Curiosities

• An interesting (read: seriously weird) juxtaposition. Lucy Shelton singing David del Tredici's bizarre, atonal and often hilarious "Vintage Alice" (set for soprano, two saxophones, mandolin, banjo, accordion and chamber ensemble) followed immediately by Elena Souliotis crashbanging her way through Anna Bolena's "O dolce guidami" and some Big Verdi. Frankly, Elena is jarring enough (though not without a thrill or three) without the added confusion of listening when my brain was still in del Tredici mode.
• I haven't listened to it yet. But as it was 1. appealing and 2. a serious bargain, I've bought a copy of Kent Nagano's recording of the French version of Salome. I probably should own a copy of the German version before trying this one out, but too late. It looks intriguing, and contains José van Dam, which is always a plus.
• Very very bored yesterday afternoon, I amused myself by typing "O mio babbino caro" into iTunes, removing the Artist field from the results and listening at random to see who I could pick from the hundreds of recordings. Mirella was lovely to hear, Rita Streich adorable and Angela Gheorghiu surprisingly appealing. But oh my there are a lot of nowhere-near-ready sopranos with CDs available for purchase, recordings which display huge vibratos and minimal personality. And then there's the truly terrifying Aria Tesolin. Google her. I daren't link. You Have Been Warned. (Hint: she's also known as "Baby Soprano".)
• I have a CD released by Etcetera in 1987. I've always been struck by the warts-and-all sound of it — you can hear the soprano's every breath and gulp, you can hear exactly how much air is being expelled and when, you can more or less hear how every syllable is being produced. Fascinating, but mercilessly exposed; thankfully for her, she comes through it pretty well, but others wouldn't. Then last night, when all was silence, I listened to it on headphones and realised the first time just how much background noise has been picked up. I'm used to the odd tap and click, a page being turned and so on. But on this recording I can hear church bells, a child shouting and incessantly chirping birds. All in all, I think if you'd recorded these songs in a single take on a summer day in a practice room with the window open, and released them without much further production, you'd achieve the same effect. What I wonder is why? I have a couple of other Etcetera records from around the same time, neither of which display similar oddities. And it's not that I mind; actually I rather love that feeling of reality and intimacy, but it's not something I've noticed elsewhere, and it does seem strange, so I do sort of wonder why it happened.