helgeevju's channel

I hope you shall soon be able to supply the names of the other soloists, the chorus, orchestra and conductor. Thanks again for this magnificent tribute!

I am sad to learn about the death of the fantastic singer Rita Gorr, one of the truly great! In a way she was a Western parallel to the Russian Irina Arkhipova, her almost exact contemporary. They had great musical and dramatic power and authority.

This one appeared on a recital LP in my possession. It is one of my 3 favourite versions of this most heroic aria, the others being Eileen Farrell and, in a rare radio broadcast, and sung in Norwegian, the 65-year-old Kirsten Flagstad in 1960.

Very beautiful despite the fluctuations of tone for which the tape is responsible. It is maybe a bit hard to imagine in this exquisitely lyric interpretation the raving psycopath of the last act...

This is one of my favourites! It appears in 2 versions, either with male or with female chorus. The unknown singer is excellent, with an airborne lightness in her voice and phrasing, a kind of early-Romantic Cherubino serenading one of his thousands of sweethearts!

Very interesting, a fine yet largely forgotten singer. In Tchaikovsky she sounds authentically Russian, almost bringing Arkhipova to mind (the aria is like an orchestrated version of Polina's Romance), and fortunately Mozart is sung with a younger and less vibrating voice. Very, very good, though...

Excellent, exquisite, sensitive and musicianly playing. The Mariae Wiegenlied is partly a transcription of the Brahms setting. I wonder if these are his own transcriptions?

Thank you very much indeed! I hope you have heard the other two as well. The concerto is gaining ground and its future seems brighter as the new year proceeds.

One surrenders completely to the charm of this attractive piece and its gongenial performance!

Lucia Valentini-Terrani remains my favourite Rossini mezzo. The others shine in Rossini, Lucia makes Rossini shine.

As long as the Rach5 title is put in quotation marks and the true nature of the work is explained, I for one wouldn't mind. Actually I did a somewhat similar thing in 1997 with Grieg, making a concerto out of his sparing sketches for his embryonic 2nd in B minor. A performance of this work in Kau...

Thanks again! I just love Berganza'a teaching, so warm and enthusiastic, and her face! You can watch an entire opera in it! I have actually accompanied her once, in rehearsal for "La Cenerentola" in 1973, she was very tired and marked her part most of the time. Once, in the duet, she started sing...

Apart from Berganza's great interpretation, this is a most interesting aria, as Mozart seems to have written it as a test piece for an unknown singer, Louise Villeneuve, who was to create his Dorabella. It is an indignant aria sung by a virtuous girl, much like the even more fiery "Come scoglio" ...

Magnificent, but who is her excellent pianist?

This is the work that made me discover this magnificent artist, on the radio in the distant 1970s. Her voice and personality had then a close parallel in Norway, Astrid Hellesnes Hukvari, to whom I suggested studying the cantata. Happily, she did, and I have a private recording of her performance...

Lisa Otto does not deserve oblivion. How nice at last to watch a live performance, and also to note that she is prettier in live video than in most photos.

Really nice to hear Lisa Otto, who is unjustly forgotten, in such a lovely lyric part. There is so little information about her. Is she still alive? By the way, the correct title for this duet is "Mir ist die Ehre"

Really something, it gets the grip on you! I am fascinated! To my mind, the 1st movement march that sometimes hides, at other times surfaces echoes the deep anxiety of 1940. That hushed, mysterious middle movement is wonderful!

At 11.45 begins a beautiful theme that strongly recalls the Glasunow piano concertos, particularly the 2nd. The Cleve concerto is none the worse for that, and it's about time we get to hear this not national-romantic but international-romantic music that has so long been in oblivion.

A great discovery, the voice is so beautiful, all of a piece, the legato seamless, the aria is sung with the emotional involvement it deserves. The short appoggiaturas were from that time, so one should not mind them.

Truly, truly wonderful, she comes as a surprise to us who hardly remember her name! She shares the throne in this aria with the equally underrated Aafje Heynis.

What an underrated singer was Pirazzini! Thanks for restoring her to us!

This beautiful movement has a curious forerunner: listen to the dreamy last variation in Schubert's "Andantino varié" for piano 4 hands!

Excellent playing and musicianship, a most charming trio!

Thanks a lot, really nice to hear these pieces after getting the score. You have large hands to play the left hand chords in the first one without ever arpeggiating or throwing in your right hand!

Really well done! I have played this piece in concert myself, and it's easy to get carried away and become stressful when not intending to. I agree with you that it could be more lyrical and build more slowly to that desperate climax, but you do a fine job anyway!

Everything here is beautiful, but I am concerned about what isn't here. I wonder why the significant episode between verse 3 and 4, with its ominous gust of wind (inspiring Verdi) was cut. It weakens the scene considerably to perform all 4 verses ensuite like here. I hope Bartoli recorded the sce...

You know, what is lacking in most of the recent performances is not the technical prowess or bravura, it is the individuality of the voices, the voices are as characteristic as the faces. You don't need to watch a video to hear who is singing here at any given moment, Callas is unmistakably Calla...

I am glad you agree, I find Vitellia a Callas role par excellence. I wonder what happened to her "phonetic relative" Maria Casula who sang the part admirably in the first complete recording (for Decca). She was more mezzo than Callas, sounding somewhat like Simionato. She seems to have disappeare...

I thought so. Stignani was a magnificent singer too, and Callas had the strongest admiration for her. About the happy end, that actually happens a lot in early 19th century opera, a tradition from the previous century. People simply got too upset if their heroes and heroines died, I suppose. Ross...

Frankly I am at a loss here. All sound beautiful, but I think I miss my Norwegian favorites Randi Stene as Cornelia and Tuva Semmingsen as Sesto. Among several excellent YouTube versions, theirs stands out.

Unbelievable - he makes a wonderful sound and his virtuosity is at the service of the music. If I hear correctly, the 2 first studies are on the G flat etudes, the "Butterfly" from op.25 and the "Black keys" from opus 10. The next one seems to combine the 2 F minor etudes in op. 10 and 25, and th...

Praise to her for including the recitative, without which the aria's C major tonality will not quite get its tragic weight. This is very fine indeed, but even better is her last performance, in her farewell concert with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw orch, on April 28, 1965. The rich promises from h...

Oh thanks for this! I have her curious, too fast recording transposed up to D major, in which key the piece simply doesn't work. This is the stuff, I can forget that other one and enjoy Dame Janet's superb singing and artistry again!

Big surprise! I expected to hear Kathleen Kuhlmann but here was another Kulman, a true contralto in a noble, tragic interpretation of this justly famous aria! Brava!

Excellent piece! Really enjoyable, especially to follow it with the score!

Thank you so very much! One hears the aria so much more often in concert than on the stage, so many people will not know that it is a hybrid of aria and duet, like the Seguidilla in "Carmen". That made it important to me to involve the tenor.