Favourite singers on record pre 1939

[Barbirollians]

Leaving aside Caruso,Gigli and Chaliapin I was listening tonight to the Naxos record of Rosa Ponselle's Verdi recordings - heavens she could sing though it was quite a help in the duets to have Martinelli as her partner.

Any other favourite pre war singers ? galli-Curci I tend to admire for her extraordinarily accurate but not very emotional singing and I have a very soft spot for Muzio .

Any other favourites ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Isobel Bailey, Margaret Balfour, Roy Henderson.

(... and the Manchester Children's Choir.)

[Zucchini]

John McCormack

[Richard Tarleton]

John McCormack

indeed. (and likewise Rosa Ponselle)

Frida Leider, Lauritz Melchior, Lotte Lehmann, Kirsten Flagstad in her prime....

[Barbirollians]

Going back to my original post - her duet with Martinelli in La fatal pietra is surely some of the greatest Verdi singing on record .

[Richard Tarleton]

Going back to my original post - her duet with Martinelli in La fatal pietra is surely some of the greatest Verdi singing on record .

what must it have been like to hear her live.....her D'Amor sull'ali rosee from Trovatore, those floated notes....

[Hornspieler]

Norman Allin ("Asleep in the Deep" and "The Diver")
John Heddle Nash ("Serenade" from "The Fair Maid of Perth")
Webster Booth ("Flower Song" from "Carmen")
Peter Dawson ("Somewhere a voice is calling)

Dame Clara Butt "God shall wipe away all Tears"

Gracie Fields "Alice Blue Gown"

All of these were my mother's records, which I used to play on our big Marconi Radiogram (along with a lot of brass band music and orchestral favourites like "Intermezzo from Cavaleria Rusticana")

When WW2 broke out, I was only six years old, but I can remember (and sing) all of those 10 inch 78s to this day.

HS

[gurnemanz]

I love Karl Erb, superb as Evangelist and in Lieder.

[vinteuil]

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW04f0olXUY

[aeolium]

Richard Tauber, Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Lenya....

[Stanley Stewart]

Georges Thill, Ninon Vallin, Eva Turner, Mary Garden, Elisabeth Rethberg, Mafalda Favero, Richard Tauber, Elizabeth Schumann, Maria Jeritza and Yvonne Printemps whose performance of Noel Coward's, I'll Follow My Secret Heart provided an almost heart-stopping moment in my
emerging years!

[aeolium]

I would also add Julius Patzak who though perhaps better known from his post-war recordings, notably the famous Das Lied Von Der Erde with Ferrier/VPO/Walter, had a flourishing career pre-war as indicated in this collection of his pre-war recordings:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Julius-Patzak-Operatic-Recordings-1929-1938/dp/B00000HZVH

[Barbirollians]

I have been listening to a 2cd set of Tauber singing opera on cd 1 and operetta on cd 2 from EMI I bought some time ago . He may not have had the most beautiful or powerful of tenor voices his Nessun Dorma for example is a miss but what lovely Mozart singing and generally what care for the words and phrasing and how differently he characterises the roles - there is a terrifically moving rendition of Lensky's aria from Eugene Onegin for example .

[verismissimo]

Some two-thirds of these are pre-1939: A four CD set from Decca Eloquence, 'From Melba to Sutherland - Australian Singers on Record.' 80 singers in all:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Melba-Sutherland-Australian-Singers-Record/dp/B01KHULBF0/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1474778631&sr=1-1&keywords=from+melba+to+sutherland

Nellie Melba, Frances Alda, Horace Stevens, Peter Dawson, Malcolm McEachern, John Brownlee, Florence Austral, Margherita Grandi, Marjorie Lawrence, Sylvia Fisher, Gladys Moncrieff, June Bronhill, Joan Hammond...

I spent a dozen years of my life on this project!

[Lat-Literal]

.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW04f0olXUY

Very interesting - many thanks.

I suppose I ought to contribute someone.

Paul Robeson.