What are you listening to?

[Jose Echenique]

Oh Peter, if you liked Callas studio recording you should hear her legendary Mexico City performances with Mario del Monaco. They were recorded some 6 years earlier, before she lost a lot of weight, and the voice is more robust, but all her unique insights are already there, besides she sings a glorious high E flat in the concertante that has to be heard to be believed (there´s a great story about that).

Another natural-born Aida was Zinka Milanov, a contemporary of both Callas and Tebaldi. Perhaps she had the most ideal voice of all for the role, and her musicianship was exquisite.

You must be reading my mind Jose because last week I was listening to the 'Aida' performance you are referring to (I think)
[Maria Callas (Aida), Mario Del Monaco (Radamès), Oralia Domínguez (Amneris), Giuseppe Taddei (Amonasro), Roberto Silva (Ramphis), Ignacio Ruffino (Il Re di Egitto), Rosa Rodríguez (Una Sacerdotessa), Carlos Sagarminaga (Un Messaggero)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Palacio de las Bellas Artes, Oliviero De Fabritiis (live on 3rd July 1951)]

It is a live recording with so-so sound, but Callas's voice is spectacular (like you said). Is this the recording you are referring to? Mine was included in a set from the Bravissimo label
(http://www.amazon.com/Legendary-Perform ... imo+callas)
Do you know if there are better versions of that performance? Mine sounds like a bootleg recording....... :( (but I still like it). Would the EMI version be of higher quality?
http://www.amazon.com/Verdi-complete-Ol ... im_sbs_m_1

So what is the story about the high E flat?

You do have to be tolerant with the sound Peter, but that was one of the greatest opera performances in the 20th Century. The EMI just reduces the tape hiss but unfortunately the sound quality is the same.
Here is the story of the high E flat, told to me by the stage director of those performances. First of all Callas sang in 2 different years Aida in Mexico. The first time was with Kurt Baum as Radames and Giulietta Simionato as Amneris, that was in 1950 or 51. Callas and Simionato had just had a brilliant success with Norma, and there was great expectancy on the forthcoming Aida. My stage director friend, Carlos Díaz Du Pond took the divas after a rehearsal to the house of don Antonio Caraza Campos, the opera company general manager. There he showed Callas a XIX Century score of Aida that belonged to soprano Angela Peralta, the very first Mexican singer who sang at La Scala. In her score, and presumably in her own hand writing was the scandalous high E flat in the concertante. Caraza Campos, jokingly, told Callas to essay the note in the forthcoming production. Callas burst into laughter and said: You are crazy!
Then, just before curtain call, the tenor Kurt Baum who was then a MET star, told Callas that she will never make it to the MET. Callas, oh my God, MARIA CALLAS!!!!, furious, went to Simionato´s dressing room and asked her if it would be OK if she sang the note. Simionato, always a good sport told her friend: "per me dala, cara" -go for it-....and the rest is history. It was not only an incredibly high note, but the sheer SIZE of it, it was like an atomic bomb!!!!
The audience went crazy of course, and the legend of Maria Callas started right then.
Next year when she came back, everybody was expecting the note and Maria of course obliged.
Mario del Monaco who had heard the broadcast tried to sing a high note so loud to eclipse la Callas (he was the biggest voiced tenor in the 20th century), but not even God All mighty could have eclipsed Maria Callas no matter what. The same year she also sang Aida at Covent Garden under Barbirolli, but not the high E flat, that was something that stayed here, in Mexico.
The performance is great besides Callas. Oralia Dominguez who astonishingly was only 24, sings a devastating Amneris, and the great Giuseppe Taddei is a tour de force as Amonasro. As thrilling an opera night as there have been.

[Jose Echenique]

<and James King is magnificent too, don't you think, or do you? The Concertgebouw play like demons possessed, it is a superb recording, it was once a Xmas stocking filler, not sure it went down too well though.>

Yes of course, he is very good, and is common to the Bernstein/VPO and Haitink recordings. Surprisingly, he gives a warmer and more extrovert performance for Haitink than for Bernstein.
My favorite tenors in Das Lied though, are Julius Patzak for Walter, the more characterful, and Fritz Wunderlich for Klemperer, the most gorgeous voice that has recorded the music. The trouble with the tenor songs is that they demand a Heldentenor for the first song and a lyric for the rest, it´s hard to find a tenor equal to all the demands.

By the way, (Mcq referred to it) the Giulini on DG is also one of my favorites, a profound and contemplative reading, but even better than the DG recording is the live Salzburg concert, with the same soloists but the VPO instead of the BPO that was issued not long ago on ORFEO. It´s just glorious.
And Francisco Araiza, a Mozart and Rossini tenor, who sounded slightly pressed in the first song in the studio recording, delivers a formidable performance of it live. Really, a a Das Lied von der Erde to rank with the very best.

[Jared]

no finer way to start the day!

[Peter]

no finer way to start the day!

Serene! I am a great Kirkby fan in these types of works. She was one of the first singers I was drawn to back in the late 80s when classical music invaded my mind to a fuller extent.

I ended my day (being in a different time zone) with Dowland played by Nigel North!

[Peter]

You do have to be tolerant with the sound Peter, but that was one of the greatest opera performances in the 20th Century. The EMI just reduces the tape hiss but unfortunately the sound quality is the same.
Here is the story of the high E flat, told to me by the stage director of those performances. First of all Callas sang in 2 different years Aida in Mexico. The first time was with Kurt Baum as Radames and Giulietta Simionato as Amneris, that was in 1950 or 51. Callas and Simionato had just had a brilliant success with Norma, and there was great expectancy on the forthcoming Aida. My stage director friend, Carlos Díaz Du Pond took the divas after a rehearsal to the house of don Antonio Caraza Campos, the opera company general manager. There he showed Callas a XIX Century score of Aida that belonged to soprano Angela Peralta, the very first Mexican singer who sang at La Scala. In her score, and presumably in her own hand writing was the scandalous high E flat in the concertante. Caraza Campos, jokingly, told Callas to essay the note in the forthcoming production. Callas burst into laughter and said: You are crazy!
Then, just before curtain call, the tenor Kurt Baum who was then a MET star, told Callas that she will never make it to the MET. Callas, oh my God, MARIA CALLAS!!!!, furious, went to Simionato´s dressing room and asked her if it would be OK if she sang the note. Simionato, always a good sport told her friend: "per me dala, cara" -go for it-....and the rest is history. It was not only an incredibly high note, but the sheer SIZE of it, it was like an atomic bomb!!!!
The audience went crazy of course, and the legend of Maria Callas started right then.
Next year when she came back, everybody was expecting the note and Maria of course obliged.
Mario del Monaco who had heard the broadcast tried to sing a high note so loud to eclipse la Callas (he was the biggest voiced tenor in the 20th century), but not even God All mighty could have eclipsed Maria Callas no matter what. The same year she also sang Aida at Covent Garden under Barbirolli, but not the high E flat, that was something that stayed here, in Mexico.
The performance is great besides Callas. Oralia Dominguez who astonishingly was only 24, sings a devastating Amneris, and the great Giuseppe Taddei is a tour de force as Amonasro. As thrilling an opera night as there have been.

My ears are indeed very forgiving nowadays as historical recordings tend to pile up in my house. Hiss and noise simply melt away after a few minutes and just the music making reminds in my mind. I am glad that I have reached the point of such filtering as it makes an incredible difference in appreciating the music (as I am sure we all know).
That is an amazing story about Callas! Thanks for sharing it Jose! I was not aware of her great success in Mexico and how things turned based on her years there. She certainly had a unique voice that moved so many people. It is great that you have these connections linking you directly to the events. Fascinating material. I will not forget the Callas E-flat from this point on! :)

[Jose Echenique]

You do have to be tolerant with the sound Peter, but that was one of the greatest opera performances in the 20th Century. The EMI just reduces the tape hiss but unfortunately the sound quality is the same.
Here is the story of the high E flat, told to me by the stage director of those performances. First of all Callas sang in 2 different years Aida in Mexico. The first time was with Kurt Baum as Radames and Giulietta Simionato as Amneris, that was in 1950 or 51. Callas and Simionato had just had a brilliant success with Norma, and there was great expectancy on the forthcoming Aida. My stage director friend, Carlos Díaz Du Pond took the divas after a rehearsal to the house of don Antonio Caraza Campos, the opera company general manager. There he showed Callas a XIX Century score of Aida that belonged to soprano Angela Peralta, the very first Mexican singer who sang at La Scala. In her score, and presumably in her own hand writing was the scandalous high E flat in the concertante. Caraza Campos, jokingly, told Callas to essay the note in the forthcoming production. Callas burst into laughter and said: You are crazy!
Then, just before curtain call, the tenor Kurt Baum who was then a MET star, told Callas that she will never make it to the MET. Callas, oh my God, MARIA CALLAS!!!!, furious, went to Simionato´s dressing room and asked her if it would be OK if she sang the note. Simionato, always a good sport told her friend: "per me dala, cara" -go for it-....and the rest is history. It was not only an incredibly high note, but the sheer SIZE of it, it was like an atomic bomb!!!!
The audience went crazy of course, and the legend of Maria Callas started right then.
Next year when she came back, everybody was expecting the note and Maria of course obliged.
Mario del Monaco who had heard the broadcast tried to sing a high note so loud to eclipse la Callas (he was the biggest voiced tenor in the 20th century), but not even God All mighty could have eclipsed Maria Callas no matter what. The same year she also sang Aida at Covent Garden under Barbirolli, but not the high E flat, that was something that stayed here, in Mexico.
The performance is great besides Callas. Oralia Dominguez who astonishingly was only 24, sings a devastating Amneris, and the great Giuseppe Taddei is a tour de force as Amonasro. As thrilling an opera night as there have been.

My ears are indeed very forgiving nowadays as historical recordings tend to pile up in my house. Hiss and noise simply melt away after a few minutes and just the music making reminds in my mind. I am glad that I have reached the point of such filtering as it makes an incredible difference in appreciating the music (as I am sure we all know).
That is an amazing story about Callas! Thanks for sharing it Jose! I was not aware of her great success in Mexico and how things turned based on her years there. She certainly had a unique voice that moved so many people. It is great that you have these connections linking you directly to the events. Fascinating material. I will not forget the Callas E-flat from this point on! :)

Maria Callas only sang for 3 consecutive years in Mexico (1950-1952), after that her fees went astronomical. But she sang here: Norma. Aida, Trovatore, Rigoletto, I Puritani, Tosca and Lucia di Lammermoor, many of those with the great Giuseppe di Stefano, in fact they sang here together for the first time ever. At the time Mexico and Argentina managed to get fabulous casts because many theaters in Europe were still closed after the War, for example the Vienna State Opera didn´t reopen till 1955, and the Bavarian State Opera till 1966.

[Jose Echenique]

I pity record companies who have to record again and again the core repertoire to keep their artists happy. Harmonia Mundi already has 2 Matthäus-Passions from Philippe Herreweghe, but now that he left the label, René Jacobs insisted on his own recording, and since he is now unquestionably HM´s star conductor, the label obliged.
I don´t question he is entitled to one, since who can possibly know better the score? As a boy treble he sang in dozens of performances in Ghent, then as a countertenor he recorded the work both with Herreweghe in his first recording and then with Gustav Leonhardt. Now as a conductor he brings over half a century of experience in performing the vocal works of J. S. Bach.
And it is a very fine recording. Best of all is the superb playing of the Akademie für Alte Musik, gorgeous playing by any standard, and the singing of the RIAS Kammerchor is superb too. Here we get the full choir, Jacobs doesn´t buy the one-per part theory, and that still brings it´s own rewards, it´s a magnificent sound. Jacobs too brings his experience in opera to make the story of the Crucifixion vivid, dramatic and compelling, that may be the biggest difference with the more reserved recordings of Koopman, Kuijken and Herreweghe. Overall the singers are good, in the case of Bernarda Fink and Topi Lehtipuu much more than that.
The recording quality is state of the art, but there was a sound decision that may prove the most controversial issue of the recording: Jacobs believes that Bach wanted groups 1 and 2 not right and left as is the custom, and that is so convenient for stereophonic purposes, but front and back, so group 1 is well up front and group 2 is recorded very distant. This is not so damaging for the chorus but it is for the soloists. One gets used to it, but I believe the right and left disposition more sensible for recording purposes.
So a very fine Passion, it does not displace the Harnoncourt as #1, because that is just as well performed but rather better sung, as is McCreesh´s minimalist version, but I doubt anyone who buys the Jacobs is going to de disappointed.

[Peter]

I pity record companies who have to record again and again the core repertoire to keep their artists happy. Harmonia Mundi already has 2 Matthäus-Passions from Philippe Herreweghe, but now that he left the label, René Jacobs insisted on his own recording, and since he is now unquestionably HM´s star conductor, the label obliged.
I don´t question he is entitled to one, since who can possibly know better the score? As a boy treble he sang in dozens of performances in Ghent, then as a countertenor he recorded the work both with Herreweghe in his first recording and then with Gustav Leonhardt. Now as a conductor he brings over half a century of experience in performing the vocal works of J. S. Bach.
And it is a very fine recording. Best of all is the superb playing of the Akademie für Alte Musik, gorgeous playing by any standard, and the singing of the RIAS Kammerchor is superb too. Here we get the full choir, Jacobs doesn´t buy the one-per part theory, and that still brings it´s own rewards, it´s a magnificent sound. Jacobs too brings his experience in opera to make the story of the Crucifixion vivid, dramatic and compelling, that may be the biggest difference with the more reserved recordings of Koopman, Kuijken and Herreweghe. Overall the singers are good, in the case of Bernarda Fink and Topi Lehtipuu much more than that.
The recording quality is state of the art, but there was a sound decision that may prove the most controversial issue of the recording: Jacobs believes that Bach wanted groups 1 and 2 not right and left as is the custom, and that is so convenient for stereophonic purposes, but front and back, so group 1 is well up front and group 2 is recorded very distant. This is not so damaging for the chorus but it is for the soloists. One gets used to it, but I believe the right and left disposition more sensible for recording purposes.
So a very fine Passion, it does not displace the Harnoncourt as #1, because that is just as well performed but rather better sung, as is McCreesh´s minimalist version, but I doubt anyone who buys the Jacobs is going to de disappointed.

I often think about how challenging it must be for younger artists to make recordings of the warhorses of the canon. How does one compete with the well regarded recordings of so many legends? Besides, how does a company market such artists. I think that the covers of cds occasionally are a bit too much at times (in particular female violinists and pianists). The Passion certainly has a large number of recordings to compete with. Jacobs probably has enough status to push for a recording of his own interpretation. I can see how he as an artist want to partake in making such a recording. Wouldn't most conductors (working in early music and baroque) want a try on such a crucial work?

Hmm, Harnoncourt made three recordings of the Passion, right? How do they compare with each other?

[Jared]

Haydn's Piano Trios have not come off the shelf in a little while, so I thought I'd play some of his later ones this evening.




and it's Peter Phillips's 60th birthday today, and I dedicate this Palestrina disk to him, in thanks for all the many happy moments he and the TS have given me over the past couple of years...

[fergus]

I pity record companies who have to record again and again the core repertoire to keep their artists happy. Harmonia Mundi already has 2 Matthäus-Passions from Philippe Herreweghe, but now that he left the label, René Jacobs insisted on his own recording, and since he is now unquestionably HM´s star conductor, the label obliged.
I don´t question he is entitled to one, since who can possibly know better the score? As a boy treble he sang in dozens of performances in Ghent, then as a countertenor he recorded the work both with Herreweghe in his first recording and then with Gustav Leonhardt. Now as a conductor he brings over half a century of experience in performing the vocal works of J. S. Bach.
And it is a very fine recording. Best of all is the superb playing of the Akademie für Alte Musik, gorgeous playing by any standard, and the singing of the RIAS Kammerchor is superb too. Here we get the full choir, Jacobs doesn´t buy the one-per part theory, and that still brings it´s own rewards, it´s a magnificent sound. Jacobs too brings his experience in opera to make the story of the Crucifixion vivid, dramatic and compelling, that may be the biggest difference with the more reserved recordings of Koopman, Kuijken and Herreweghe. Overall the singers are good, in the case of Bernarda Fink and Topi Lehtipuu much more than that.
The recording quality is state of the art, but there was a sound decision that may prove the most controversial issue of the recording: Jacobs believes that Bach wanted groups 1 and 2 not right and left as is the custom, and that is so convenient for stereophonic purposes, but front and back, so group 1 is well up front and group 2 is recorded very distant. This is not so damaging for the chorus but it is for the soloists. One gets used to it, but I believe the right and left disposition more sensible for recording purposes.
So a very fine Passion, it does not displace the Harnoncourt as #1, because that is just as well performed but rather better sung, as is McCreesh´s minimalist version, but I doubt anyone who buys the Jacobs is going to de disappointed.

That is a strange one Pepe. I wonder what Jacobs based that idea on? I would certainly like to hear that effect and it would be an interesting challenge for a pair of speakers to see if they could reproduce the depth of soundstage required.