Nigel Rogers: EMS 22 March

[doversoul1]

Lucie Skeaping presents a profile of the career of the British tenor Nigel Rogers, who celebrates his 80th birthday this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05mqdyz

Nice and brief for Sunday morning….

[ardcarp]

I'm really looking forward to this! He was, if I recall correctly, one of the first singers to master the trillo in modern times.

[ardcarp]

A very lovely 80th birthday tribute to a great artist! I thought the music played was a brilliant selection of what Nigel was good at! I am in slight disagreement with Charles Medlam's description of his voice as 'grainy'. We're into semantics here I suppose, but 'grainy', as for instance applied to a photograph, suggests blurring or lack of focus. Nigel's voice was definitely focused! It had a hard edge and a nasal quality which was very distinctive and made him different from the typical English lyric tenor. He was the 'oboe' of the tenor world, I suppose; and he seldom chose the mezza voce option for high notes. But IMO his voice was wonderfully suited to what he did, and I must say his rendition of Nigra Sum from Monteverdi's Vespers which closed the programme is hard to beat. A wonderful artist and a big influence in the Early Music world.

BTW, isn't Le Jeu de Robin et Marion a great piece.....given tremendous verve in today's version.

[MickyD]

Many moons ago, I remember Nigel Rogers doing a very nice Schone Mullerin cycle with Richard Burnett on fortepiano for Telefunken.

[jean]

'...grainy', as for instance applied to a photograph, suggests blurring or lack of focus...

Isn't it more the granular appearance on the surface, which is a result of the lack of focus?

And, as applied to sound, doesn't it imply a sort of grittiness - a kind of edge, the opposite of blurring? As here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p22d32uKQZQ