Word: basses
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Most of the selections have been chosen so that they do not duplicate commercial recordings. The bass aria, "O ruddier than the cherry," is an exception. Obviously it has been included for the very good reason that Paul Tibbetts is singing it, but it is one of the dullest pieces the Handel ever wrote. Marguerite Willauer has much better material for her fine soprano voice in "As when the dove laments her love" and "Heart, the seat of soft delight...
Muck's successor, Pierre Monteux (now the San Francisco Symphony's conductor) let it sing modern music-Stravinsky, Falla, Honegger, Milhaud. Then, in 1924, began the 25-year reign of Serge Koussevitzky, onetime bass-viol virtuoso and one of the great conductors of his time. Under his stern but benevolent rule, the Boston had come to a peak of polished perfection, and U.S. composers, subsidized and encouraged with commissions, had found a new home...
...behold as it changed to meet the mood. But credit for the best single performance from a list of many excellent ones must go to Elizabeth Spencer, who was suitably padded with pillows to play Lady Jane. Her aria in the beginning of the second act-done with a bass fiddle-brought down the house...
...loss of her young lover Octavian "and one dry" with sophistication, pretty Soprano Eleanor Steber could not quite make up in tenderness and charm what she lacked in opulence. Contralto Risë Stevens' attractive singing as Octavian was marred only by her unattractive grimacing. Even so, with Veteran Bass Eugene List as Baron Ochs, and with the help of two new imports, Dresden's Coloratura Erna Berger as a pert, brilliant Sophie, and Vienna's Buffo-Tenor Peter Klein as Valzacchi, Der Rosenkavalier added up to an opening-night success...
...years later he left the band to go on his own as a soloist. "The other boys used to razz me," he says. "They said I had no left hand, so I made up my mind to show 'em." Tatum is still sensitive about criticism of his bass, but can claim, with the enthusiastic approval of his fans, that he does more with his left hand than most pianists do with both...