hedgechair's channel

"I shall have lived a little while before I die for ever" Heartbreaking singing !

Total nonsense to label voices. Some have a few notes more or less at one end or the other, some have vocal colour suggesting lower or higher voice types. Sir John is a versatile singer who might once have been described as "basso cantate", but the C# is remarkable for a singer in his sixties.

Up to the best, I think, Urgent, impassioned and somehow innocent. Compare Peerce or Tucker. Not a pretty man I grant, but does not ghost or fillet his voice like Kaufmann, who thus seems to me to lose his authority and maleness. I have no status myself, bass- baritone; once reasonably bel cant...

On this little exposure in a few moments I suggest

1/ Domingo, simply for his focus, trumpet tone and rhythmic energy. (not the biggest

voice)

2/ James King , Underrated?

3/ Robert Dean Smith, A real voice, good .

@HandwhistlerBen Not myself Jewish, but I have always admired Peerce and Tucker. I think Richard Tucker sang in "La Juive" Shortly before his death. (Perhaps 1970?) In a radio relay, one of the best voices of the big tenor kind I have heard.

Please please no anger! This is beautiful "basso cantate" Can we just be glad to live?

Some of us are lucky enough to know the Schwarzkopf recording, and some, but not me, may have seen her on stage. Fleming , like ES, has such sexy shoulders, no small thing, I think. Her voice is also less restrained , but earthier and more free. If we manage to get to the MET next year (perhaps...

Very horrifying! Vere knew he could have saved Billy: Claggart "In my depravity" could not dare to. Both would have given themselves up to Aschenbach's "Abyss"

and order would have gone out of the window. Vere finally manages to forgive himself as Billy becomes a sort of Christ to forgive him(...

Quite amazing comments about spectrographs etc! I hear a very unusual tenor, with a touch of the elemental, as with Vickers, and a similar placement. He copes with what sounds like a retracted tongue position, without impairing his high notes even in pp. Siegmund at the Met soon should be very...

@lorifredrics Well, we all argue, from our viewpoints, reading these comments,knowledgable or not. How much I agree with you. The chest notes are coloured beautifully so they are not out of the line, and the high mezza voce is not given more volume for the same reason.

DD is one of the most rema...

We saw a concert performance of "Death In Venice" at the QE hall in about 2006. May I just say, as Aschenbach died, that I was surrounded by men and women weeping. Great actor indeed, and a very big voice, filling the ROH at a whisper. Still really sad. Nearly cried driving through Hawkhurst las...

@operatube Thank you for your perfectly true comment. I hope we cannot disagree on both these ladies voices showing beatiful femininity, great technical facility, and though quite dissimilar, except for a purity in the highest range (presentation of the Rose?), Diana, to be cruder than I wish...

Oh! How sad I am. She could make sounds more beautiful than any heard in recorded history. How her loveliness of soul shone through her voice and physical beauty. God grant her rrest and reward and comfort to her family.

The mistake was allowing a15 degree bend/sraighten between the horizontal and point of delivery. Spinners can do anything given this opportunity. A real quick however doing this could kill. RB Desai, Cuan Mc Carthy, Ian Meckiff, Charlie Griffith,and a few more recent and so obvious (PC preven...

Electifying singing! Goose bumps of horror at Faust's kiss! Very beautiful young woman, gorgeous secure singing . A new star!

Ameling's was the generation of Ilse Wolf and Heather Harper who shared the effortless intake of breath and no air wasted in any note. Singers of the highest skill.

Ameling sang English better than any non-native I have heard by the by.

Let us enjoy what we hear. Souzay keeps the yearning night mood of this song throughout and spins its thread of magic. Superb line and measured intensity, I think, but not every note a jewel. Thank God we are human and do not look to ourselves for the unnatainable.

I really do think, however fine anyone's ear is, that intonation can only be judged live.

Live harmonics can raise a note a quarter tone to my mind, as indeed natural acoustics rarely may flatten pitch. I felt this was very good legato singing, drifting a little low, which I attribute to record...

Singing isn't a game. Fantastic if any male can sing 4 octaves; I think Yma Sumac, (female) could sing 5. Is there confusion between head voice and falsetto here?

The perceived sensations are quite different to the singer, but nomenclature in singing is always confused. Joan Sutherland's final...