Mendelssohn, "If With All Your Hearts", from "Elijah"

[Deejbeard]

Amazing control and direction, you are very skilled and are a perfect voice to listen to in order to memorize this piece. Thanks for singing it so well!

[joenwayne]

@Deejbeard Thanks for viewing and your most kind comments.

[pbj4toast]

This man has a wonderful voice that does justice to the beauty of the music.

[joenwayne]

@pbj4toast

Thanks for your kind comments and for viewing.

[MrKimDuke]

this is such a nice performance!

[joenwayne]

@MrKimDuke

Thanks for your kind comment and for viewing.

[texasinger2]

I'm glad to find nice references of this work on youtube. I am singing this on Sunday morning...lol. Those G's are going to be difficult at 8:30 am. Beautiful singing!

[joenwayne]

@texasinger2 Thanks for viewing and your kind comments.

Greetings to you in TX from NJ.

[MoshToMendelssohn]

This is a first-class recording of If WIth All Your Hearts! One of my favourite vocal pieces ever, and this is beautifully done. =]

[joenwayne]

Thanks for viewing and your very kind comments.

Greetings to you in Lithuania from New Jersey, USA.

[FullofAwesomeness101]

Nice :)

This is a beautiful song!

[joenwayne]

Thanks for your comments and for viewing.

[grandmagrumpy]

This is beautiful.

The only other version I have heard that I like is Jerry Hadley's in the recording of the oratorio with the Atlanta Symphony.

[joenwayne]

Thank you for your kind comments and for viewing.

[MattheTenor]

Thank you. Absolutely beautiful and sung from the heart. I sing in St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow (Scotland) and I wear a surplice and cassock just like the singer's! I'm singing this piece at an organ recital in a few weeks and this is just what I need to help me learn it. God bless.

[joenwayne]

Thank you for viewing and your kind comments.

Greetings to you in Scotland from New Jersey, USA

Wayne Burcham-Gulotta

Music Director/Organist

Church of the Redeemer, Episcopal

Morristown, NJ 07960 USA

[countrypastor]

As a former vocal teacher, I concur. This is very good. I would want to hear it live to comment on diction though. Very good voice, very musical, excellent phrasing. The only thing that my vocal teacher might have said is to sing through the end of the phrases that end on the lower notes. "Keep Spinning" he would say. (To keep the activity, support and vibrato going) ... If I had a student that sang like this, I would be delighted.

[joenwayne]

Thanks for viewing and your comments.

Wayne Burcham-Gulotta

Music Director/Organist

Church of the Redeemer, Episcopal

Morristown, NJ 07960 USA

[mongirlian]

very strong voice =D

my church just recently performed this on sunday

with an orchestral accompaniement =D

[marby]

wonderful!!! and Beautiful!!!

[joenwayne]

Thank you!

[foot08baller]

hitting a G is not hard for tenors. n its sure not impossible. i can hit high B flat in full voice beofre going into head voice. n singing with chest is not how to sing arias. he preforms this piece very well.

[brettrussell561]

Good voice, but I never once heard you use your head voice. You went ahead and blasted the high Gs and such with a full chest voice, which isn't what this aria was meant to do. The aria looks easy, but, in fact, it's more difficult because it requires the singer to constantly switch between his chest and head voice. To hear this done properly is rare indeed. The same can be said for the aria "Waft her, angels" from Jeptha.

[tuttiorgan]

And your qualifications "brettrussell561" to be a vocal critic are?

[brettrussell561]

I admittedly have no qualifications. I'm just voicing my personal opinion.

[pianistgail]

People only have ONE voice -- I know you mean vocal placement of a note, and as a voice teacher he did well. Perhaps he could work on sitting on top of that high G rather than reaching for it --

[wharf23rat]

Singing a G like he did is impossible without at least SOME head register. Just listen to the note, you can hear it ringing up high indeed. He just has a lot of core sound to his G's as well.

[36Thoughtless]

Awesome job...What's your vocal background (aka training and such)?

[PhilipvKlaassen]

Very nice.

[joenwayne]

Thanks for your comments and thanks for viewing.

[mmmmegh93]

my choir is singing this tonight! at the First Methodist Church in pasadena CA

[grandmagrumpy]

If with all your heart ye truly seek Me, ye shall ever surely find me, thus saith our God.

...

Oh that I knew where I might Him that I might even come before His presence

[grandmagrumpy]

hearts  (plural...oops)

Obadiah

[WGJ06]

haha. he made it more sacred then it was originally intended. The words have been changed slightly. Nice job though.

[kmillard]

Just How do you make the piece more sacred?? "Elijah" was written by a Jew who converted to Christianity and was quite devout by most accounts. The whole Oratorio is taken from the account in 1 Kings and the whole first part of the aria is a direct quote from scripture while the second part ("O that I knew where I find find him") is a meditation on the first.

[floydrharper]

Very nice indeed

[joenwayne]

Thank you very much indeed. Glad that you enjoyed it.