The premier of Richard Strauss’s
Four Last Songs was given in
May 1950 by Kirsten Flagstad and the
Philharmonia Orchestra under Furtwängler
in the Royal Albert Hall. What has not
been known until recently is that the
second UK performance was given in Cardiff
in 1955 by the young and unknown Shirley
Bassey with Owain Arwel Hughes conducting
the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra.
In early 1957 her debut
single The Banana Boat Song reached
the top 10. It was followed by Kiss
Me, Honey Honey, Kiss Me, and the number
one As I Love You – but few knew that
Bassey had recorded Strauss and Mahler
lieder before she began her pop career.
It was at this recording
session of Strauss’s Four Last Songs
and Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn
that she was discovered by bandleader
Jack Hylton, and the rest, as they say,
is history.
Bassey started her
first and only classical recording session
with Strauss’s Four Last Songs.
In Frühling Bassey’s impassioned
and powerful voice had total control
and complemented the sensitive playing
of the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra
perfectly. In September she assumed
a vulnerable fragility, her fragrant
voice seeming subdued as if in mourning,
heightened by the silver toned violin
solo of Clio Gould. Beim Schlafengehen
was by far the most poignantly sung,
with her voice soaring effortlessly,
accompanied by a perfectly pitched mellow
horn solo. For Im Abendrot Bassey
took on a tranquil, gentle radiance
as if she were singing from afar. Unfortunately,
the closing orchestral passages were
spoilt with the woodwind being badly
out of sync with Bassey’s floating phrases.
Gustav Mahler’s Songs
from ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’
(1892-99) concluded this closed studio
session. Bassey adopted a lush and silvery
timbre for these naïve folk songs,
bringing a simple, direct, child-like
characterisation that many other singers
either over-do or miss entirely. Bassey’s
seductiveness and charm brought the
right degree of lilting grace to Rheinlegendchen
as did the reduced BBC Welsh SO. Bassey
was at her best in Wo die schonen
Trompeten blasen, floating her phrases
with a simple yet ravishing gracefulness,
against a tapestry of serene strings.
The solemn solo trumpet entries ideally
matched her mellow tones.
The Des Antonius
von Padua Fischpredigt, a motif
from Mahler’s Second Symphony, had some
wonderfully pointed woodwind playing,
matching the gusto and bravura of Bassey’s
pointed humour, which was even more
projected in the closing Lob des
hohen Verstandes with her cuckoo
and ass characterisations echoing those
coming from the brass and woodwind,
the clarinets in particular being wonderfully
incisive.
After hearing this
private society disc – available to
the public for the first time one wonders
why Miss Bassey never returned to the
classical repertoire; she would have
made a great Isolde or Sieglinde or
an Elektra. Her svelte, seductive figure
would also have made her a memorable
Salome.
The 1955 mono studio
recording is still of excellent quality,
with a perfect balance between artiste
and orchestra.
Alex
Russell
Shirley Bassey, Soprano, 
