impressionable girl. She has also trimmed away some of the showier variations in the cadenza in the Mad Scene, and the decorations are in consequence somewhat more modest. Am I alone in preferring it sung this way? Personally, I’d prefer to do without all that duetting with the flute altogether, as happens in the complete recording of the opera with Caballé and when Sylvia Sass sings it on one of her recital records. In any case, apart from a few of Callas’s topmost notes, she is in remarkably good voice and the filigree of the role is brilliantly executed with fluid and elegant ease. All in all, I prefer her performance in this set to the one on the 1953 Florence studio recording, not least because of the improved Pristine sound picture.

However, when it comes to her colleagues on this set, I am a little less well disposed towards them than Göran Forsling in his review of the digital download. Ferrucio Tagliavini was 45 at the time of this recording, but he sounds much older, more like an elderly roué than the Byronic Romantic figure of Scott’s and Donizetti’s imaginings. No amount of elegant phrasing can make up for his lack of sheer physical passion and I find myself longing for Di Stefano’s youthful ardour. As for Cappuccilli, he was at the very beginning of his considerable career, and he has yet to find a way of creating character in pure sound. He is just rather dull and no match for Gobbi on the earlier recording or for Panerai in Berlin. Bernard Ladysz makes very little impression at all and both Rafaele Arie and Nicola Zaccaria are preferable.

Serafin, as always, though he may not make any startling revelations, shapes the score with a perfect sense of its dramatic shape, albeit with the cuts that were traditional at the time. Karajan opened up some of those in his performances, and I would still place the 1955 Berlin performance at the top of all Callas’s recorded Lucias, especially in Divina Records latest remastering, but I enjoyed re-visiting this set and I have a feeling I’ll be reaching for this one more regularly than the earlier 1953 recording, not least because of the superior quality of Pristine’s remastering.

My only criticism is of the cover art, which has a photograph of Callas as Lucia in Florence in 1953, when she was still a rather large lady. One could be forgiven for thinking, at first glance, that this was the earlier recording. Surely a photo of the svelte Callas as Lucia would have been more appropriate. There are plenty of them, after all.

Donizetti: Lucia di Lammermoor (Pristine Audio)

Posted on January 28, 2024February 27, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 1 Comment

A fascinating arrangement of Schubert’s Winterreise for soloist, chorus and two accordions.

Now here’s something a little different. Rearrangements and re-imaginings of Schubert’s Song Cycles are not exactly unusual, but I think Meyer might be the only person to use a chorus and this is actually Gregor Meyer’s second arrangement of Schubert’s popular song cycle. The first was for baritone, chorus and piano and was recorded in 2017 by baritone Daniel Ochoa with Gregor Meyer conducting the Leipzig Vocalconsort and with Christian Peix on the piano. This one unusually substitutes two accordions for the piano. Given that the accordion wasn’t invented until around 1822 in Berlin, it is unlikely that Schubert ever got to see or hear one. However, it does not sound anachronistic and indeed captures the sound of the hurdy-gurdy in the final song even more atmospherically than the piano. The accordions can also add a jaunty, folk-like colour to songs like Frülingstraum. Interestingly, Meyer is not the only person to rearrange the cycle for an accordion. Oboist Normand Forget made a chamber version for accordion and wind quintet (including bass clarinet, oboe d’amore and baroque horn) and this has been recorded by tenor Christoph Prégardien, accordionist Joseph Petric and the Montréal ensemble Pentaèdre.

Meyer’s chorus first appears in the second stanza of the first song, Gute Nacht, almost imperceptibly creeping in on a wordless vocalise, which wonderfully conjures up a bleak, wintry scene. Thereafter they are a constant presence, sometimes joining in with the soloist, sometimes taking over the vocal lead or responding to him, sometimes still in wordless commentary, and sometimes, as in Der stürmische Morgen, taking over the whole song whilst the soloist remains silent. You might think the effect would be to distance us from the solitary traveller’s loneliness, but in fact it reinforces his utter desolation, the voices seeming part of an interior dialogue as the soloist struggles with his own inner demons.

In an arrangement such as this, the soloist’s function is perhaps somewhat different from normal, and Tobias Berndt fulfils his task admirably, knowing when the focus is on him, but realising when he needs to pull back and blend with the choir. He has a light, pleasing baritone which blends beautifully in the total sound picture. He may not make any startling revelations (those tend to come from the chorus and accordions) but nor is he bland or inexpressive.

The GewandhausChor under Gregor Meyer are absolutely splendid, and the two accordion players, Heidi and Uwe Steger, are superb accompanists.

Of course, this arrangement cannot replace the original version for voice and piano, and most people will have their favourites (mine are Fischer-Dieskau and Demus and Kaufmann and Deutsch) but this is a fascinating and rewarding re-thinking of Schubert’s great song cycle. I really enjoyed it and one listening quickly became two and then three. I know it’s only January, but this is very likely to be one of my discs of the year. Highly recommended.

Schubert: Winterreise (Genuin)

Posted on January 23, 2024February 23, 2024 by tsaraslondon

Callas’s Studio Medea gets the Pristine XR treatment

Pristine, having applied their XR method of remastering to many of Callas’s mono recordings and to some of her live ones, now turn to the stereo studio ones. Oddly enough, this was the first of Callas’s complete operas to be recorded in stereo in Milan, though it wasn’t actually recorded by Walter Legge and her Columbia recording team, and all her other Milan recordings that year were mono. Apparently, EMI had no interest in the enterprise and the recording was made by Mercury for Ricordi in September 1957, a few weeks after her performances of La Sonnambula in Edinburgh, when she had not been in her best voice. It was originally issued by Ricordi in Italy, Mercury in the US and Columbia in the UK and since then has appeared on various different labels, including Everest and even Deutsche Gramophon, as well, of course, as Warner when they re-mastered all the Callas studio recordings for their 2014 release.

Considering it was recorded by Mercury, one would have expected the sound to be pretty good, but it has always sounded a bit dry and constricted. I was listening to the Pristine CDs and made comparisons with the 2014 Warner release. To my ears, the differences between the two are fairly slight. Pristine’s XR sound opens up the sound picture a bit and solo voices in particular do sound as if they have a bit more air around them. I also tried listening both through my speakers and through headphones and, oddly, found I preferred the Pristine through my headphones and the Warner through my speakers, though this could have something to do with my equipment. It might also have something to do with the fact that the Pristine release is transferred at a much lower level than the Warner.

Whichever version you go for, there is no doubt this is the best sounding of all Callas’s recorded Medeas, but what about the performance? Apart from this studio recording, we have five live recordings: Florence and La Scala 1953, Dallas 1958, London 1959 and La Scala 1961. Of these, one can safely discount the 1961 La Scala performance. I would also discount the 1959 London performance, a recording that has also been issued by Pristine, though I see that it is Ralph Moore’s first choice in his Medea survey. I feel that it pales in comparison to the Dallas performance, which, though it suffers from poor sound, is blisteringly dramatic, having been recorded just after Bing had “sacked” Callas from the Met. That event seems to have galvanised the whole company to produce a performance of extraordinary dramatic concentration, with Callas in fabulous, secure voice. This Dallas performance is my first choice for the opera, though I wouldn’t want to be without the two 1953 performances either.

This studio recording operates on an altogether lower level of intensity than any of those. However, when I first got to know this opera, and this recording, I had no other point of reference, and it seemed pretty good to me. It was only later, when I heard those barnstorming performances from Florence, La Scala and Dallas, that I found anything lacking, and it is only in comparison with herself that she fails. She is still a good deal better in the part than any other who attempted it, certainly a lot better than Gwyneth Jones and Sylvia Sass, who also made studio recordings of this Italian version. In other hands, Cherubini’s music can seem staid and formulaic, but Callas breathes life into it like no other.

Serafin’s conception is essentially Classical, but his conducting varies from the somnolent to the dramatic. After a tautly conceived overture, the first scene up to Medea’s entrance drags on interminably. I understand the necessity to establish a pastoral air of peace and calm, into which the Colchian Medea bursts, but, quite frankly, at this pace it just becomes a bore. On LP I often used to miss out the first side completely and set the needle down part way through the second LP, when Medea makes her entrance.

Without foreknowledge of other performances by Callas, this is still a great performance of a difficult role. We lose some of the power and ferocity, but there are gains too. Ricordi il giorni tu la prima volta quando m’hai veduta? is couched in the most melting tones, as is the ensuing aria. There is no doubt that it is love, not revenge, that first brings Medea to Corinth. Her duplicity in the scene with Creon, and also in the following duet with Jason, is brilliantly charted, and the scene with the children movingly intense. Vocally, for all that she is not in her best voice, she manages its angular lines and wide leaps with consummate skill, her legato still wondrously intact. Note also how, in this Classical role, her use of portamento is more sparing.

When it comes to the supporting cast, Scotto is less of an advantage than you might expect, Pirazzini rather more (though not quite a match for Barbieri in Florence and at La Scala or Berganza in Dallas). Picchi, who sang Pollione to Callas’s Norma in London in 1952, is rather good, though Vickers is even better in Dallas. Modesti makes a good Creon too, though not as good as Zaccaria in Dallas.

One should of course point out that this is not Médée, as Cherubini imagined it, which was an opéra-comique with spoken dialogue. The version Callas sang is a hybrid, an Italian translation of a German version with recitatives by Franz Lachner, first performed in 1909. It works very well, though, and it is interesting to note that, even in this age of preference for historical authenticity, this was the version that Sondra Radvanovsky sang when the opera was revived for her at the Metropolitan Opera recently.

If you are looking for a studio recording of the opera, then there is little doubt that this is the one to go for.

Cherubini: Medea (Pristine Audio)

Posted on January 22, 2024April 18, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 2 Comments

Diana Damrau sings Operetta Arias

Operetta is probably not as popular now as it was around the middle of the last century when amateur productions of popular operettas were ubiquitous. Indeed, back in the 1950s and 1960s my father was musical director of several local operatic societies, conducting a regular fare of Lehár, Strauss and Offenbach alongside American musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein and the like. Nowadays you’d be more likely to encounter shows by Lloyd Webber or Schönberg & Boubil, or one of the now popular jukebox musicals. Even The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus, once in the regular repertoire of our professional opera companies, are seldom performed, at least here in the UK.

Maybe the tradition is more alive in Germany and Austria because the Münchner Rundfunkorchester under Ernst Theis here put in splendidly stylish performances of all the chosen arias and duets, sounding totally idiomatic in a wide-ranging programme of music mostly from Vienna, but also taking in Berlin and Paris. There is also some wonderful solo violin playing from, I presume, the leader of the orchestra, notably in the aria from Lehár’s Zigeunerliebe, which exudes a fiery, gypsy passion.

The booklet notes take the form of a (slightly twee) conversation between Damrau and her childhood friend Elke Kottmair, who spent 12 years with the Dresden State Operetta and upon whose expertise and knowledge Damrau drew when compiling this collection. Kotke and mezzo-soprano Emily Sierra join Damrau for a trio from Johann Strauss’s little-known Das Spitzentuch der Königin, and she has also enlisted the support of Jonas Kaufmann for a duet from the same operetta, as well as duets from Stolz’s Im weißen Rössl and the famous Im chambre séparée from Heuberger’s Der Opernball, which some of you may know better as a soprano solo.

These help to add a bit of welcome variety to the programme and here I have to make something of a confession. I have never really liked Damrau’s voice, finding it rather hard and unrelenting. It has never been a particularly luscious instrument, but, to my ears, it is now sounding rather dry and, in the middle register, a little shrewish, where one really wants something more sensuous. Furthermore, when she tries to be charming, she can become excessively coy. Comparing her and Susan Graham in J’ai deux amants from Messager’s L’Amour Masqué, (included in her disc of French Operetta arias) it is to find Graham much warmer and more sexily playful.

When it comes to the Viennese items, you only have to listen to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Ich schenk’ mein Herz from Millöcker’s Die Dubarry or in Im chambre séparée to understand the real echt-Viennese style. I doubt there has ever been a finer recital of operetta arias ever recorded, though I also recall a lovely disc by Barbara Bonney, accompanied by solo piano, which is also well worth investigating.

For those who respond better to Damrau’s voice than I do, I have no doubt you will find much to enjoy. I did too. I just wish I had a more positive reaction to the singing.

https://musicwebinternational.com/2024/02/diana-damrau-soprano-operette-erato

Posted on January 10, 2024February 11, 2024 by tsaraslondon

Dreams Desires Desolation – and Diffidence.

Dreams Desires Desolation

English Song

Trevor Alexander (baritone), Peter Crockford (piano)

Rec. 2021 Henry Wood Hall, London.

This is a disc of English song which re-creates an evening of Parlour Ballads, such as one might have heard in an Edwardian aristocratic home. Even the more contemporary songs fit quite comfortably into this category and in fact the most forward reaching and original song is by Frank Bridge; his last song, Journey’s End,written in 1925 to a text by Humbert Wolfe. Startlingly, the song almost sounds as if it might have been written by Bridge’s pupil, Benjamin Britten and in fact Pears did record the song with Britten at the piano in 1963. Some of the songs are old favourites, that we don’t hear very often these days, though we might know them from older recordings, whilst others are brand new. Indeed, Peter Gelhorn’s Autumn and two songs by Clive Pollard (b. 1959) are here receiving their first commercial recordings. However they are tuneful and tonal and do not sound out of place in a programme of songs mostly written in the early part of the last century.

As you would expect with a title like Dreams. Desires, Desolation the mood is mostly melancholy or dreamlike and I can’t help feeling one or two more lively songs would have created a little more variety in the programme. What would also have helped to enliven the recording is a bit more energy in the performances. Trevor Alexander has a pleasant, light, tenorish baritone and he has excellent diction. Though his is obviously not the voice of a man in the first flush of youth, it is mercifully free of excessive vibrato or wobble. Unfortunately, it is also a little lacking in colour and personality. The performances are somewhat diffident, rather lacking in substance and imagination. Take the opening song, Butterworth’s Is my team ploughing? Alexander commendably attempts to differentiate between the ghost and the young man, but whereas his ghost is convincingly eerie, the young man’s responses need to be more healthily robust. It is also true that many of the older songs tap into a vein of sentimentality that is perhaps not so fashionable today. Even so, one wants a more open-hearted, outgoing emotional response to both words and music, such as we can hear in some of the old recordings of Jonn McCormack, Richard Tauber, Rosa Ponselle and Kathleen Ferrier. Where their voices and personalities fly out from even the crackliest old 78s, Alexander remains earthbound, nice but dull.

Reading the notes that come with the disc, one appreciates that it was obviously a labour of love for the two artists involved and one doesn’t doubt their sincerity for a moment, but, though there are some interesting discoveries (and re-discoveries) here, the performances need a little more personality and variety to sustain interest throughout a whole disc.

Contents

George Butterworth (1995-1916) – Is my team ploughing?
Frank Bridge (1879-1941) -Come to me in my dreams
Charles Marshall (1857-1927) -I hear you calling me
Roger Quilter (1877-1953) – Now sleeps the crimson petal
Clive Pollard (b.1959) – Go, song of mine
Richard Hageman (1881-1966) -Do not go my love
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) -Silent noon
James Frederick Keel (1871-1954) – Remembrance
Victor Hely-Hutchinson (1901-1947) – Dream song
Frank Bridge (1879-1941) – What shall I your true love tell?
Haydn Wood (1882-1959) – Love’s garden of roses
Peter Gelhorn (1912-2004) – Autumn
John Ireland (1879-1962) – If there were dreams to sell
Cecil Armstrong Gibbs (1889-1960) – Silver
Clive Pollard (b. 1959) The cloths of heaven
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) – The sky above the roof
Cyril Scott (1879-1970) – Lullaby
Amy Woodforde-Finden (1860-1919) – Kashmiri song
Roger Quilter (1877-1953) – I arise from dreams of thee
Frank Bridge (1879-1941) – Journey’s End
Lucy Elisabeth Simon (1940-2022) – How could I ever know (from the Secret Garden)

Dreams Desires Desolation – English Song (Divine Art)

Posted on January 8, 2024March 10, 2024 by tsaraslondon

A Thank You and a Request

15,980!. That’s how many visitors I’ve had to my site this year, a site which I started at New Year seven years ago. I’ve never paid for advertising, but it has climbed up the google rankings with no apparent help from me, so I am very grateful to you all for visiting. I’d like to take this opportunity to say a big THANK YOU.

Subscribing to my site is free and all my content is offered free of charge. Don’t worry. I am not about to start charging now or putting any content behind a pay wall. However I am about to make a small request.

I have worn hearing aids for a few years now, but the technology has improved enormously in the last few years and I am very much due an upgrade. Unfortunately our wonderful National Health does not offer the kind of hearing aids I need to continue enjoying listening to music and therefore being able to carry on writing about it. The cost for decent hearing aids is in the region of £3,000 for both ears (in other words around £I500 per ear). It’s a good investment because these new aids will probably see me through for at least the next ten years or maybe more. The only problem is that these aids are somewhat outside the budget of someone whose only income at present is the state pension.

With that in mind, I have set up a Gofundme page to help me meet the cost of these aids. Any contribution any of you could make, however small, would be gratefully appreciated. Music is my first love and not being able to listen to it, talk about it or write about it would have a terribly detrimental effect on my life. Please click on the link below if you would like to contribute.

With many, many thanks.

https://gofund.me/647e10f5

Posted on January 3, 2024February 7, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 3 Comments

A Most Marvellous Party

This highly entertaining programme is the sort of thing that would go down well at a country house or in a small hall, and indeed I see that these artists performed it at the Leeds Conservatoire in March this year, shortly before making this recording. Mary Bevan should not be confused with her sister, Sophie, also a soprano with quite a career herself, nor Nicky Spence with tenor Toby Spence, to whom he is not related. Both singers are active on the operatic stage as well as on the concert platform and here let their hair down in some lighter music.

The “party” seeks to place Noel Coward among other contemporary composers, all of whom have a connection with Coward, however slight. Thus, the other guests turn out to be Ned Rorem, who claimed to have once had a one-night stand with Coward, Poulenc for whom Coward once did the narration on a recording of his Babar, the elephant and Stravinsky, who apparently once asked Coward to collaborate with him. Gershwin’s music Coward had known for some time and even played snatches of it on stage in the first production of his play, The Vortex. The connections with Satie, Messager, Britten and Walton would seem to be a little more tenuous, but I’m nonetheless delighted that they came along. It’s also good to encounter some songs by Roger Quilter and Liza Lehmann, especially given Bevan’s rapturous account of Lehmann’s gorgeous Love, If You Knew The Light, and Spence’s lovely singing of Quilter’s famous setting of Tennyson’s Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal, which is nicely contrasted to Ned Rorem’s sparer, but equally valid setting of the same poem sung by Bevan, a song that was new to me. It slightly reminded me of Britten’s version, which he eventually cut from the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

Both Bevan and Spence are rather better in the more lyrical songs by Coward than they are at the patter songs, and there are a couple of misses in the sequence. Spence can’t resist the temptation to overplay the comedy in Don’t Put Your Daughter on The Stage, Mrs Worthington and I have a feeling this rendition would become rather triresome on repeated listening. One only has to compare the Master, with his brilliantly understated and clipped delivery to hear how it should be done. Nor can Bevan quite cast off the slightly jolly-hockey-sticks quality she has adopted in the opening Coward medley when she turns to Kurt Weill’s Complainte de la Seine, a song which is absolutely harrowing when sung by Teresa Stratas. I also rather wish that Spence, rather than Bevan, had been allowed to sing Mad About The Boy, given that we now know the song was written by Coward about a man he had fallen in love with. However, Spence does get to sing If Love Were All, a song that was originally written for the character of Manon in Coward’s operetta Bitter Sweet, but which Coward himself later made very much his own.

Britten is represented by two early W, H, Auden settings, one of which, As it is, plenty, sounded strangely like something by Stephen Sondheim, though it was written only a few years after Sondheim was born. I wonder if he knew it. I rather wish room had been found for Bevan to sing Coward’s Zigeuner from Bitter Sweet and that perhaps it would have been better to close the recital with the gently wistful The party’s over now rather than the slightly over-rumbustious I went to a marvellous party, but apart from these and a few other minor reservations expressed above, the two singers acquit themselves very well and the pianist, Joseph Middleton is a wonderful collaborator, both as accompanist and when playing solo in pieces by Poulenc, Satie, Stravinsky and Gershwin.

All in all, this is a highly enjoyable disc and one which I will definitely be returning to from time to time.

Full programme

Coward Medley (all three artists)
Coward: Mad about the boy (Bevan)
Rorem: Early in the morning (Spence)
Rorem: For Poulenc (Spence)
Poulenc: Pastorale calme et mystérieux (Middleton)
Poulenc: Hotel (Bevan)
Coward: Parisian Pierrot (Spence)
Weill: Complainte de la Seine (Bevan)
Messager: De ci, de là (Bevan and Spence)
Satie: Gnossiene No. 1 (Middleton)
Coward: Any little fish ((spence and Bevan)
Stravinsky: Valse pour les enfants (Middleton)
Coward: Something to do with Spring (Spence and Bevan)
Quilter: Love calls through the summer night (Bevan and Spence)
Quilter: Now sleeps the crimson petal (Spence)
Rorem: Now sleeps the crimson petal (Bevan)
Coward: World weary/Twentieth century blues (Bevan and Spence)
Gershwin: The man I love (Middleton)
Coward: If love were all (Spence)
Gershwin: By Strauss (Bevan)
Coward: Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington (Spence)
Britten: When you’re feeling like expressing your affection (Bevan)
Walton: Popular Song (Spence)
Britten: As it is, plenty (Bevan)
Lehmann: Love, if you knew the light (Bevan)
Coward: The party’s over now (Bevan and Spence)
I went to a marvellous party (Bevan and Spence)

Noel Coward and Friends: A Most Marvellous Party (Signum Classics)

Posted on December 11, 2023January 21, 2024 by tsaraslondon · 1 Comment

A sonically splendid new recording of Tosca can’t compete with ghosts from the past.

Tosca (1900)

Floria Tosca: Melody Moore (soprano)
Mario Cavaradossi: Ștefan Pop (tenor)
Scarpia: Lester Lynch (baritone)

Kinderchor der Deutschen Oper Berlin, Rundfunkchor Berlin. Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Carlo Montanaro

Rec. April 2022, Haus der Rundfunks, Berlin

Notes and synopsis in English and German included.

Penatone PTC 5187 055 (110)

Tosca is one of the most popular operas in the repertoire and yet there have been remarkably few totally successful recordings over the years, possibly because the mono De Sabata, recorded way back in 1953, is widely considered one of the greatest opera recordings ever made; in fact number one in Ralph Moore’s list of untouchables. The stereo age brought us a couple more, like Karajan’s first with Leontyne Price and Davis’s with Caballé, but the list is quite small, and these too are quite old. A new modern studio recording is certainly timely.

So, let’s start with the positives. I was listening to the stereo layer, which I tried both through speakers and headphones and the sound really is superb, warm and well balanced, though I did wonder whether the off-stage chorus in ACT II were a little too much in the foreground. I suppose it might be dramatically apt to have the on-stage soloists struggling to be heard, but in that case, I would have thought a sound effect of Scarpia impatiently closing the window were necessary. As it is, the chorus just stops abruptly in mid-phrase for no apparent reason. The Berlin Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester may not be as famous an ensemble as those in Milan and Vienna, but they acquit themselves very well.

Unfortunately, the conductor, Carlo Montanarlo is rather too literal and prosaic. He rarely lets the music flower and flourish, and his conducting comes across as rigid and perfunctory, moving the music along too fast, almost as if apologising for its eroticism. Great Puccini conductors, like De Sabata and Karajan, understand the importance of rubato, but there is no sweeping lyricism in sections like the orchestral accompaniment to Tosca’s exit in Act I or her entrance in Act III. He is also unable to sufficiently rack up the tension in the second act, or in the lead-up to the shooting in Act III. His conducting is altogether too polite and lacking in passion.

Tosca is sung by the American soprano, Melody Moore, who has already recorded the roles of Butterfly, Giorgetta in Il Tabarro and Minnie in La Fanciulla del West. She has also recorded a recital disc, which is a tribute to another erstwhile famous Tosca, Renata Tebaldi. She has a voice of the right size and weight for the role, though it loses colour a little at the very top. Like so many modern-day singers, she is somewhat sparing in her use of chest voice. There is no exciting plunge into chest when she sings the line Io quella lama gli piantai nel cor. And her whispered È morto! Or gli perdono! Is completely ineffective. Vissi d’arte is rather lovely, possibly because Monatanarlo finally relaxes a bit and allows the music to breathe. I found her a plausible Tosca with a beautiful voice, but a little anonymous. At no point does she begin to challenge the likes of Callas, Price, Tebaldi or Caballé.

The tenor, Stefan Pop,, has a pleasant, but essentially lyric voice and I see that, according to his Wikipedia entry, he is more known for the bel canto repertoire. He acquits himself quite well in Recondita armonia and the Act I love duet, but is stretched by Vittoria! Vittoria in Act II. He also sings a sweet-toned O dolci mani but E lucevan le stelle suffers from a surfeit of sobbing and consequent vibrato, possibly to make up for the lack of passion coming from the pit.

But the noose around this Tosca’s neck is the baritone, Lester Lynch as Scarpia. He has an unpleasant, wobbly, woofy baritone that leaks air at every emission. It’s possible, I suppose, that he cuts an imposing figure on stage, but that doesn’t come across on disc and he is a serious blot on the performance, his vocal inadequacies not allowing him to create a real character. Memories of Gobbi and Taddei are not expunged.

Nor, I’m afraid, are memories of Callas, Tebaldi, Price and Caballé or Di Stefano, Carreras, Corelli et al. I suppose that I might have enjoyed this performance of the opera if I’d come across it at a provincial opera house somewhere, but, in all but matters of sound, this set doesn’t begin to compare to those classic recordings of the past that I mentioned above.

Incidentally, most CD issues of the opera have Act I on the first CD and Acts II and III on the second, but Pentatone inexplicably split Act II over the two CDs, the break coming just after Tosca has blurted out the location of Angelotti. Why? This makes no sense at all.

In conclusion, with a different baritone and a more sympathetic conductor, the soprano and tenor might have put in a much more creditable performance. As it is one can rest assured that the De Sabata recording with the exceptional team of Callas, Di Stefano and Gobbi remains “untouchable”. That recording is mono of course (though it sounds remarkably good in the 2014 Warner transfer) so if stereo is I must, I can confidently recommend Karajan with Price, Di Stefano and Taddei or Davis with Caballé, Carreras and Wixell. There is also a recording with Tebaldi, Del Monaco and George London, conducted by Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, who may not be the most imaginative of conductors, but is a great deal preferable to the placid Montanarlo.

Other cast
Angelotti: Kevin Short (bass)
Spoletta: Colin Judson (tenor)
Sacristan: Alexander Köpeczi (bass)
Sciarrone: Georg Streuber (baritone)
Jailer: Axel Scheidig (bass)
Shepherd boy: Lean Miray Yüksel (soprano)

Puccini: Tosca (Pentatone)

Posted on December 11, 2023December 14, 2023 by tsaraslondon

Bellini – Composizione da Camera

An enterprising collection of Bellini songs is unfortunately let down by less than ideal performances.

Bellini’s songs are not performed that often and indeed this is only the second recording of his Composizioni da Camera I’ve come across. Veronica Kincses recorded the complete set for Hungaroton back in 1982, though a few of the songs have appeared on various recital discs over the years.

They were probably written some time in the 1820s and it is unlikely that Bellini intended them all to be performed together; in fact, they were not published as a set until 1935, by the Milan publisher Ricordi. The Kincses disc includes all the songs in the Ricordi edition, in the order in which they appear in the score, whereas the present issue substitutes one or two other songs from a different source, such as La ricordanza, which turns out to be the tune of Qui la voce from I Puritani. Texts and translations are provided, some being by Metastasio, but the majority are anonymous.

Most of the songs are quite short, though the longest Torna, vezzosa Fillide,runs to almost eight minutes and is in the style of a mini operatic scena. It is the most complex of the songs and closer in style to the music of Bellini’s operas. However , for the most part, the songs are tuneful and undemanding, and it is not surprising that a few of them have made it into recital programmes of more famous singers, like Pavarotti, Bartoli, Tebaldi and even David Daniels, all of whom have made recordings of the most famous song, Vaga luna, che inargenti, the tune of which kept reminding me of the English folk song, The foggy, foggy dew.

Any of the above singers would be preferable to the Polish soprano, Joanna Tylkowska-Drożdż, who has a rather hard, bright voice and tends to sing at an unrelenting mezzo-forte throughout, any refinement or tonal nuance only being offered by the pianist Ohla Bila. Nor is she particularly imaginative in her phrasing or her response to the poetry. Listening to the disc in one sitting proved something of a trial. The somewhat reverberant acoustic also tends to exaggerate the hardness of Tylkowska-Drożdż’s timbre.

As it happens, Veronica Kinkses’ Hungaroton recording of the fifteen songs in the 1935 Ricordi edition is still available to stream or as a download and is infinitely preferable if you are looking for a single disc of Bellini’s songs. However, I have a feeling most of us would be content to find the odd song on a mixed recital by a favourite artist. It should be noted that five of the songs appear on a 1997 disc by Cecilia Bartoli, called An Italian Songbook, on which she sings songs by Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini.

Contents

Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)

La farfaletta (anonymous)
2. Quando verrà quell di (anonymous)
Sogno d’infanzia (anonymous)
L’abbandono (anonymous)
A palpitar d’affanno (anonymous)
Torna, vezzosa Fillide (anonymous)
La ricordanza (Carlo Pepoli, Conte)
Dolente imagine di Fille mia (anonymous)
Vaga luna, che inargenti (anonymous)
Malinconia, Ninfa gentile (Ippolito Pindemonte)
Vanne, o rosa fortunate (Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi as Metastasio)
Bella nice, che d’amore (anonymous)
Alme se non poss’io (Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi as Metastasio)
Per pietà, bell’ idol mio (Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi as Metastasio)
Ma rendi pur content (Pietro Antonio Domenico Bonaventura Trapassi as Metastasio)

Bellini: Composizioni da Camera (Acte Préalable)