Elisabeth Schwarzkopf sings Debussy: "Mandoline"

[CurzonRoad]

Lovely, lovely, lovely!

Thank you!

[meltzerboy]

@CurzonRoad This is a very difficult song to pull off. It requires lightning speed and an airy, impressionistic French style. Usually something suffers and here I find Schwarzkopf garbles some of the words but actually improves after the second stanza, even though the song is so short. Still it's better than Elly Ameling's live performance on YT. I prefer, however, the renditions of Souzay, Pons, and, believe it or not, Melba.

[meltzerboy]

@CurzonRoad Thanks for sharing, Doug, and thanks to themfromspace for posting. It's not my favorite version but there are touches of the Schwarzkopf artistry nonetheless.

[monsieurw1]

It seems to me that she evokes the style of the poem and of the melodie quite nicely.  Her voice is beautiful as always, there's a delightful lightness to it, and her French sounds tout a fait clair to me.

[Noshirm]

Beautiful! (:-D)

[romondesbert]

Horrible. Diction française incompréhensible, style chichiteux, vilaine voix acide. On pourrait lui retourner l'amabilité qu'elle avait dite à une chanteuse française chantant du lied "pour chanter cette musique, il faut être française".

[dapheneo]

@romondesbert Bien d'accord !

Qui etait la chanteuse francaise ?

Ces gens ( Walter Legge etc ) faisaient regner un terrorisme terrible il y a 30 ans.

Ils etaient toujours a la place des "vrais connaisseurs"

Je pense que tout chez Schwartzkopf est tellement fabrique que l'emotion n'arrive jamais.Cela peut etre (et meme souvent) tres beau on entend rarement le naturel , y compris en Marechale ou Crespin est bien meilleure.

[dorofacol]

I have heard this performed by Gerard Souzay, in a wonderful performance. How truly satisfying it is to hear this, though. Thank you so much for posting it.

[romondesbert]

Gérard Souzay singing german lied was far better than schwazkopf trying to sing French Mélodie ! A shame she didn't ask him some advice to pronounce french properly and to learn the real style of this music that she obviously ignored.