Recently in Recordings

Henry Purcell, Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II Vol. III: The Sixteen/Harry Christophers

The Sixteen continues its exploration of Henry Purcell’s Welcome Songs for Charles II. As with Robert King’s pioneering Purcell series begun over thirty years ago for Hyperion, Harry Christophers is recording two Welcome Songs per disc.

Anima Rara: Ermonela Jaho

In February this year, Albanian soprano Ermonela Jaho made a highly lauded debut recital at Wigmore Hall - a concert which both celebrated Opera Rara’s 50th anniversary and honoured the career of the Italian soprano Rosina Storchio (1872-1945), the star of verismo who created the title roles in Leoncavallo’s La bohème and Zazà, Mascagni’s Lodoletta and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly.

Requiem pour les temps futurs: An AI requiem for a post-modern society

Collapsology. Or, perhaps we should use the French word ‘Collapsologie’ because this is a transdisciplinary idea pretty much advocated by a series of French theorists - and apparently, mostly French theorists. It in essence focuses on the imminent collapse of modern society and all its layers - a series of escalating crises on a global scale: environmental, economic, geopolitical, governmental; the list is extensive.

Ádám Fischer’s 1991 MahlerFest Kassel ‘Resurrection’ issued for the first time

Amongst an avalanche of new Mahler recordings appearing at the moment (Das Lied von der Erde seems to be the most favoured, with three) this 1991 Mahler Second from the 2nd Kassel MahlerFest is one of the more interesting releases.

Max Lorenz: Tristan und Isolde, Hamburg 1949

If there is one myth, it seems believed by some people today, that probably needs shattering it is that post-war recordings or performances of Wagner operas were always of exceptional quality. This 1949 Hamburg Tristan und Isolde is one of those recordings - though quite who is to blame for its many problems takes quite some unearthing.

Women's Voices: a sung celebration of six eloquent and confident voices

The voices of six women composers are celebrated by baritone Jeremy Huw Williams and soprano Yunah Lee on this characteristically ambitious and valuable release by Lontano Records Ltd (Lorelt).

Rosa mystica: Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir

As Paul Spicer, conductor of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, observes, the worship of the Blessed Virgin Mary is as ‘old as Christianity itself’, and programmes devoted to settings of texts which venerate the Virgin Mary are commonplace.

The Prison: Ethel Smyth

Ethel Smyth’s last large-scale work, written in 1930 by the then 72-year-old composer who was increasingly afflicted and depressed by her worsening deafness, was The Prison – a ‘symphony’ for soprano and bass-baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra.

Songs by Sir Hamilton Harty: Kathryn Rudge and Christopher Glynn

‘Hamilton Harty is Irish to the core, but he is not a musical nationalist.’

After Silence: VOCES8

‘After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music.’ Aldous Huxley’s words have inspired VOCES8’s new disc, After Silence, a ‘double album in four chapters’ which marks the ensemble’s 15th anniversary.

Beethoven's Songs and Folksongs: Bostridge and Pappano

A song-cycle is a narrative, a journey, not necessarily literal or linear, but one which carries performer and listener through time and across an emotional terrain. Through complement and contrast, poetry and music crystallise diverse sentiments and somehow cohere variability into an aesthetic unity.

Flax and Fire: a terrific debut recital-disc from tenor Stuart Jackson

One of the nicest things about being lucky enough to enjoy opera, music and theatre, week in week out, in London’s fringe theatres, music conservatoires, and international concert halls and opera houses, is the opportunity to encounter striking performances by young talented musicians and then watch with pleasure as they fulfil those sparks of promise.

Carlisle Floyd's Prince of Players: a world premiere recording

“It’s forbidden, and where’s the art in that?”

John F. Larchet's Complete Songs and Airs: in conversation with Niall Kinsella

Dublin-born John F. Larchet (1884-1967) might well be described as the father of post-Independence Irish music, given the immense influenced that he had upon Irish musical life during the first half of the 20th century - as a composer, musician, administrator and teacher.

Haddon Hall: 'Sullivan sans Gilbert' does not disappoint thanks to the BBC Concert Orchestra and John Andrews

The English Civil War is raging. The daughter of a Puritan aristocrat has fallen in love with the son of a Royalist supporter of the House of Stuart. Will love triumph over political expediency and religious dogma?

Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Choral Fantasy from Harmonia Mundi

Beethoven Symphony no 9 (the Choral Symphony) in D minor, Op. 125, and the Choral Fantasy in C minor, Op. 80 with soloist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Pablo Heras-Casado conducting the Freiburger Barockorchester, new from Harmonia Mundi.

Taking Risks with Barbara Hannigan

A Louise Brooks look-a-like, in bobbed black wig and floor-sweeping leather trench-coat, cheeks purple-rouged and eyes shadowed in black, Barbara Hannigan issues taut gestures which elicit fire-cracker punch from the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Alfredo Piatti: The Operatic Fantasies (Vol.2) - in conversation with Adrian Bradbury

‘Signor Piatti in a fantasia on themes from Beatrice di Tenda had also his triumph. Difficulties, declared to be insuperable, were vanquished by him with consummate skill and precision. He certainly is amazing, his tone magnificent, and his style excellent. His resources appear to be inexhaustible; and altogether for variety, it is the greatest specimen of violoncello playing that has been heard in this country.’

Those Blue Remembered Hills: Roderick Williams sings Gurney and Howells

Baritone Roderick Williams seems to have been a pretty constant ‘companion’, on my laptop screen and through my stereo speakers, during the past few ‘lock-down’ months.

Bruno Ganz and Kirill Gerstein almost rescue Strauss’s Enoch Arden

Melodramas can be a difficult genre for composers. Before Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden the concept of the melodrama was its compact size – Weber’s Wolf’s Glen scene in Der Freischütz, Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos and Medea or even Leonore’s grave scene in Beethoven’s Fidelio.

OPERA TODAY ARCHIVES »

Recordings

Emalie Savoy: A Portrait
05 Aug 2017

Emalie Savoy: A Portrait

Since 1952, the ARD—the organization of German radio stations—has run an annual competition for young musicians. Winners have included Jessye Norman, Maurice André, Heinz Holliger, and Mitsuko Uchida. Starting in 2015, the CD firm GENUIN has offered, as a separate award, the chance for one of the prize winners to make a CD that can serve as a kind of calling card to the larger musical and music-loving world. In 2016, the second such CD award was given to the Aris Quartett (second-prize winner in the “string quartet” category).

Emalie Savoy: A Portrait

Emalie Savoy, Sopran; Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt; Matthias Foremny, Dirigent; Jonathan Ware, Klavier.

GEN 16436 [CD]

$18.99  Click to buy

Here we have the first CD to be released in the series. It features the American soprano Emalie Savoy, first-prize winner in the vocal category during the 2015 competition. Over the course of the CD, Savoy demonstrates great vocal artistry and an ability to handle a wide range of roles and song literature, both with orchestra and with piano. The CD is a bit short (53 minutes), but the five pieces that it includes are undoubtedly meaty: Ravel’s Shéhérazade; one aria each from Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Dvořak’s Rusalka, and Weber’s Der Freischütz; and a complete performance of Barber’s Hermit Songs, a cycle of ten short but trenchant settings, for voice and piano, of poems by medieval Irish monks. (Click here to hear Savoy sing the famous “Song to the Moon,” from Rusalka.)

Savoy, from Schenectady NY, has a full and generally firm voice which is lustrous when soft and becomes exciting, yet not edgy, on full-throttle high notes. She was well trained at Juilliard (Bachelor’s and Master’s) and has completed the Lindemann Young Artists Program at the Met. I am impressed that a large voice can handle the melismatic passages in the Weber cabaletta so well. In that same cabaletta, Savoy also shows that she is well informed about how to resolve appoggiaturas. (Click here to hear her do the Weber aria.)

Savoy has sung secondary roles at major houses such as the Met and the renowned Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Switzerland (e.g., Sylviane in The Merry Widow and the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte), and leading roles at Juilliard and regional venues (e.g., Mozart’s Countess at the Castleton Festival in Virginia). From what I hear on this CD, her voice would easily fill a big hall. Savoy sings with evident understanding in all the selections. (Click here for the first song in the Ravel.) The Brandenburg State Orchestra plays wonderfully here, as does pianist Jonathan Ware in the Barber songs. (The orchestra’s home is in Frankfurt an der Oder—a smallish city about 300km to the southeast of Berlin, just across the river from Poland.)

I must also report some weaknesses. Though Savoy rarely if ever mispronounces words in any of the five languages on display here (or at least in the three languages that I know well enough to judge), she does not always enunciate clearly. I had trouble catching about half of the text in the Barber, even in certain songs that I have heard many times before. Perhaps the very richness of Savoy’s voice is an impediment. Some long notes also show a slow vibrato that, at least at this point in her development, is not wide but might become an obtrusive wobble over time. I hope I am wrong.

The orchestra is sometimes recorded too far in the background, making the singer an almost overbearing presence. A few times I had to replay a passage in order to hear fully what the orchestra had just contributed. There is at times, in the Weber, a loud and long echo that can compete with the singer’s next notes. In the Hermit Songs, the cavernous echo makes the piano clattery. (Click here for the third song from the cycle, “St. Ita’s Vision.”) On the 1954 studio recording of that cycle with Leontyne Price and the composer (monophonic, still available on Sony), voice and piano are perfectly balanced, and Price conveys the words beautifully. Alas, the RCA Victor recording that preserves the work’s premiere performance at the Library of Congress (likewise with Price and Barber) was recorded wanly, though I have read that its re-release on Bridge is somewhat improved. (That world-premiere performance by Price and the composer can be sampled by clicking here: again, Song no. 3: “St. Ita’s Vision.”)

In short, this is an excellent introduction to a gifted new singer, who could potentially be singing major roles at major houses. She reminds me of another big-voiced soprano, Angela Meade, who jumped, directly and successfully, from the Met Auditions to singing the main female role in Verdi’s Ernani at the Met. Savoy handles well very different kinds of music from across the nineteenth century and into the mid-twentieth. The CD gave me much pleasure, though, almost inevitably, from a collector’s point of view, many of the items on it are performed at least as well elsewhere. I would not want to live without Régine Crespin’s classic recording of Shéhérazade (conducted by Ernest Ansermet).

Full texts in the original languages and in English. The program notes interestingly point out how the five works here all treat the theme of loneliness. Unfortunately, the English translations throughout the booklet are sometimes unidiomatic or even wrong: “principal” becomes “principle,” and the song title “L’Indifférent” gets translated as “The Different One” instead of “The Indifferent One.”

Ralph P. Locke

The above review is a lightly revised version of one that first appeared in American Record Guide and appears here by kind permission.

Ralph P. Locke is emeritus professor of musicology at the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music. His most recent two books are Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections and Music and the Exotic from the Renaissance to Mozart (both Cambridge University Press). Six of his articles have won the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for excellence in writing about music. He edits Eastman Studies in Music, a book series published by University of Rochester Press.

   

Send to a friend

Send a link to this article to a friend with an optional message.

Friend's Email Address: (required)

Your Email Address: (required)

Message (optional):