"Vier Letzte Lieder"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes a very good record although my favourites remain Jurinac, della Casa and Janowitz

Re the 1956 live Karajan I do not know it but see it has been sneaked in at the back of the Warner Edition Bach,Beethoven, Brahms choral music 5 CD box .

Amazon this morning were selling that box for £8.99 ! I do not know the Bach or Beethoven Missa Solemnis but it includes his outstanding early recording of the Brahms Requiem and Ferrier's solos from the live B Minor Mass which Schwarzkoof reported was the only time she saw HVK in tears so a good buy I reckon .

The price had dropped to £7.76 by the time I saw it, so I've snapped it up! The Bach is the recording that caused the flautist much soul-searching because his solo line was shared with another player, so you can't hear the joins. Anyone who responds well to Karajan's 1950s Beethoven Symphony cycle ( ) will derive very great pleasure from these performances and recordings.

[LeMartinPecheur]

NB this post is not as OT as it may at first seem!

Am currently reading Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. He pays a touching tribute to Kathleen Ferrier, mentioning that he heard her sing in Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, "a Methodist chapel in the slums of Leeds lit up and packed with people on a winter's night in 1947 and [her] voice drifting out over the grimy snow".

And earlier, "It's her voice in The Song of the Earth and Strauss Four Last Songs and Brahms's Alto Rhapsody that I hear still as their proper tone, with no one to touch her."

No doubt he meant "Brahms' Four...", but if only...

#################################################

PS Of course, if there is any justice, and previous vocal range ceases to be an obstacle, KF has been performing this work within the Pearly Gates for the last 60+ years

And if both range and gender cease matter there, perhaps we can look forward to some dream(?) castings such as

CARMEN (Bizet)

Carmen: Alexander Kipnis
Don Jose: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Micaela: Mario Del Monaco
Escamillo: Alfred Deller

HOSTS: perhaps there might be scope for a thread for boarders to present their best nightmares, or make sensible suggestions about works that a favourite artist might be wished to have taken on, given only a small change in range or lung-power??

[Barbirollians]

NB this post is not as OT as it may at first seem!

Am currently reading Alan Bennett's Untold Stories. He pays a touching tribute to Kathleen Ferrier, mentioning that he heard her sing in Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, "a Methodist chapel in the slums of Leeds lit up and packed with people on a winter's night in 1947 and [her] voice drifting out over the grimy snow".

And earlier, "It's her voice in The Song of the Earth and Strauss Four Last Songs and Brahms's Alto Rhapsody that I hear still as their proper tone, with no one to touch her."

No doubt he meant "Brahms' Four...", but if only...

#################################################

PS Of course, if there is any justice, and previous vocal range ceases to be an obstacle, KF has been performing this work within the Pearly Gates for the last 60+ years

And if both range and gender cease matter there, perhaps we can look forward to some dream(?) castings such as

CARMEN (Bizet)

Carmen: Alexander Kipnis
Don Jose: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
Micaela: Mario Del Monaco
Escamillo: Alfred Deller

HOSTS: perhaps there might be scope for a thread for boarders to present their best nightmares, or make sensible suggestions about works that a favourite artist might be wished to have taken on, given only a small change in range or lung-power??

I thought it was his parents who heard her sing that night and that he later discovered he had heard sing in Dvorak Stabat mater under Beecham but that he has no memory of the concert other than where they were sitting and how cold it was .

Perhaps beyond the pearly gates Richard Strauss decided promptly to transpose the Four Last songs for her !

[LeMartinPecheur]

I thought it was his parents who heard her sing that night and that he later discovered he had heard sing in Dvorak Stabat mater under Beecham but that he has no memory of the concert other than where they were sitting and how cold it was .

Perhaps beyond the pearly gates Richard Strauss decided promptly to transpose the Four Last songs for her !

Barbs: yes, you're right, he doesn't say he went with his parents. So the quote about how he still hears her voice in particular works may well stem just from her recordings.

Haven't come across anything about her in the Dvorak Stabat Mater yet.