My colleague Jonathan
Woolf gives a brief overview of Galvany’s
career in his review of this very disc
(http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Dec04/Galvany.htm
). From these discs it appears that
Galvany’s strength was that she knew
her weaknesses. Or more to the point,
she knew what she could sing and stuck
to it. Her armoury of stratospheric
staccato may be impressive the first
time one hears it - I would lay money
on it - but as a near-omnipresent entity
it soon palls; similarly the sameness
of repertoire-type. First and foremost,
this is a disc for sampling. It is true
that your reviewer here has listened
to it in one sitting - plus revisiting
various tracks, some several times -
but I would not recommend it for those
of unstable sanity; it could just tip
them over the edge.
The recordings here
are all from red label G&Ts and
all come from the short period 1906-08
and are mostly with orchestra - or scratch
band if we’re being honest – the splatter
that is an excuse for a tutti opening
chord in, of all places, the final track,
attests to this trend. It is instructive
to hear Galvany in the more familiar
items. And few arias are more familiar
than Rossini’s ‘Una voce poco fa’, a
1906 recording; plenty of reassuring
noise around it, then. The cadenzas
are superb. The Queen of the Night holidayed
in Seville, clearly, and one can but
enjoy Galvany’s rolled ‘r’ around the
two-minute mark; she clearly did. The
Traviata excerpt, too, shows
her enjoying herself, showing off her
astonishing agility. Yet the L’elisir
d’amore excerpt (‘Chiedi all’aurora
lusinghiera’) shows she is also capable
of sustaining the longer line (Giorgini
partners). Shame the orchestra sounds
so terribly uninterested. Granted the
accompaniment cannot make for a gripping
three minutes for the players, but this
really is pedestrian.
The longest excerpt
comes from Donizetti Lucia (track
15, ‘Spendon le sacre face’, 8’04).
There are at least two voice and solo
flute exchanges, another repeating element
of this disc that may well irritate
after a while.
The duets here are
very enjoyable if only for vocal variety’s
sake. Try the Sonnambula ‘Son
geloso’ with Georgini, who has a simply
lovely voice, or the ‘Prendi, l’anel
ti dono’, with the amazingly honeyed
De Lucia - a real shame this is accompanied
by a piano! For me, though, the most
valuable parts of this disc are the
inroads into repertoire we might not
hear too often these days. Gounod’s
Mireille is there, sparkly and
attractive, as is Thomas’s Amleto
- Hamlet, of course, but in Italian
- a sad aria that also shows off Galvany’s
superb scalic work. Linda di Chamounix
is represented by ‘O luce di quest’anima’,
which fizzes along nicely - Galvany’s
pitching is excellent - before ‘Obra
leggiera (from Meyerbeer’s Dinorah)
enables Galvany to indulge in yet more
flute-combined frolickery. The various
unattached songs by Proch, Arditti,
Chapi and Dufau are enjoyable enough.
Colin Clarke
see
also review by Jonathan Woolf
Maria Galvany (soprano) 
