Record of Singing, Vol.3
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Record of Singing, Vol.3
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ONE OF THE GREAT TREASURE-HOUSES OF THE GRAMOPHONE,
This series, produced by EMI in the days of LPs, is one of the great achievements of the gramophone – they rightfully belong up there with the Decca Ring, the EMI Callas series, and any other candidates you care to name. Together they provide a truly comprehensive survey of singing right through the age of recording up to the early days of the LP. Sadly, to the best of my knowledge, only Volumes 3 & 4 have appeared on CD – the very earliest era of recording and the period up to the introduction of electrical recording methods that were originally on Volumes 1 and 2 really deserve to be heard again.
Volume 3, the collection under discussion here, covers the period from 1926-1939. This was a veritable Golden Age of Singing – in Wagner it was the era of Leider, Schorr and Melchior; the Italian School included the likes of Gigli, Muzio and Pinza and so it goes on through a broad representative range of French, English and Slavic singers. One of the great strengths of this series is that the best-known singers tend to be represented by less familiar repertoire, so it’s more unlikely that collectors will duplicate material they already know well. And, of course, there is a huge range of other singers you probably won’t have heard and some you may well not even have heard of. They all have something to tell us, though, about the times in which they worked, the styles of singing that were current then and the high standards that prevailed in the inter-war years. In some ways, the most surprising thing here is the strength in depth of the less familiar Schools, the French and the Anglo-American. It is good to be reminded just how good the likes of Georges Thill, Eide Norena or Pierre Bernac were – or from the UK, Isobel Baillie, Walter Widdop and Heddle Nash. Then there are the discoveries like the delightfully named Lulu Mysz-Gmeiner in a Brahms folksong or the black American, Roland Hayes, who sings Monteverdi with piano accompaniment totally unauthentically by today’s standards, but with an attractive reedy tenor voice that reminds me a lot of the underrated Wilfred Brown.
This set, now available from Testament, is a real treasure-trove. The transfers are all well-researched and of the highest quality. Anyone with an interest in how the art of singing has evolved over the last hundred years or so, or who just has a passion for glorious singing, should snap up this set of CDs – especially this volume as it displays a Golden Age of Singing at an amazingly low price.
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|A Superb Collection,
The complete third volume of ‘The Record of Singing’ reissued here contains, with a few exceptions, artists recorded between the introduction of electrical recording in 1925 and 1939. The remastering is quite superb and shows – what may be surprising to some – just how good a sound quality was achieved by the engineers of the time. The orchestras may sound somewhat restricted in range but the voices come through with remarkable fidelity and richness.
The various tracks, rather than being arranged in chronological order, have been grouped into various schools – German, Italian, French, etc – and this certainly is a great aid to listening pleasure. All the great names are represented – Gigli, Melchior, Leider, etc – but their work is placed in the context of other, less well-known, singers in the same style. This shows, firstly, how well deserved their reputations are but, secondly, just what a high average standard was achieved during this period. It is difficult to single out individuals among the lesser known voices but I especially enjoyed Florence Austral and Nanny Larsen-Todsen among the sopranos and, among the male singers, Heinrich Schulusnus, Peter Dawson and Walter Widdop.
In spite of its comprehensiveness, I was surprised to note that no recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan were included. During the 1920’s and 1930’s some of the finest of all G&S specialists were recording for HMV and it is, in my mind, a great pity that room could not have been found for the likes of Henry Lytton, Bertha Lewis, Winifred Lawson and many other fine singers.
However, the set as a whole is quite superb and thoroughly enjoyable. It is an essential purchase for all lovers of fine singing.
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|Valuable recordings, badly transferred,
I wouldn’t dissent from the positive opinions expressed by others about the value of these singers and their recordings, but the quality of the transfers and indeed documentation is another matter.
I collect transfers of early recordings. I also collect original 78 rpm recordings of these and earlier singers : I have a pretty good idea of what to expect. And the sound coming from these CDs is some of the worst I have heard : acid, shallow and penetrating. Weird digital effects abound, with many voices edgy and furred with distortion not present on the originals. The problem, one suspects, has to do with the noise reduction system. At all events the sound is so bad that this set is best avoided : look rather for reissues coming from other other labels, best of all perhaps, the sympathetic restorations of Ward Marston. The documentation here is barely adequate to support such an important, and expensive, issue.
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