Episode 166. Dan’s Picks

Episode 166. Dan’s Picks

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I got a record player from Santa the year I turned four.
My grandfather posed me in front of it and snapped this picture.
Do you not adore this little homo in training?

This week I celebrated my birthday, so today is the second of this month’s birthday celebrations. A number of my listeners have been asking me for a while to post an episode featuring my favorite singers and recordings. So here it is! We lead off with a brief memorial tribute to Angela Lansbury, who died in the early California morning of my birthday. The rest of the episode features many recordings that I first got to know as I began exploring the world of great singing on records. Leontyne Price, Maria Callas, Alexander Kipnis, Elisabeth Söderström, Richard Lewis, Renata Scotto, Adele Addison, Gundula Janowitz, Margaret Price, Teresa Stratas, Gérard Souzay: all of these artists were formative figures in my early listening experience. My appreciation of some others came later: Hina Spani, Brigitte Fassbaender, Georges Thill, Sylvia Sass, Nicolai Gedda, Kirsten Flagstad. By this late date, all of them have been favorite artists of mine for decades and are represented on the episode by some of their greatest recordings. The episode concludes with a brief tribute to the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams on the occasion of his 150th birthday, also celebrated this week.

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

Jerry Herman: If He Walked into My Life (Mame). Angela Lansbury, Orchestra conducted by Donald Pippin [1966]

Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hoffmansthal: Zweite Brautnacht! (Die ägyptische Helena). Leontyne Price, unknown conductor and orchestra [live London radio transmission 1959]

Vincenzo Bellini, Carlo Pepoli: O rendetemi la speme… Vien, diletto (I Puritani). Maria Callas, Arturo Basile, Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della RAI [1949]

Pietro Mascagni, Giovacchino Forzano (after Ouida [Marie Louise de la Ramée]: Flammen, perdonami (Lodoletta). Renata Scotto, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, London Symphony Orchestra [1975]

Giuseppe Verdi, Salvadore Cammarano (after Antonio García Gutiérrez): D’amor sull’ali rosee (Il trovatore). Sylvia Sass, Lamberto Gardelli, National Philharmonic Orchestra [1979]

Alfredo Catalani, Luigi Illica (after Wilhelmine von Hillern): Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (La Wally). Hina Spani, Carlo Sabajno, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala [1928]

Giovanni Battista Bassani: Posate, dormite. Gérard Souzay, Jacqueline Bonneau [1948]

George Frideric Handel, Antonio Salvi: Rend’il sereno al ciglio (Sosarme). Elisabeth Rethberg [1928]

George Frideric Handel, Thomas Morell: Waft her, angels, through the skies (Jephtha). Richard Lewis, Malcolm Sargent, London Symphony Orchestra [1958]

Franz Schubert, Ludwig Rellstab: Aufenthalt, D. 957/5. Alexander Kipnis, Frank Bibb [1928]

Franz Schubert, Heinrich Heine: Ihr Bild, D. 957/9. Brigitte Fassbaender, Aribert Reimann [1992]

Franz Schubert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Erlkönig, D.328. Elisabeth Söderström, Paul Badura-Skoda [1984]

Johannes Brahms, Klaus Groth: O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück [Heimweh I], Op. 63/8. Kirsten Flagstad, Edwin McArthur [1952]

Carl Maria von Weber, Friedrich Kind (after Johann August Apel, Friedrich Laun): Und ob die Wolke sie verhülle (Der Freischütz). Gundula Janowitz, Ferdinand Leitner, Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin [1967]

Francesco Cilea, Arturo Colauti (after Eugène Scribe, Ernest Legouvé): Acerba voluttà (Adriana Lecouvreur). Oralia Domínguez, Oliviero de Fabritiis, Orquesta Unión Filarmónica de México [live Mexico City 1951]

Adolphe Adam, Adolphe de Leuven, Léon Lévy Brunswick: Mes amis, écoutez l’histoire (Le Postillon de Longjumeau). Nicolai Gedda, Georges Prêtre, Orchestre National de la RTF [1963]

Charles Gounod, Jules Barbier, Michel Carré (after William Shakespeare): Ô ma femme! Ô ma bien-aimée! (Roméo et Juliette). Georges Thill, Orchestra conducted by Joseph-Étienne Szyfer [1929]

Teresa Stratas (née Anastasia Stratakis) and Lotte Lenya (née Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer)

Kurt Weill, Walter Mehring: Wie lange noch. Teresa Stratas, Richard Woitach [1981]

Walter Mehring in 1964

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giovanni Bertati or Giuseppe Petrosellini: Vorrei spiegarvi, o Dio!, K. 418. Margaret Price, James Lockhart, London Philharmonic Orchestra [1975]

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams, William Shakespeare: Serenade to Music [excerpt]. Adele Addison, Lucine Amara, Eileen Farrell, Shirley Verrett, Lili Chookasian, Jennie Tourel, Jon Vickers, Richard Tucker, Charles Bressler, Donald Bell, Ezio Flagello, George London, Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic [live New York 23.IX.62]

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