The Loveliest Rose

Amazon.com
This must be one of the loveliest Christmas albums ever made, a festive garland of carols performed by four of Norway's finest traditional musicians. Annbjørg Lien is a world-famous exponent of the drone-laced Hardanger fiddle and nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle), and she has also performed with the Chieftains. Arve Moen Bergset's naive tenor is ideal for this material, and he plays a mean fiddle, too. Steinar Ofsdal's pastoral flutes and Bjørn Ole Rasch's pipe organ add further dimensions of unashamed emotion and unpretentious grandeur. The selections include instrumentals as well as vocals, offering opportunities for rest and reflection amid the soaring, four-square hymns. Aside from folkloric material, the set includes a tune cowritten by Keith Emerson (!), original pieces by band members, and even a quote from Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin. That the album was recorded studio-live in a church graces it with an uncommonly warm, natural sonic ambience. --Christina Roden

Tracks:

The Toast Of New Orleans: Be My Love
Because
Kismet: And This Is My Beloved
Funiculi Funicula
The Great Caruso: The Loveliest Night Of The Year
The Great Caruso: Aida: Celeste Adia
A Kiss
Serenade (Brodszky-Cahn)
Torna a Surriento
One Alone
Arrivederci Roma
Only A Rose
Paglacci: Vesti la giubba
Granada
Because You're Mine
Marechiare
Santa Lucia
Mattinata
O Sole Mio

Customer Reviews:

Great Songs As Only Mario Lanza Can Sing Them.......2002-09-07

I love this CD. It has all the great Mario Lanza songs--"Be My Love," "Because," "The Loveliest Night of the Year," and many others. What a voice! Powerful, emotional, and, as I read somewhere, it's a voice that, no matter what ups and downs Mario had in his career and his personal life, never lost that edge, that passion, that intensity, that were so much a part of his
personality. I have spent many hours listeng to what has become one of my favorite CDs.

So-so selections; great sound.......2001-08-21

The chief problem with the majority of Lanza releases on BMG is that they are, at best, a hodgepodge of the tenor's career. Seldom is any logic applied to the programming. A case in point is this CD.

Lanza excelled in three genres: Neapolitan Songs; Songs of Love and Celebration; and Operatic Arias. If only BMG could be persuaded to release carefully compiled collections in each genre (as they do with Caruso, for example) rather than lumping pop songs next to arias! Such practices only undermine Lanza's credibility with the general public; after all, who but the diehard fans will buy such collections?

The Legendary Tenor highlights all that is wrong with BMG's sloppy approach to Lanza. A mere two arias have been selected, both of which Lanza recorded better versions of elsewhere. The love songs generally reinforce the misleading impression that Lanza was purely a singer of schmaltz; missing are his masterpieces in this genre such as Serenade from the Student Prince (instead we have the title song from the movie Serenade - one of the low points on this CD). The Neapolitan songs are limited to just one outstanding example - Torna a Surriento - and the tenor's badly sung Marechiare from his Albert Hall concert of 1958 has been chosen over his far superior 1951 studio effort. (Evidently BMG intended the studio version, as it is erroneously listed in the contents.)

On the plus side, O Sole Mio, Granada and Mattinata have never sounded better. Ditto Only a Rose and One Alone from Lanza's final recording sessions. There are also a number of pleasant recordings (A Kiss, Because, the ubiquitous Be My Love, and an exciting Because You're Mine from the aforementioned Albert Hall concert).

But there is far more to Lanza than this collection would indicate. Lanza had an extraordinary vocal gift: a tenor voice with a velvety, baritonal fullness, exceptional range, a perfectly placed top and "a timbre to die for", as one reviewer has noted. As if this wasn't enough, Lanza possessed an innate musicality, perfect diction, and a superb sense of phrasing. It is a great shame that BMG chose, for their first Lanza release on CD, to neglect the great recordings from the tenor's legacy.

What are the great recordings? You may well ask. In this reviewer's opinion, the arias Che Gelida Manina from La Boheme, Un di all'azzurro spazio from Andrea Chenier, M'appari from Martha, E lucevan le stelle & Recondita Armonia from Tosca, Questa o Quella from Rigoletto, the Otello Monologue and Finale from Otello, and Vesti la Giubba from the soundtrack of For the First Time (available on video) represent the pinnacle of Lanza's operatic achievement. The Neapolitan songs are scattered throughout his CDs, but his best collection is the Mario! Lanza At His Best (see my review if you're interested) and the Love Songs are well represented on The Student Prince and When Day is Done CD collections.

Tracks:

A Child Is Born In Bethlehem
Lullaby For Julie
Spirit Of The Grove
Christmas Eve
My Heart Is With Jesus
St. Sunniva
A Little Child So Pleasant/In This Sweet Christmas Time
Father Fiddled On Christmas Eve
The Loveliest Rose Has Been Found
Christmas Gangar
For Such Generous Gifts

Amazon.com

This must be one of the loveliest Christmas albums ever made, a festive garland of carols performed by four of Norway's finest traditional musicians. Annbjørg Lien is a world-famous exponent of the drone-laced Hardanger fiddle and nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle), and she has also performed with the Chieftains. Arve Moen Bergset's naive tenor is ideal for this material, and he plays a mean fiddle, too. Steinar Ofsdal's pastoral flutes and Bjørn Ole Rasch's pipe organ add further dimensions of unashamed emotion and unpretentious grandeur. The selections include instrumentals as well as vocals, offering opportunities for rest and reflection amid the soaring, four-square hymns. Aside from folkloric material, the set includes a tune cowritten by Keith Emerson (!), original pieces by band members, and even a quote from Maurice Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin. That the album was recorded studio-live in a church graces it with an uncommonly warm, natural sonic ambience. --Christina Roden

Average customer rating:

John Woods Duke: Lieder
James Taylor , Donald Sulzen , and John Woods Duke
Manufacturer: Orfeo
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B000060P9S
Release Date: 2002-02-26

Average customer rating:

Art Songs in English

Manufacturer: Symposium
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000FDGF
Release Date: 1998-11-24

Tracks:

Mary Gray Of Allendale
The Philosophy Of Love
Take, O Take Those Lips Away
Goodbye Sweetheart, Goodbye
The Swans
The Night Hymn At Sea
She Rested By The Broken Brook
Love's Secret
A Dream Of Spring Op.2 No.2
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Since First I Saw Your Face
Annie Larie
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Under The Spell Of The Rose
Three Aspects
The Bitterness Of Love
God Gave Me Flowers
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The Sweetest Flower That Blows
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Count John McCormack-The Final Recordings

Average customer rating:

A valuable collection.
A good sampling of the last days of an inimitable artist.

Count John McCormack-The Final Recordings

Manufacturer: Pearl
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Cantatas | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Motets | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B000000WQ6
Release Date: 1995-10-17

Tracks:

God Keep You Is My Prayer
At The Mid Hour Of Night
When I Awake
Down By The Sally Gardens
She Rested By The Broken Brook
Jesus Christ The Son Of God
Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring
Silent Noon
The Street Sounds To The Soldiers' Tread
Loveliest Of Trees
While In The Moon The Long RoadLies
The Dawn Will Break
The Village That Nobody Knows
Praise Ye The Lord
Linden Lea
The White Peace
Little Boats
She Moved Through The Fair
No, Not More Welcome
The Green Bushes
Bantry Bay
Maureen (Irish Cradle Song)
Our Finest Hour
Our Finest Hour
Smilin' Through

Tracks:

The Devout Lover
Oh, Promise Me (Romanaza)
A Rose Still Blooms In Picardy
Jerusalem
A Rose Still Blooms In Picardy
Will You Go With Me
Night Hynm At Sea
Still As The Night
Off To Philadelphia
Come Back My Love
Here In The Quiet Hills
God Bless America
The Battle Hymn Of The American Republic
Interview And Conversation - The Gentle Maiden
I'll Walk Beside You
By The Lakes OF Killarney
Love Thee, Dearest, Love Thee
A Children's Prayer In Wartime
One Love Forever
Say A Little Prayer
Ave Verum Corpus
To Chloe
Waiting For You

Customer Reviews:

A valuable collection........2003-01-12

Admirers of this very major singer may well judge this to be the very best collection of John McCormack reissues on the market. It gathers together everything he recorded in the last twenty months of his singing life. Joining with accompanist Gerald Moore at London's Abbey Road Studios, he recorded sometimes as many as six items at a recording session.

Gerald Moore, in his autobiography, recalled that John McComack was averse both to rehearsing and to recording more than one take of each song. Of the dozens of items here, almost all derive from a first take. Only once was there a tiny error. It occurred in the song "The Green Bushes". Listen carefully, and you will hear John McCormack begin to sing "So sweetly she sang" before correcting it, in the nick of time, to "So sweetly sang she". There was never a chance to do another take, but fortunately the item was eventually issued after McCormack's death. Indeed, there are many items here that were issued posthumously, and at least six published here for the first time. A couple of duets with Maggie Teyte have had little or no circulation. One of them here sounds to be copied from a slightly faulty but perhaps only existing copy.

In the old-fashioned, sentimental and imprecise terminology of his day, McCormack sang from his heart, and aimed to touch the hearts of his hearers. It is fortunate that sound recording caught these performances so well, before emphysema silenced McCormack forever, and it is fortunate that Pavilion Records and supervisor Brian Fawcett-Johnston make them available today.

A good sampling of the last days of an inimitable artist........1999-04-21

By the time these performances were put to wax, McCormack's voice was twenty or more years past it's prime. But, unlike most classically trained singers, McCormack's vocal limitations appear to have encouraged a more musically adventurous approach to his singing. His later recordings have an immediacy and sponteneity that is absolutely unique to a singer of his era and training. His singing is, in fact, more like that of a "pop" singer, in that the voice takes a back seat to the phrasing, and ablility to convey a lyric with honest emotion instead of histrionics. The clarity of tone, and the ring of the high notes is gone in these recordings, but the "presence" of McCormack the songster is stronger than ever. The transfers are excellent, as we have come to expect from Pearl. While the fidelity is not what most expect from today's recording techniques, to my ear they are more satisfying. The voice is recorded up-front and very clearly, and we can revel in the knowledge that it was all originally recorded "honestly"; that is, without edits and without electronic alterations of any sort. McCormack was a great artist who never became boring. In this day of bellicose tenors who are content to sing the same repertoire in the same manner year after year, that is saying a lot. If McCormack's singing is new to you, do yourself a favor and get this one. Also pick up one of his youthful operatic recitals, and you will come to know just what a great performer and amazingly varied artist he was. Enjoy, for his like will probably not be heard again.

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