Friday 5 August 2011

Living in England, I have been deluged all my life with eulogies to Great British pianists, tenors, violinists, oboe players, conductors, composers, and so on. In whatever country you live, you need to apply a strong filter to news / reviews / promotional puffs.

So I am reticent when approaching Kathleen Ferrier, easily the most famous British contralto / mezzo soprano in history. Over-hyped? Tragic story of local girl makes good, then dies young?

I listened to a recent molto-cheapo Regis CD of Ferrier with great enjoyment and admiration. In Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, and three of the Rückert Lieder, she was quite superb. In Brahms' Vier Ernste Gesänge (with piano) she is deeply moving. The voice is wonderful, the diction exemplary. But what is especially impressive is her ability to empathise with what she is singing, and in this she rivals Maria Callas (but in a very different repertoire). Only drawback to the Regis disc; there is no libretto and extensive hunting of the Internet fail to reveal the words Ferrier sings for the fourth of the Ernste Gesänge.

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