Customer Reviews

Final Recordings 1941-42

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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.

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.