Favourite historic recordings: Adelina Patti Ah Non Credea Mirarti

With my first two postings in this category no special pleading was required. On any level the performances spring to life out of the loudspeaker and no further explanation is needed.

Is that also the case for this posting - the famous recording of Bellini's Ah Non Credea from La Sonnambula.  Would a listener coming to this cold with no background immediately see the greatness of this performance or would they dismiss it as the sad and uncontrolled warblings of an old lady?


I think it is wonderful, but have known this for so long that I can no longer quite tell whether I am responding objectively to the sound or am influenced by the face that this is a recording of the most famous singer of the latter half of the 19th century, admired by Rossini and Verdi among others, and therefore a tantalising link back to the distant operatic past?   So am I projecting my own thoughts as to what I want this to sound like on top of what I am actually hearing?

I can' rule this out, but I really do think that this is remarkable singing.  The tone itself is not particularly attractive and this is clearly the voice of somebody at the end of her career, but what sets its part is the style.  The way that the legato line is floated over the accompaniment with subtle rubato reminds me of nothing as much as a performance of a Chopin Nocturne played by a really fine pianist.  It is all so effortless and she seems to have all of the time in the world to fit in the decorations in the vocal line.  And the technique itself is still in good shape - the trills are famous and the chromatically inflected runs are beautifully poised.

The cadenza towards the end is a bit rough - I suspect that she got too close to the recording horn in her enthusiasm, but you can can forgive this.


If you have never heard this before try it - do you hear the magic?


I love the story - which may be apocryphal but which deserves to be true - that when Patti didn't want to go to a rehearsal she sent her maid to stand in for her!  Those were the days.

Favourite historic recordings; Sir Charles Santley The Vicar of Bray

This takes us almost as far back into operatic history as possible.   Charles Santley was a pillar of the British musical establishment for most of the second half of the 19th century.  He took part in the first staged performance of a Wagner opera in England and Gounod was so impressed by his performance as Valentin in Faust that he wrote an additional aria for him.  



Santley gave up the operatic stage relatively early in his career and concentrated on oratorio and ballad singing - in those days it was perfectly possible for a "serious" singer to perform ballads - indeed the ballad concert was a very important past of Victorian music life.



Santley made a number of recordings at the end of his career, mostly of the ballad repertory.  This is my favourite - the Vicar of Bray, recorded in1904.  Santley was born in 1834 so he was 70 when he recorded this.

Clearly this is the voice on an old man and you can hear the wear and tear in the voice. But what I love is the way that he projects the words so vividly.  The relish with which he delivers the last line of each verse "I'll be the vicar of Bray sir!" always makes me smile.

We really are linked a long way back through this recording.  In his memoirs Santley recalls a performance of Elijah in his youth (he was singing in the chorus) and talks about the difficulties of rehearsal because "this was a comparatively recent work"  .   Santley was a Garcia pupil, and Garcia's father was the creator of important tenor roles, most notably the count in Rossini's Barber of Seville.

The past is not as far away as we sometimes think!