Posted in Classical on Apr 30th, 2009 No Comments »
I first started collecting classical records around 1968. I was teaching in London and didn’t have much money. Most of my collection was of budget labels - Ace of Clubs, Classics for Pleasure and Saga. Saga LPs were the most interesting, but strangely recorded and badly pressed, warped, full of clicks and pops. But at 10 shillings (50p) I couldn’t complain. The Italian pianist Sergio Fiorentino made a number of recordings for the label. I particularly remember an LP (now lost) of Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto, fine and exhilerating, spoiled by a ‘wow’ tape fluctuation at the climax of the third movement.
The critical response to him at the time was rather lukewarm; some praise for his spontaneity, criticism for impetuosity. Not knowing what I was supposed to be listening to, I found him exhilerating and enchanting by turns. A real human personality shining through the crackle of clicks and pops.
Here he is playing Liszt’s famous Liebestraume No.3. It’s taken from one of those Saga LPs, so the sound isn’t perfect and you may also need to turn up the volume.
But I was right.
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Posted in Chanson, Farewells on Apr 25th, 2009 1 Comment »
When I first heard this song, written and sung by the incomparable French chanteuse, Barbara, I thought it was about a woman, who after years of separation, is returning to see her long lost lover in the last moments of his life. Till almost the end, there is nothing in the song to make us us think otherwise. Then, just before the close, Barbara stops and, in a light high voice filled with anguish pronounces the words “Mon père. Mon père.” It is not a lost lover she has come to find again but someone deeper-buried in her heart – her father. What has been touching and sad to this point now becomes tragic. The song could only have this tragic quality carried on the voice of a woman, invoking the special quality of a daughter’s relationship with her father, that no other can share. Here’s the final verse.
‘He came back one evening. It was his last journey, it was his last resting place. Before dying he wanted to warm himself again in my smile but he died the same night without saying farewell or “I love you”. By the road that runs by the sea, sleeping in the garden of stones I saw him to his rest. I laid him to rest under the roses.
My father. My father.
It is raining over Nantes. And I remember. The sky over Nantes pains my heart.’
There is something in the flat way Barbara delivers the words, as if struggling to show no emotion, that makes it so compelling.
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Posted in Classical, Opera on Apr 19th, 2009 No Comments »
The duet, ‘From the Depths of the Temple’ from Bizet’s opera ‘The Pearl Fishers’, has always been immensely popular, and for some years was the most popular selection in the BBC’s ‘One Hundred Best Tunes.’ It was also my mother’s favourite. When I was 14 I bought it for her as a 45rpm record - an EP, or Extended PLay, two numbers on each side. In addition there was the duet from the fourth Act of La Boheme, and the tenor arias ‘Questa o quella’ from Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ and the ‘Lamento di Federico’ from Cilea’s ‘L’Arlesiana’. I don’t have to remember them - I have her EP here before me.
The tenor in question is Jussi Bjoerling, one of the finest tenors since Caruso, equalled only by Pavarotti. Here he is singing Bizet’s duet, with Robert Merrill, in that famous recording my mother loved so much.
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Posted in Classical on Apr 17th, 2009 No Comments »
From Berlioz’s song cycle ‘Les Nuits d’été’ - Summer Nights - settings of poems by Theophile Gautier. Unlike much other Berlioz, this has nothing of his bombast, or supercharged energy. These are quiet, reflective and melancholy.
The poet is separated from his lover. He feels her absence bitterly, and wishes he had wings so he may, like the dove, fly to her. So much distance between their hearts, their kisses.
‘Come back, come back, my beloved. As a flower far from the sun’s light, the flower of my life is closed, far from your golden smile.’
The singer, in this classic version, is Régine Crespin.
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Posted in Folk Music, Canzone on Apr 13th, 2009 No Comments »
Angelo Branduardi is my favourite contemporary Italian singer. He’s my generation too. His songs are a mix of rock, folk and ancient music, about vague inner yearnings for a better, unrealisable world or a perfect love. There was lot of it about in the 1960s. Sometimes it’s a bit much, but a glass or two of wine releases the inner bonds of constraint and the ancient hippy in me rises to the surface. Here’s one of his best.
‘We’re rivers running to the sea, divided, yearning for each other, searching blindly, like rivers running to the sea.’
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Guglielmo and Ferrando have been summoned to war, leaving their sweethearts, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, at home and prey to the machinations of the world weary cynic, Don Alfonso. Mayhem ensues. But here, at this moment of innocence, the three of them stand and watch them sail away, across the Bay of Naples.
‘May the winds be gentle, and the waves be calm, and every element respond sweetly to our desires.’
The most sublime trio in all opera.
Lisa della Casa, Christa Ludwig and Paul Schoeffler.
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Posted in Popular Song on Apr 3rd, 2009 No Comments »
Frank Sinatra’s ‘Songs for Swingin’ Lovers’, with suave orchestral accompaniment by Nelson Riddle, came out in 1956, and now, more than 50 years on, and out of copyright, is now available on CD at very low prices. The album is a classic. It has not dated one bit.
Sinatra’s singing is masterly, his smooth, velvet voice caressing the lyrics where they need it, and when the rhythm demands, punching the beat like a drummer.
Here is his version of ‘Too Marvellous for Words’, with Johnny Mercer’s lyrics. Vocally it is almost flawless. I have some reservations about Sinatra’s way with the lyrics (see here), but his presentation of the song is immensely seductive.
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