Elly’s Encore
Posted in Classical, Lieder on Jun 29th, 2008 No Comments »
In the early 80s I worked in dismal government offices in Marsham Street, SW1. My civil service career was not going well. Every Friday the BBC broadcast a lunchtime concert from nearby St John’s, Smith Square. Reasoning that an extra half hour for lunch was not going to do more damage to my already doomed career, I regularly attended these concerts.
On 5 December 1983 I was present at a concert by the Dutch soprano, Elly Ameling. A more charming singer it is hard to imagine, with a lovely, innocent and rather delicate voice. Add that to her girlish flirtatiousness and it isn’t hard to see why we were so charmed. The concert was designed to show the range of her singing - from an opening Baroque aria, through French and English song - ending up with this - a song by Richard Strauss, as her encore. Elly introduces it herself, in delightful, not quite perfect, English. I love the way she draws back her voice,as if inside herself, for the last verse, where the girl is thinking only of him.
As my first post, here is Janet Baker singing Vaughan William’s setting of Rossetti’s poem “Silent Noon”. It was recorded from a BBC recital she gave, with Geoffrey Parsons as her accompanist, in 1981, just after she had retired from the opera stage. I was fortunate to see her final performance at the English National Opera that same year.
