1932 John McCormack HUGO WOLF: GANYMED

[CurzonRoad]

Clarkson writes that Newton Arvin attempted suicide at least three times... "One of those attempts was stamped with a particular, telling pathos. It was the winter, and he walked around a pond near his apartment to watch a group of skaters, ruby-cheeked in the frigid air and glowing with the undimmed vitality of youth..."

[JSC1401]

I generally admire JM, but here I find it painful and laborious!

[saltburner2]

It was very clever to synch the short clip of Teddy and John performing to the 1932 HMV recording [which was with Schneider, not Moore]! They might almost have been performing the same song on film - but is that possible?

In 1932 John sang Gerontius, and Fred Gaisberg was keen to record the complete oratorio with McCormack and Elgar, but HMV bosses ruled it out.

That would have been worth hearing!

[sanfranphono]

@saltburner2 No, just careful adjustting of the video clip, and perhaps some tweaking of the video so that the mouth movements seem resonable.

Didn't know that McCormack did Gerontius, would have been a treat, though Widdop is divine too.



[Beevac]

I own a copy of the HMV 78 of McCormack doing this song. It is definitive.

[heathfieldclose]

Not the best German, but oh the Art and the singing 5*****

[ciroalb3]

@heathfieldclose A native German I knew liked John's German with that delicious brogue. I think g. Moore accompanied on this, but Teddy Schneider used to help the Master with his German diction.

[AulicExclusiva]

Amazing in every way. Superb interpretation, perfectly apt visuals. Thanks.

[dandelion1967]

Skaaaaaaating frooooom noooote toooo nooooooote... thoug is a very good rendition

[paulostroff99]

Stunning! Was there indeed anything that John could not sing better than almost anyone else.

[macciboma]

Bel video storico. Grazie

[sanfranphono]

Thanks for the comment. This was canned a translation from the web. I just made sure that there was no major mistake.

Artwork and the Mythos of Ganymed - read the Wikipedia entry - hugely interesting. From Plato to the Christian interpretation of G as a prefiguration of St. John. You have to love these old archetypical Myths. And of course Goethe, who would spin them back- and forwards : )

[serdarzzt]

I've come across this interpretation in Gerald Clarke's great biography of Truman Capote. He mentions Capote's mentor and lover Newton Arvin listening to it. I'm sure he would have loved your artwork. suggested translation for "Wohin?": whither (better than "To where")

[CurzonRoad]

@serdarzzt

Yes, if memory serves correctly, from Clarke's biography... Arvin, one Truman Capote's early lovers, who won the National Book Award for his Herman Melville biography, and to whom Capote dedicated Other Voices, Other Rooms, attempted suicide via sleeping pills to the strains of McCormack's recording of Ganymed, on automatic replay.

[CurzonRoad]

"Newton would have traded everything he had done and all he had written if he could have exchanged places with one of those robust young athletes skating effortlessly across the ice. After gazing at them for some time, he trudged home to his apartment, opened a bottle of liquor, and played over and over, a recording of John McCormack singing Hugo Wolf's Ganymede."

[colombosithon]

Another posting that is a work of art in its own right from Sanfranphono. Thank you!