On Saturday morning, Berta Joncus discussed recent Handel recordings on the CD Review programme on BBC Radio 3. Here selection of recordings included Handel's Alcina from the Bavarian State Opera under Ivor Bolton and Danielle de Niese's recent recital record with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants. Joncus played de Niese's account of Tornami a vagheggiar and compared it with the same aria from the Bavarian State Opera recording. She complained that de Niese's version was slower and heaver than the Bavarian account, suggesting that de Niese sang this music with an essentially 19th century type technique, adding that on stage de Niese's personality was dazzling so that you forgave her these musical issues, but that on disc the problems were more noticeable.
It was interesting to hear somebody articulate what I had felt about de Niese's singing. As soon as Joncus made her comments I realised that it made a great deal of sense to me. There are number of singers on the circuit, David Daniels is another, who often seem to attach the baroque repertoire in the same way that they would sing Rossini. It seems that for much of the time this goes uncommented.
Monday 2 June 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Septura I first became aware of the brass septet, Septura , when noting their 2017/18 concert series Kleptomania at St John's Smith...
-
Bach: Brandenburg Concertos - title page Six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments: Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann; London Handel Players, director ...
-
The Afghan Youth Orchestra On Thursday 7 March 2024, the Afghan Youth Orchestra makes its debut at the Southbank Centre at the start of its ...
-
Ben Goldscheider Jörg Widmann, Beethoven, Schumann, Huw Watkins, York Bowen; Ben Goldscheider, Richard Uttley; Wigmore Hall Reviewed 17 Marc...
-
Retrospect Opera's recording of Stanford's Shamus O'Brien in rehearsal Charles Villiers Stanford’s opera Shamus O'Brien pre...
-
Stravinsky: The Rake's Progess - Act Three, scene one: the graveyard Frederick Jones, Jerome Knox - English Touring Opera (Photo: © Ric...
-
Henry Brewster (HB) in 1897 Beethoven: Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt , Smyth: The Prison , Brahms: Nänie : Rebecca Bottone, Alex Otterbu...
-
Listening to the sublime closing duet of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea it is perhaps difficult for us to accept that this music ...
-
Norwich Cathedral Organ (Photo: Bill Smith/Norwich Cathedral) From an epic concert featuring three Cathedral Choirs to the ‘Battle of the Or...
-
Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra I get all sorts of mail, people sending my information on concerts and recordings. Everything gets gl...
You don't precisely define the "problem" of singing Handel with a "19th Century technique" (whatever that might be). If you mean that de Niese and David Daniels sing legato and allow their voices to vibrate naturally, I can only wonder why you think it a problem. Some of us would rather not hear the vibratoless marcato yodeling usually passes for Baroque singing, and we find the tendency of the newer singers like de NIese and Daniels to engage in something more or less recognizable as mainstream operatic singing anything but a problem!
ReplyDelete