The repertoire was all but unknown to me. A series of Spanish songs from composers I mostly hadn't heard about. Granados, certainly, but Montsalvatge, Guridi, and even Turina didn't ring much of a bell. The first side starts with a collection of three older songs - from the 16th to 18th century - where the lute accompaniment has been transcribed for piano. Beautiful, noble songs, drenched in that characteristic Iberian idiom. Granados fills the remainder of this LP side with 6 tonadillas. This is serious music, almost Mahlerian in its mixture of folksiness and expressionistic anguish. Side two continues with three colourful, masterfully impressionistic Turina songs, of which the darkly shaded El Fantasma stands out. Then three lively songs by Basque composer Jesus Guridi (who was cosmopolitan enough to write Seis canciones castellanas). The lines are more clearly etched here compared to the Turina.
Let us pause for a minute and ask who Jesus Guridi was anyway? Wikipedia learns that he lived a long (1886-1961) and fairly prolific life and was known as 'the' Basque composer during his lifetime. Interestingly he spent two years in Brussels studying with Joseph Jongen. His output covers both instrumental and vocal music (notably famous zarzuela) and is well represented in the Naxos catalogue. There is a 1946 Sinfonia Pyrenaica which sounds superbly colourful and accomplished and is going straight on my list of 'to buy'! Now I'd like to find his Homenaje a Walt Disney for piano and orchestra (there's a recording on the Claves label, now deleted, that can be found used).
The recital ends with a delightful collection of 6 Canciones Negras by Xavier Montsalvatge. Here Antillian echoes abound. The Cancion de cuna para dormir a un negrito is a truly delightful lullaby and seems to be a fixture in Spanish female singers' repertoires. The final song Canto Negro is a funny and virtuoso finale to a superbly entertaining recital.
What pulls this collection to an altogether stratospheric level is the very special voice of Teresa Berganza. She was 40 when the recital was taped in 1975 and at the peak of her career. It was two years later that she sang the title role in the still famous Carmen taped by DGG under Abbado. Admittedly not everyone is equally enamoured by the rather patrician slant she gives to the role. But that she was a singer of impeccably cultured artistry is undeniable. Here, on this LP, it is difficult to imagine more accomplished renderings of these songs. They just sound perfect, the voice being in total command. It's a masterful blend between intellectualism, poetry and visceral passion. The singer is marvelously accompanied by Felix Lavilla, who happened to be her husband for 20 years and fathered Berganza's three children. However, they divorced just two years after this recording and it looks like this wasn't a happy marriage at all (Here is a 1985 interview where she confided that she was in her second marriage " – the first was to a pianist, and a marriage between two artists is very difficult. It was Carmen that liberated me from being the slave of the pianist.").
Finally, the attractive repertoire, the marvelous voice and the beautiful accompaniment are splendidly put into relief by a remarkable recording. The LP sounds absolutely great. The voice is presented with beguiling fluidity and 'naturel'. The piano sounds as it should: 'metal and wood'. There's staggering dynamics in these grooves. And all this with a fairly simple Goldring Eroica. Admittedly, the soundstage is fairly compact and the stylus is not able to dig out the lowest frequencies. But that suits this kind of music fairly well. Whilst I certainly look forward to the day that I can listen to this with a more sophisticated element this LP has given me already much pleasure.
To end just two more quotes from the Bruce Duffy interview:
I like giving recitals because there is more light. There is eye-contact between the singer and every member of the audience, even in a huge house with maybe 3000 people. I’ve been giving recitals, and I am aware that way in the back there is one man who is not paying attention, who is not interested in what I am singing, and I can make him listen. I can look at him and work on him (or her) until he’s awake. More often, though, it is a “him.” And, of course, when it is a “him,” it is easier to get him back. [laughter]
I think that the kind of performances that are being offered to audiences nowadays is worse than it used to be. I had an extraordinary stroke of luck that my career happened at the time that it did. I began my career on the stage working with great conductors like Abbado and Giulini and Solti, and great stage-directors like Ponnelle and Zeffirelli. This was a period when all the singers worked to create the very best possible performance of that music and the greatest possible theatrical portrayal of the characters, and this was arrived at because the rehearsal periods were a lot longer than they are now. In the old days there used to be 25 days worth of rehearsals before the show took place, and during that time we worked very hard. There were 4 or 5 rehearsals with orchestra plus a pre-dress rehearsal and a dress rehearsal. So, with that kind of preparation, the performances came off in a way that is probably no longer possible. Now, in the places where I go, the rehearsals are a week or 10 days before the show opens, and there are many singers who don’t even like to give that much! They’d like to come a couple of days before the show, sing their performance, pick up their check and go on to the next city where they do the same thing again. Since this is becoming more and more wide-spread as a practice, I believe that the performances being given nowadays are not of a quality that they used to be.
