Christmas
from a Golden Age
George Frideric HANDEL
Messiah: Comfort ye, my people
Recorded: 26 March 1940
Messiah: Ev'ry valley shall be exalted
Aksel Schiotz, tenor
Studio Orchestra/Mogens Woldike
Recorded: 26 March 1940
Messiah: He shall feed his flock
Margarete Matzenauer, contralto; Studio
Orchestra/Rosario Bourdon
Recorded: 1 December 1925
Anonymous
Adeste fideles
John McCormack; Trinity Choir; Studio
Orchestra
Recorded: 1 October 1926
Easthope MARTIN
The Holy Child
John McCormack; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 17 December 1926
Johann Sebastian
BACH / Charles GOUNOD Ave
Maria
Rosa Ponselle; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 19 May 1926
Jean LUCE O
salutaris
Rosa Ponselle; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 11 May 1933
Jean LUCE /
Max REGER Ninna-Nanna
della Vergine, Op. 76, No. 52, The
Virgin's lullaby
Claudia Muzio, soprano
Studio Orchestra/Lorenzo Molajoli
Recorded: 11 May 1933
Pietro YON
Gesu Bambino
Giovanni Martinelli, tenor
Ladies' Chorus; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 7 April 1926
Traditional
Der Tannenbaum
Hulda Lashanska, soprano; Paul Reimers,
tenor; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 5 May 1927
Engelbert HUMPERDINCK
Weihnachten
Ernestine Schumann-Heink, contralto
Recorded: 15 September 1927
Franz GRUBER
Stille Nacht
Ernestine Schumann-Heink, contralto;
Stewart Wille, piano
Recorded: 3 November 1926
Stephen ADAMS
The Star of Bethlehem
Richard Crooks, tenor; Studio Orchestra
Recorded: 24 September 1945
Traditional
Coventry Carol
Elisabeth Schumann, soprano; Studio
Orchestra
Recorded: 22 October 1938
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Dorothy Maynor, soprano; Studio Chorus
Recorded: 14 November 1941
Little Child of Mary
John McCormack; Edwin Schneider, piano
Recorded: 27 June 1935
I wonder as I wander
Gladys Swarthout
RCA Victor Orchestra/Milton Katims
Recorded: 20 July 1950
Pablo CASALS
El Cant des Ocells
Victoria de los Angeles, soprano; Graciano
Tarrago, guitar; Renata Tarrago, guitar
Recorded: 22 September 1950
Elinor Remick
WARREN Christmas Candle
Carroll Hollister, piano; John Charles
Thomas, baritone
Recorded: 8 January 1942
Theresa DEL
RIEGO A star was his candle
Lawrence Tibbett; Stewart Wille, piano
Recorded: 15 December 1939
Lewis REDNER
O little town of Bethlehem
Richard Crooks, tenor; Clarence Dickinson,
organ
Adolphe ADAM
Cantique de Noel
Georges Thill, tenor
Studio Chorus; Studio Orchestra/Armand
Bernard
Recorded: 26 September 1932
Irving BERLIN
White Christmas
Richard Tauber, tenor
Studio Chorus; Studio Orchestra/Henry
Geehl
Recorded: 8 November 1944
Original recordings 1925-1950. ADD
Seth B. Winner Studios Inc., Restoration
Engineer
NAXOS 8.110296 [77.28]
Naxos show their usual
acumen by catering for different niches
of the Christmas music market. The Tonus
Peregrinus disc rings some stunning
and disorientating changes on the traditional
favourites and sounds. This disc sets
out to grasp the nostalgia of Christmas
bounded by the usual 50 year copyright
period.
Schiotz (comprehensively
documented by Danacord) with his regular
fast vibrato picks up the solid ‘Christmas
pudding’ school of Messiahs. I wonder
if three tracks of Messiah one
after the other are too much of a good
thing. McCormack in Adeste fideles
and The Holy Child is typically
nasal and trounces the competition for
clarity and word adumbration. Is there
however much joy in this?. The alto-inclined
tones of Ponselle's 1926 Ave Maria
arrive on the scene only after a
lengthy prelude in which the solo violin
carries the line. Muzio's Ninna-Nanna
track, surprisingly by Max Reger,
has a pleasing and folksy cradle-rocking
rhythm. Martinelli is right there at
the front with a voice vibrant as the
noon-day sun. From him there is no hiding
place in Gesu Bambino. Der
Tannenbaum is from a 1927 vintage
78 by Hulda Lashanska and lucid-toned
tenor Paul Reimers. Schumann-Heink's
Stille Nacht was taken down in
1926. Her trembling soprano is very
intimately balanced and with a balalaika
effect orchestra - surely that is a
harmonium not, as the label claims,
an orchestra. Dorothy Maynor's Go
Tell It On The Mountain is a welcome
blast of oxygen though just a bit metronomic.
The McCormack Little Child of Mary
strong for the imaginative coupling
and superbly insightful playing of Edwin
Schneider. In I wonder as I wander
Swarthout has an ineffably secure hold
on the line - a standout track as is
the McCormack one. Victoria De Los Angeles
sings Casals’ Song Of The Birds to
a rather rigid accompaniment of guitars
from the Tarrago brothers. The 1942
Tibbett in A Star Was His Candle
is staggeringly immediate and secure
by comparison with the De Los Angeles
track. Crooks is terribly tight and
unrelieved in tone. Could he muster
no softness? Compare this with the generosity
and smiling spirit in Georges Thill's
Cantique De Noel by Adam. Thill
is not afraid to give of his personality
- different countries different mores,
no doubt. We end with Henry Geehl conducting
Tauber in a clip-clop, reindeer bell
arrangement of Berlin's White Christmas.
Tauber’s English indulges a Viennese
coffee-flavoured accent. There is a
chorus and an organ and an orchestra
as well. Tauber's high note on White
is ecstatically luminous - a steady
starlit glow.
Nostalgia and glutinous
sentimentality aplenty. Many of the
tracks are caught in the jet of previous
decades' sentiment. Outstanding tracks
are the Tauber White Christmas,
Schumann-Heink's Silent Night,
Swarthout's lovely I Wonder As I
Wander, and the Reger Ninna-Nanna.
Rob Barnett
Bill Kenny has
also listened to this disc
In his excellent and
enthusiastic sleeve note to this disc,
Jeremy Nicholas asks the question, ‘Do
these ancient discs bear scrutiny when
today you can hear any number of outstanding
singers rendering Christmas selections
in state-of-the-art sound?’ His answer
is a resounding affirmation: ‘Yes,’
he says, ‘a hundred times yes,’ because
the music offered has such a ‘rich variety.’
I’m not sure that everyone
will agree, and for two reasons. First,
the rich variety runs from Messiah
to White Christmas by way of
Christmas parlour songs, with some spirituals
and folk tunes thrown in. Some of the
music is interesting and memorable and
(fairly unarguably I think) some of
it is not. A second factor affecting
appreciation, is that singers of equal
stature in the opera house or concert
hall vary enormously in their capacities
to cope with more popular repertoire.
‘Cross-over’ is obviously not a new
problem; some artists sing anything
wonderfully and others simply don’t.
Allowing for acknowledged
yet unavoidable biases on my part, some
examples of what I enjoyed here are
Reger’s, The Virgin’s Lullaby sung
beautifully by Claudia
Muzio, a soprano much admired by Eva
Turner apparently, Pietro Yon’s
Gesù Bambino, belted out
at full tilt by Giovanni Martinelli,
Lawrence Tibbett’s seriously manly version
of Theresa del Riego’s A star was
his candle and Adolphe Adam’s Cantique
de Noël thrillingly performed
by Georges Thill. Though the music varies
in quality, these singers tackle it
all with easy artistry and make listening
entirely pleasurable.
There are other tracks of similar standing.
Gladys Swarthout is touchingly affecting
in ‘I wonder as I wander,’ as
is Victoria de los Angeles with ‘The
Song of the Birds,’ and Dorothy
Maynor’s delivery of ‘Go tell it
on the Mountain’ accompanied by
her a capella male choir, dated
though its style might be, certainly
has an obvious warmth and sincerity
to my ear. Aksel Schiøtz and
Margarete Matzenauer of course, give
their Messiah excerpts with great
style.
Without attempting
a track by track comparison, I was a
good deal less happy with the second
American baritone, John Charles Thomas,
with the tenor Richard Crooks, with
Tauber and with Marcel Journet, the
only bass on the disc, who recorded
his track near the end of his life but
with obvious evidence of former glories.
I freely admit however that this judgment
has as much to do with the music presented
as with the performances. Perhaps not
entirely however, although I’ve never
liked ‘White Christmas’ whoever
sings it.
The one thing that
is incontestable about this disc is
the superb quality of the digital restorations
by the Seth B. Winner Sound Studios.
The lack of extraneous noise and steadiness
of pitch is remarkable. More importantly
though, the disc gives a very good sense
of what all of these undoubtedly gifted
performers must have sounded like in
life.
I am sure that some
listeners will share Jeremy Nicholas’s
enthusiasm entirely and I am equally
certain that others will think more
highly of tracks that I disliked. There
are clearly good things on this disc
in abundance, as well as some that are
less good. Which is which is a matter
for debate.
Bill Kenny
