MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS


Alfred Deller - portrait d’une voix
Written by Jean-Claude Biette; directed by Benoît Jacquot
Booklet in French, English and German; subtitles in French and English; German and Spanish voice-overs; menu in French, English and (sometimes) German
Format 4/3 aspect ratio. Mono. Colour. NTSC (All Regions)
An INA documentary, first broadcast on 2 February 1976; re-mastered 2008
HARMONIA MUNDI HMD9909018 [DVD: 65:00 + CD: 75:56]
Experience Classicsonline

This DVD, produced in France and manufactured in Italy, is a remarkable document, comprising rehearsals, performances and, best of all, rarely-seen personal interviews with the great English counter-tenor, Alfred Deller. 

I met Alfred only twice and that briefly, but sufficient to establish my conviction that the really great artists are essentially humble, and - one might add - thoroughly nice people, unaffected by fame. Further encounters over the years with other artists have served only to support this belief! This is certainly the impression of Deller that one gets from this programme.

Technically the film is acceptable though not outstanding. It is a French production from 1975, but mostly in English since it shows English musicians speaking and singing - here one has French subtitles - the relatively brief French commentary has English subtitles. It has the air of a home video shot by someone who is not very good at keeping the camera steady. The subtitles wobble too, and shimmer in a peculiar manner. Continuity is sometimes rather self-conscious, and two intervals during which for several seconds we gaze for no particular reason at a green field and distant trees suggest moments of repose before and after the intended insertion of a commercial break. Presumably this programme was originally shown on French television, and one has to admit it has in its occasional awkwardness a certain Gallic charm!

But none of this really matters: it is wonderful to have so much of Deller speaking informally in Stour Festival country - at Barton Cottage, his home near Ashford in the Weald of Kent, outside Boughton Aluph church, where he is buried, and at Olantigh House, grandest of the Stour Festival locations. Musical inserts include rehearsals and performances with Alfred’s son Mark, the lutenist Robert Spencer, and the members of the Deller Consort - Honor Sheppard, Paul Elliott, Neil Jenkins and the peerless Maurice Bevan.

The sequence is broadly chronological, from Deller’s days as a choirboy at his local church, to the discovery that he could after puberty continue to sing in the same way but with an added masculine resonance; joining the Canterbury Cathedral choir and being heard by Michael Tippett, for whom, famously, ‘the centuries rolled back’; moving to St Paul’s Cathedral in London; forming the Deller Consort. He had to cope with the shock his voice gave to the unsuspecting listener, but reminds us that all men - be they tenors, baritones or basses - have a head register, a pharyngeal voice; most of them choose not to use it, but they still have it.

But it is the musical qualities that shine through: the recognition of words as the basis of a performance (here he cites Purcell as a composer ‘having a peculiar Genius to express the Energy of English Words, whereby he mov’d the Passions of all his Auditors’, as Henry Playford commented in 1698). Within the basic rhythm, the singer must seize the possibilities offered by the rise and fall and the nuances of the language, depending on the artistry of the individual. Call them ‘Dellerisms’ if you like, but they are fundamental to his passion for the music. To me, the nobility of the voice cannot be gainsaid.

‘Come what may, this is the way I had to go; this is the only way, musically, that I could satisfactorily express what was inside. I felt compelled to do this. … The music we sing, although it was written four hundred years ago, expresses emotions that are timeless, in music worthy of a human being … [which] gets to the very heart of emotion. And this quality speaks across the centuries to a sensitive person. It’s not important that they have little or no knowledge of the thing - it’s the musical experience to which they respond. … This applies to music and to all great art: there is the possibility of being moved, and the possibility of deep appreciation at every level of mental approach.’

This is a two-disc set, one being the DVD (lasting one hour) and the other a ‘bonus’ audio CD (76') with further performances (20 tracks) featuring such regular collaborators as Desmond Dupré (lute) and Robert Elliott (harpsichord), and David Munrow and William Christie among the others. The music encompasses the English lute song composers (including nine Shakespeare settings), Henry Purcell, and the Italians Caccini and Saracini. The longest piece, Alessandro Scarlatti’s Infirmata vulnerata, with the violinists Clarence Myerscough and Irvine Arditti, ends the disc.

Garry Humphreys 

 
 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.