Soprano Nellie Melba ~ Pastorale (1906)

By request from "meltzerboy" / Australian Soprano Nellie Melba (1861-1931) / Pastorale (Bizet) / Recorded: July 7, 1906 --

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Australian
• Soprano
• Nellie
• Melba
• Bizet
• Pastorale
• 78
• rpm
• CurzonRoad

[schattensand]

Today she would have no chance, too light, too undimensional, so I guess she shares some similarities with your beloved Amelita.

I like her simplicity, sounds so innocent, young.

[CurzonRoad]

Contemporary reviews are diametrically in opposition to this, and doubt today if there would be many takers. Artists 100+ years ago were compelled to make very real adjustments in the limited recording process, but Melba could project power in both the house and studio. As another viewer has mentioned, the esteemed critic W.J. Henderson described her voice as "glowing with a star-like brilliance, shining with a white flame."

[CurzonRoad]

Hardly young at the time of this recording, and past her prime, one can imagine her smiling at being described so. In short, with her gifts, hardheadedness and cunning, methinks she'd manage well enough even in today's world. THANK YOU!

[MrCafiero]

@schattensand "Light"? Certainly she is 5 times bigger than Dessay.

[vstasov]

Many thanks for this rare treasure - and yes, what a trill!

[AulicExclusiva]

I agree. Within a palette limited by her very light tone, Galli Curci could produce bewitchingly expressive sounds. NEVER through any muscular or rhetorical emphasis: always by the sheer sorcery of her tone sul fiato—on the breath.

That's why I love GC's Trovatore disks: she sets the perfect nocturnal mood, without ever straying from pure singing.

[AulicExclusiva]

Yes, but portamento refers to the shape of the phrase. I was talking about the expressive effect that the sudden introduction of the chest register, its distinct colour, has on the words.

[meltzerboy]

Touche. I hate to argue against Melba, one of the greatest singers on record. I love her singing almost as much--and, at times, more--than Galli-Curci's, who also has not the vocal color of a Tetrazzini or a Callas, although her registers are utterly equalized, her tone exceptionally pure, and her singing perfectly charming. Henderson, however, described Galli-Curci's voice as "deeply colored."

[meltzerboy]

I don't mean to suggest that tonal color depends on unequalized registers, yet oddly that is one way of achieving it. Both Clara Butt and Maria Callas have a wonderful ability to color their voices by several means. Ponselle does so too with seamless registers. I'd say all these singers, plus Tetrazzini and Muzio, have more vocal colors than Melba. Again, Melba's "dipping into the word 'raggio'" in Traviata I wouldn't define as color, but as portamento. Same for the word "lac" in the Mad Scene.

[AulicExclusiva]

"...the purest, most beautiful tone emitted by a singerIt... perfectly fits the meaning of the word"—that's what I call vocal colour, not the expressionistic growling that passes for it nowadays.

[AulicExclusiva]

Butt and Callas exhibited ludicrous yodelling effects between their unequallised registers. Melba has a fully developped chest register, which is heard constantly in this piece, but always fully integrated with the rest of her voice. Like the way she famously dips into the word "raggio" in her 1926 Dite alla giovane, or the sudden chest sound in "lac" in the Hamlet Mad Scene.

[meltzerboy]

I'm astonished not only by that trill, but (as I've mentioned before), her voicing of the word "la belle" is probably the purest, most beautiful tone emitted by a singer I've ever heard, and it perfectly fits the meaning of the word.

[meltzerboy]

Nonetheless, I agree the effect is not bland; Melba is not one of those very proper vibrato-less British sopranos who shall go nameless. I agree with your initial statement, namely that there is an amalgam of "naivete, wistfulness, and mystery" in her beautiful tones which necessarily prevent boredom on the part of the listener. One luxuriates in a blissful repose listening to Melba's ineffable singing. The trill, of course, is her trademark.