Favorite vocal recitals on CD or DVD

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Somehow I missed this thread!

For me there are so many excellent recital discs it's hard to choose even a half-dozen favorites. But if my arm were twisted I might choose these:






These next two are group recitals but I just couldn't resist:




Not pictured:

• A double disc recital by the heavenly Elisabeth Grümmer singing Schubert, Schumann, Mozart, etc... on Gala. Unusually for Gala the sound comes up clean and clear, here.

• Jessye Norman in a mixed recital featuring songs by Duparc, Poulenc, Satie, and my favorite song rendition by anyone anywhere, Ravel's Kaddisch.

[zamyrabyrd]

Anyone for a Liederabend with Rita Streich and Gunther Wiessenhorn (DG)? Couldn't find a picture though.
"Waltzen und Arien" also wunderbar.



ZB

[knight66]

ZB, I have some of those tracks on a compilation set, she had a way with these pieces, though I find a handful is better than a glut. After a long time with her material in the vaults, DGG have been issuing the odd disc. A realy beautiful voice.

Mike

[knight66]

Across my collection I have quite a varied representation of the singing of Leontine Price. When I set out collecting LPs, I gravitated towards Maria Callas and so often she imprints so many phrases on your brain that it is difficult not to find other singers bland. Price initially fell under the Callas shadow as I listened to her Tosca, Carmen, Aida. The word pointing was just not there. But through time I have grown to appreciate just what a superb singer she has been and that in fact she was far from bland and was adventurous in her repertoire. I understand that she eventually reduced her live appearances to about 60 a year in the belief it would preserve her voice. Whether this was necessary or not, she remains in consistently good voice on all the discs I own.

Apart from a four disc set of five recital discs that span Purcell to Menotti, I also have a disc of Richard Strauss scenes. Was she a Strauss soprano? I am not too clear just what her stage roles were, but in the studio she convinces.

This disc has substantial scenes and is not exactly setting out to be a crowd pleaser. We have 14 minutes of Die Frau onhe Shatten, pieces from Gutram, Ariadne, Rosenkavalier, Die Egyptische Helana and Salome.

The voice is so full top to bottom, always right on the note. She opens up the tone on long notes and makes them bloom. Her breath control is excellent. She is a highly musical singer, phrasing is noticeably good, with that breath capacity, she can seemingly do what she likes.

As to blandness, listen to the Rosankavalier, Marschallin's monologue. At once she bites into the words, the speech aspect comes out well....a real inner conversation.

As might be expected with a singer who has this equipment, she rides the orchestra ecstatically in Es gibt ein Reich.

Most tracks are conducted by Leinsdorf, I think he could have generated a bit more excitement, especially in the Ariadne, his pacing of Salome is much better., though these are not at all the sonambulant type of performances that Eschenbach permitted Renee Fleming to committ on her Strauss scenes disc. The recordings come from 1965 to 73, though there is under an hour here. A valuable disc showing a singer at the top of her game and applying her skills to some highways and byways of pieces I think she mostly did not perform on stage.



Mike

[zamyrabyrd]

Yeah, it's about time to rediscover and appreciate Leontyne Price.

ZB

[bhodges]

Most tracks are conducted by Leinsdorf, I think he could have generated a bit more excitement, especially in the Ariadne, his pacing of Salome is much better., though these are not at all the sonambulant type of performances that Eschenbach permitted Renee Fleming to committ on her Strauss scenes disc. The recordings come from 1965 to 73, though there is under an hour here. A valuable disc showing a singer at the top of her game and applying her skills to some highways and byways of pieces I think she mostly did not perform on stage.



Mike

I like this disc, too.  When Salome was here a couple of years ago, I wanted to do an "A/B" comparison with people singing the final scene, so I must have bought four or five different recordings of it, including this one.  (To be honest, I've only listened to the rest of the disc once or twice, and not for any good reason.      )

But Price was a wonder!  I only wish I had been around during her prime, to see her in person.  I did see her Carnegie Hall recital back in the 1980s (the one captured on disc) but never in an operatic role at the Met, or elsewhere.

--Bruce

[knight66]

Richard Strauss Lieder Simon Keenlyside Malcolm Martineau.

22 of Strauss's songs without the orchestra. I do miss that sumptuousness in some of the songs. Of course, these were not all set for other than piano accompaniment. There are some here that are new to me, of course there are favourites too.

This disc was made 10 years ago and there was a companion to it of Schubert songs, also on Classics for Pleasure.

Keenlyside has a nut brown voice, he can seemingly sing anything he turns his voice to and sing it exceptionally well. A lot of these have been grabbed from what we think of as soprano territory. I will mention two specifically that fall into that category. Befreit and Cacille. The first requires a voice of almost Wagnerian proportions and the ability to use the momentum to fly with the voice. Keenlyside and the piano, just don't manage it. It is good, but not ecstatic. By contrast he does succeed with the Cacille where the impetus is right and rapture achieved.

My touchstone for Standchen is Siegfried Jerusalem, he provides an enchanting version, seductive, quivering. Keenlyside sounds both choppy and grainy.

Other songs come up a treat and it is certainly worth buying. I think it is best heard in groups of a handful as against the full programme, varied and far from Bonbon land though it is.

Mike

[Lilas Pastia]

Some old favourites:

- Franco Corelli's EMI recital (his Calaf and Mario Cavaradossi arias here have never been approached, much better than his integral sets of Turandot and Tosca. And his accounts of A te o cara and Spirto gentil are breathtaking). 1961 (?)

- Callas à Paris (1961).

- Edda Moser Mozart recital (late sixties?).

- Elly Ameling, Schubertiade (including the most beautiful Shepherd On The Rock I've ever heard).

- The Decca recital of 'stratospheric coloratura' by Mado Robin. Some hate her, I just listen and smile.

Among more recent ones, I like the ones by Rolando Villazon and the French arias disc by Magdalena Kozena.

[knight66]

Three very well filled DGG discs of Grace Bumbry. All early recordings. Until now I have had a few of her complete opera recordings, but no recital discs. Last year on TV I saw a very recent concert of her singing lieder. What struck me was just how fresh her voice sounded, so recognisably her and seemingly untouched by age. I was also impressed by her detailed interpretations. She was simply superb.

The discs coyly do not give her date of birth. A little googling and I can see she is 70 and that the recorded concert I saw came from 2002!

Here is one of the main singers about whom we can wrangle as to whether she has ever been a true soprano, she started out, mainly, as a mezzo, moved in and out of soprano roles and in her twilight years settled for the mezzo concert repertoire. However, here is a really interesting article, it indicates she could successfully subdue the Immolation Scene in the year 2000.

http://race%20bumbryhttp//www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,180.new.html%23new


She had sung Norma and that killer role from Nabucco. Whatever worked or did not, whatever was supposedly outside her range, her voice has lasted as well as any.

What prompted me to look a little closer was that the recording dates on the first track here are 1958. Surely this is one of the longest careers.

She has been accused of blandness, her Carmen under characterised. Once more we have a singer in the shadow of Callas. But in retrospect was she bland...or was she expressive within bounds, bounds that enabled her a 50 year career?

I have never found that EMI Carmen to be bland, the voice so suits the part. But I had never understood how versatile she was until I listened to these discs and read up on her a bit.

All three discs are packed, they start with Handel. I had anticipated a generalised, let's try some Handel style....far from it. She started out professionally singing Handel and there is a real feel for the idiom, she is simply superb. Orfeo, Santuzza, Carmen, Sapho and Dalila all are fulfilled with that burnished, generous tone. It can be voluptuous, it is lightened. There is verbal acuity. But perhaps best of a good disc are the tracks from El amor brujo. Tangy, full of life. Mazzel was the conductor in 1965. I would not mind getting hold of the full disc.

Disc two is over 80 minutes, Ballo, Don Carlo....here we get a first rate O don Fatale, but following it, we get a genuinely soprano sounding act 4 Elizabeth's aria...all 10 minutes...this in 1965 when we really were thinking of her as a mezzo. Aida, Lady Macbeth...which suits her exceptionally well; then the historic Tannhauser, live. The very first black singer to gatecrash Wagner's own theatre.

Then generous gorgeous toned Brahms. Finally the third disc, clearly she benefited from being taught by Lehman, she is a natural lieder singer and along with further Brahms there is Schubert, Liszt, Wolf and Richard Strauss. In Schubert's Litanei, she is not sufficiently inward. Wolf's Verborgenheit is wonderfully arched, the drama brought out. I would like more detail and recall from that late recital that clearly a lifetime with the songs had deepened her interpretations. But what is here gives great pleasure.

A real three course banquet.



Mike

[knight66]

Resurrection Man, the name of a novel by Ian Rankin, the Scots novelist. I am taking on that role of revival with this thread.

I have just written up one recital disc on the Kathleen Ferrier thread and here I write about another sadly truncated career, 50 years between them and a very similar impact. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. If you cannot take what might be termed as spiritually charged interpretations, then this is not the singer for you.

This disc was recently issued in the Wigmore Hall Recital series, but under a different guise I caught it when issued by the BBC several years ago. It did not get all that much attention then; now of course it is greeted with open arms.

This is a true recital, a complete live performance. Mahler Ruckert Lieder, some Handel, a Brahms song and a handful of Peter Liberson songs. Shortly after the recital they were married.

The pianist here is Roger Vignoles. The Mahler partnership is strong with deep concentration and focus, very moving and beautiful. I much prefer these in their orchestral guise, but this is an exceptionally intimate interpretation. Um Mitternacht is sung last and has that calm and stasis that I feel is vital, the silences as telling as the notes.

Handel is represented by firsly 'Scherza infida' from Ariodante. This can be sung as an elegy to lost love or with anger and bitterness. Lieberson finds lots of shades and does not stick to one approach, more mercurial. This aria is quite a sing. After this comes what to this point was her only preserved Theodora aria commerating that famous Glyndbourne production. Subsequently Harry Bicket put money together to ensure all Irene's Theodora arias were preserved. That disc is indispensable. Here we get again a concentrated and benedictory version of 'As with rosy steps the morn.' Another aria almost eight minutes long, but instead of display, this one needs and gets exemplary line, long breathed phrases and an inwardness most singers cannot approach.

The Lieberson songs are a good contrast, two in German to words of Rike and after a further song, Deep River. They are grateful songs to sing. They exploit top to bottom of her warm voice and she responds in full to the words. The audience is wonderfully silent, their ultimate applause rewarded with an unusual Brahms choice, a most beautiful and poetic song, 'Unbewegte, laue Luft' Here the pianist has at least as much responsibility for the atmosphere and the wonderful gear changes. The ardent second section gives way to a rapt close and the audience must have floated out, replete, filled, fufilled.

Mike

[knight66]

Dimitri Hvorostovsky comes across as the ultimate ultra-healthy stage animal. Magnetism and zest radiate out of him. This week I have been watching some of this year's Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. As may be recalled, he and Terfel took the prizes in 1989. Though Terfel got what was considered as second best with the song prize. A vintage year. One of Hvorostovsky's competition Verdi performances is on YouTube,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1fmtMMDrLk

It has such authority, it is such compelling singing from a magnetic performer. Little this year competes with it. Though there is a jaw-dropping 23 year old Chinese baritone who will undoubtedly be famous; Shen Yang, whether or not he wins tonight.

HE WON< HE WON< HE WON< HE WON

This year the Russian entrant was in my view the least able singer, a raw student without even the notes for the pieces she sang! Frankly a poor do after they had previously been able to field such as Hvorostovsky.

I have been listening to his Philips recital from 1990, Verdi and Tchaikovsky arias. Short groups of each interspersed with one another. The Rotterdam Phil is conducted by Gergiev, a rather better than safe pair of hands. The recital is a real treasure trove of fantastic singing. No one manages long legato phrasing better than this singer. He seems inexhaustible. The video I link you to above shows just how remarkable his breath control is. On that video, you are aware he is breathing in, here on this recording, he seems altogether to dispense with the requirement.

After the competition, there was discussion as to whether Terfel ought to have won. He is the more obviously expressive singer, but DH is far from bland. He builds phrases cumulatively and does not draw any out of the arc of the plan of the music. The voice is gorgeous, dark brown and placed forwardly. There is no Slavic wobble and his Italian is good; without truly savouring the sound of the language in the way of native singers.

He gives us arias from Traviata, Macbeth, Lucia Miller, Trovatore and finally that stunner O Carlo, ascolta from Don Carlos, indeed we do listen.

The Tchaikovsky showcases his haughty Onegin, his impassioned Yeletski, the line of Ja vas I'ubl'u takes legato singing back to that generation where it was the bedrock of great singing. The Sorceress, Iolanthe and Mazeppa are also plundered for the plums.

Students ought to be made to absorb the lessons this singing can teach. That long Don Carlos aria is the satisfying and stunning close to the disc.

I wonder what tonight's competition will bring?

Mike

[Anne]

I really like Hvorostovsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" by Mussorgsky.

[knight66]

Barbara Hendricks is a favourite singer of mine, I like an identifiable voice and her singing is often very beautiful. Not all discs have been entirely successful. I recall a Britten issue where she was quite simply not sufficiently inside the idiom.

Here is a late disc, 2002 roughly speaking.



Whatever sort of planning went towards the programme? It feels like a random selection flung at the wall, some stick nicely, others slide to the floor, elegantly.

Here is the order of composers....Catalani, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Bizet, Stravinsky, Celia, Puccini, Bizet, Richard Strauss. A rummage sale, dispirate styles jammed uncomfortably up against one another. There is some distortion of sound in loud passages, in itself an oddity. The orch is Radio France lead by Paavo Jarvi.

What works?

The Debussy L'Enfante prodigue, her French as always excellent, the Stravinsky Rakes progress.


Capriccio, the final scene, I love the silvery quality, but here and elsewhere there is now a beat in the middle of the voice that goes beyond vibrancy. The recital opens with La Wally, this voice was never right for this aria and the infirm tone is immediately obvious. She tries to sing it as though it was for the soubrette. There is a fragility and I get the feeling she is often fighting with the voice to get it to do almost what it once did effortlessly. An occasional parched tone strikes in the odd note. Had the recital been recorded 10 years before, then verdant freshness would have replaced the 'effort' needed in both Cappriccio and the Letter Scene from Eugene Onegin.

There are still beautiful things, but the string of pearls seems now not to be evenly polished.

Butterfly.....no, too late.

This one is for fans, not a bad disc, but one that stresses the end of that best phase in a singer's life where the balance of freshness and artistry has now tipped.

Mike

[knight66]

I really like Hvorostovsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" by Mussorgsky.

Go on Anne, give us some more thoughts on the disc, I am listening to it now. Do you know the Fassbaender version?

Mike

[Anne]

The only Fassbaender disc I have is Winterreise on DVD.  Very nice!  I like it.

I'll have to beg off from Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" by Hvorostovsky until I can locate the CD.  I was staying with my daughter and her family for 6 years, helping with young children (17 months and a newborn - oops! lol!) so mom could graduate from law school and pass the bar.)  Every time I came home to visit, I'd haul a few (20!  LOL!) CD's back to her house.  Now I am at home full time and need to colate the 2 collections.

Have you heard Hvorotovsky's CD, "Kalinka" (Russian folk songs) w/St. Petersburg Chamber Choir and Nicolai Korniev?  It is terrific!  I'm embarassed to say this.  I must have listened to that CD at least 20 times before I realized there were no instruments accompaning the the singers!  The choral writing was so good that the voices filled all the air space.  Does anyone know what I am trying to say?

I don't know how others feel but I very much enjoy Russian choruses.  In Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina the choral singing is so clear and true and beautiful.

This is just my guessing but their choruses sound like there is an age limit for their singers and only the best may sing.  They seem to have very high standards.

[knight66]

Anne, I can dance all round your mention of Kalinka, but I don't have it. My folk song disc with Hvorostovsky is called Dark Eyes, there is a folk-orchestra. I am not over fond of the disc. I also have the Red Army choir doing all the usuals, Dark Eyes, Volga Boatman etc...though not Kalinka. Finally I have The St. Petersburg Chamber Choir in a beautiful disc called, 'The Soul of Russia'. A' capella classical pieces by such as Rachmaninov, Kalinnikov etc. A very skilled group of singers.

The Fassbaender Winterreise is quite a disc and she brings that kind of intensity to the Songs and Dances of Death. The final song is spinechilling.

Mike

[Anne]

Anne, I can dance all round your mention of Kalinka, but I don't have it. My folk song disc with Hvorostovsky is called Dark Eyes, there is a folk-orchestra. I am not over fond of the disc.
Mike

I think I have that same "Dark Eyes" disc and I do not like it either - almost never listen to it.  To me it seems vulgar or something.

"Kalinka" is very different.  A song may have a fast tempo but there is a control or artistry in evidence.  If you decide to acquire it, I think you will not be disappointed.  In fact if you get it and don't like it, I will pay for the disc.

[Drasko]

Hvorostovsky singing A Dark Night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nB7Q6hcY14

[knight66]

Barbara Hendricks again......this time prime-time from 1981. A strange kind of crossover album. This one takes Gershwin standards and turns them into something akin to art songs.

The man I love, They can't take that away from me, But not for me....these are included in the 10 tracks.

In this approach she is lead rather than aided by The Labeque sisters. They provide a great deal of 'extemporised' material, (The sort that is meticulously worked out before hand.) that gives some of the pieces a distinct blues feeling. 'Summertime' has a section for the pianists in the middle, it seems to bare no relation to what is in the score, but it works well. There is a kind of serious playfulness, a splashiness. Has anyone seen Joe lasts 12 minutes, as long as a long Handel aria. The singer enters after three and a half minutes of piano. Here the pianists provide an often tender accompaniment that develops into what feels like an extended suite, eventually returning to the song.

The actual playing often feels assertive rather then fun to me, but I nevertheless enjoy it. Hendricks sings beautifully, the characteristic vibrancy and creaminess is well caught. Less swooping up to notes than is often the case. A habit I deplore in other singers, but almost look for with her.

There is about 45 minutes of music on the disc, it is a world away from Ella, but it is an approach that works in its own terms.



Mike

[Maciek]

Thanks for the review, Mike. Sounds like a must have for me. I love The Labeque sisters!