One of the most grown-up review sites around

2020
54,416 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here

     
  
 

 

International mailing


 
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 cpo reviews

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


All APR reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

 

 

cover image

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS

Great Singers Of The 20th Century Vol. 1 - Benita Valente
Benita Valente (soprano)
rec. 1969-1989
Sung texts with English translations enclosed.
BRIDGE 9316 [69:01]

Experience Classicsonline

The American soprano Benita Valente had a long and distinguished career in opera, Lieder and concert work. She studied with Lotte Lehmann and Martial Singher and later with Margaret Harshaw, making her debut in 1960 at the Marlboro Festival with, among others, Rudolf Serkin. She spent several years in Germany but after making her Metropolitan debut in 1973 became a regular there. Mozart and Handel were composers she had a special affinity for but she also sang some Verdi. She had a great interest in contemporary music and many important composers have written music for her. Her recorded legacy is large and wide-ranging and according to Wikipedia she has recorded for at least seventeen companies. The present disc collects items from several different companies, both studio efforts and live recordings.

The three Mozart items all show her at her very best, light, bright and fluent. Her easy top notes are particularly impressive. She is a lovely Susanna and the concert aria Vorrei spiegarvi exposes a fine trill and superb breath control. This is a live recording and the applause is well deserved. I am less convinced by the Handel aria. Lascia ch’io piango is one of his finest inspirations and it is gloriously sung but too heavy and too romantic. It should be more inward.

Richard Goode showed in the opening Mozart song what a marvellous pianist he is and in the Schubert, Brahms and Wolf groups he is absolutely superb. Heidenröslein is fresh as dew and Nacht und Träume utterly sensitively sung. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is one of the great chamber music compositions and with two fabulous co-musicians – Harold Wright and Rudolf Serkin – this live recording from the Marlboro Festival in 1969 now goes to the top of the many versions I have, challenging even Rita Streich’s legendary DG recording from the late 1950s. Ms Valente runs her close and she colours the voice more expressively in the slow middle section.

The Brahms and Wolf songs are just as enticing and over and over again one has to listen just as carefully to the piano as to the singing. Unfortunately there are few recording dates given but it should be noted that Der Hirt auf dem Felsen is from 1969 and the Debussy songs from 1989 and there is very little difference in tone quality. Good basic training and clever choice of repertoire is without doubt the basis for such consistency. The songs by Fernando Obradors are relative rarities and they are lovely, especially Del Cabello mas sutil (tr. 25), which I couldn’t resist playing three times in a row. Definitely one for my shortlist of favourites – which by now is getting rather long.

The recordings are fully worthy of the performances and there is a fine appreciation on the singer by Robert Baxter in the booklet. I hope Bridge will give us further volumes with Benita Valente but this one is certainly worth anyone’s money.

Göran Forsling

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756 – 1791)
1. Un moto di gioia, K. 579 [1:36]
2. Deh vieni, non tardar from Le nozze di Figaro [4:45]
3. Vorrei spiegarvi o Dio! K. 418 [7:16]
George Frideric HANDEL (1685 – 1759)
4. Lascia ch’io pianga from Rinaldo [4:29]
Franz SCHUBERT (1797 – 1828)
5. Heidenröslein, D 257 [1:45]
6. Nacht und Träume, D 827 [3:07]
7. Rastlose Liebe, D 138 [1:16]
8. Der Hirt auf dem Felsen [11:26]
Johannes BRAHMS (1833 – 1897)
9. Meine Liebe ist grün, Op. 63 No. 5 [1:16]
10. Vergebliches Ständchen, Op. 84 No. 4 [1:33]
Hugo WOLF (1860 – 1903)
from Italienisches Liederbuch
11. Auch kleine Dinge [2:13]
12. Mir ward gesagt [1:51]
13. Wer rief dich denn? [1:05]
14. Du denkst mit einem Fädchen [1:00]
15. Wie lange schon [2:09]
16. Ihr jungen Leute [1:10]
17. Mein Liebster singt [1:28]
18. Ich hab’ in Penna einem Liebsten wohnen [0:56]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
Ariettes oublies
19. Il pleur dans mon coeur [2:09]
20. Chevaux de bois [3:10]
21. Aquarelles I Green [2:05]
22. Aquarelles II Spleen [2:19]
Fernando OBRADORS (1897 – 1945)
23. Al Amor [1:10]
24. Con amores la mi madre [1:30]
25. Del Cabello mas sutil [2:00]
26. Chiquitita la novia [2:23]
Benita Valente (soprano)
Richard Goode (piano) (1, 5-7, 9-18), Lydia Artymiw (piano) (19-22), David Effron (piano) (23-26), Eastman Orchestra/David Effron (2, 4), Mozart Festival Orchestra/Alexander Schneider (3), Rudolf Serkin (piano), Harold Wright (clarinet)
rec. October 1970 (3); Marlboro Music Festival July 1969 (8); January 1989 (19-22); for remaining tracks no dates are given



Worth anyone’s money… see Full Review
 


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
Pat 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






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.