Customer Reviews

Grand Tradition: 70 Years of Singing on Record

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Anyone interested in opera and singing would appreciate this book. Steane is one of the greatest listeners around, and reading (and re-reading) his insights on these singers will make you a better listener too.

Part 1: The Golden Legend, Pre-Electrical Recording 1900-1925
The Old Order: Nineteenth-Century Echoes (Adelina Patti, Francesco Tamagno, Lilli Lehmann)
The Golden Age: Five Great Singers (Nellie Melba, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Fernando de Lucia, Mattia Battistine, Pol Plancon)
New Times, New Gods: The Changing Opera (Enrico Caruso, Titta Ruffo)
Good Deeds in a Naughty World: Lyricism Resistant (Lucrezia Bori, Alma Gluck, John McCormack, Alessandro Bonci, Giuesppe de Luca)
Coloratura: The Soprano as Virtuoso (Marcella Sembrich, Luisa Tetrazzine, Amelita Galli-Curci, Frieda Hempel, Selma Kurz, Margarethe Siems)
Approach to Wagner: Questions of Balance (emmy Destinn, Johanna Gadski, Jacques Urlus, Hermann Jadlowker)
Eastern Europe: A Cultural Exchange (Olimpia Boronat, Antonina Neshdanva, Dmitri Smirnoff, Feodor Chaliapin, Leff Sibiriakoff)
France: Years of Plenty (Emma Calve, Edmond Clement, Leon Escalais, Maurice Renard, Marcel Journet)
America: Talent and Training (Emma Eames, Geraldine Farrar, Frances Alda)
Italy: Bel Canto con Forza (Celestina Boninsegna, Salomea Krusceniski, Giuseppe Anselmi, Riccardo Stracciari, Pasquale Amato)
Part II: Decline and Survival, The Electrical 78 1925-1950

Decline: New Talents and Lost Discipline (Lily Pons, Aureliano Pertile)
Italy: A Handful of Exceptions (Toti dal Monte, Hina Spani, Tito Schipa, Benjamine Gigli, Renato Zanelli)
Around Italy: A Second Harvest (Lina Pagliughi, Magda Olivero, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Mariano Stabile, Tancredi Pasero)
Germany and Austria: Keepers of the Seal (Maria Ivogun, Meta Seinemeyer, Sigrid Onegin, Richard Tauber, Heinrich Schlusnus)
Lieder: More than Singing (Elisabeth Schumann, Lotte Lehmann, Elena Gerhardt, Karl Erb, herbert Janssen, Gerhard Husch, Alexander Kipnis)
Wagner: The Triumph of Lyricism (Frida Leider, Lauritz Melchior, Friedrich Schorr)
Splendid Isolationists: Standards in Britain and France (Florence Austral, Eva Turner, Claire Croiza, Ninon Vallin)

Old Worlds and New: Chicago and the Elevating Influence (Claudia Muzio, Dusolina Giannini, Conchita Supervia, Marian Anderson, Richard Crooks)
Metropolitan: Five Great Singers (Rosa Ponselle, Elisabeth Rethberg, Giovanni Martinelli, Lawrence Tibbett, Ezio Pinza)
Survival: Wartime and Aftermath (Helen Traubel, Maggie Teyte, Kathleen Ferrier, Julius Patzak, Mark Reizen)
Part III: Renaissance, The Long Plaing Record 1950-1970

Wagner: Every Note, Every Word (Kirsten Flagstad, Birgit Nilsson, Wolfgang Windgassen, Hans Hotter, Gottlob Frick)
Trial by Mozart: Vintage Soprano (Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Irmgard Seefried, Lisa della Casa, Hilde Guden, Ljuba Welitsch, Sena Jurinac)
Opera at Home: Five Great Singers (Maria Callas, Victoria de los Angeles, Jussi Bjorling, Tito Gobbi, Boris Christoff)
Let the Florid Music Praise: Rococo Revival (Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, Anna Moffo, Teresa Berganza, Marilyn Horne)
America: The Seal Goes West (Leontyne Price, Martina Arroyo, Shirley Verrett, Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers, James McCracken, Richard Tucker, Robert Merrill)
Italy: A Tale of Two Tableaux (Renata Tebaldi, Mirella Freni, Giulietta Simionato, Fiorenza Cossotto, Franco Corelli, Carlo Bergonzi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Luciano Pavarotti)
European Notes: Moscow to Madrid (Regine Crespin, Rita Gorr, Irene Arkhipova, Nicolai Gedda, Geraint Evans)
Singer and Song: An Exhibition of Artists (Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Peter Pears, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Gerard Souzay)

Ancient and Modern: The Singer as Musician
1971: Present and Prospective (Montserrat Caballe, Gundula Janowitz, Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes, Nicolai Ghiaurov
Conclusions: The Grand Tradition

Index of Composers

General Index

Bibliographical Note

The pictures are of the singers mentioned above.

I am saddened that this book is OP though perhaps a reprint is in the works. JBS from Gramaphone takes us on a tour of the history of recorded opera and lieder singing. His knowledge and enthusiasm lead me into a world of singing that I scarcely knew existed. His lucid style and comprehensive take on the records have had me buying and enjoying scores of CD's as an entire era has opened for me. I can't thank him enough for guiding me through the thicket of various recordings and providing insights that have deepened my understanding and enjoyment of singing. This exciting history has been a bedside favorite for years and I still turn to it when I see a new historical issue. Though the book covers singing up to more recent years, I may never make it to the 50's! Though the book could stand updating for current CD issues, it's not hard to translate dates of recordings to current issues. A tremendous acheivement. I could only wish for more, though I get that in his long running column in Gramaphone.

This is a book that can't be adequately praised enough. For anyone who has shelves of recordings, especially of opera singers of the pre-WW2 era, this insightful writer has an uncanny way of describing the merits of each singer, especially given the aural limitations of the old recordings, and in describing certain phrases or certain colors at the singer's disposal, makes one run for the actual selection, and listen to it with new ears. It's also exciting to hear his reasons for praising a certain singer and to hear him articulate so brilliantly what it is about a certain artist that, in his opinion, makes them cherishable. For instance, I've tried to explain what it is about Tito Schipa and Lotte Lehmann that moves me to tears, and here in this book are ample descriptions and commentaries.

Especially interesting is the chapter about individual arias, for which he suggests up to 6 recordings by various artists to use as comparison, phrase by phrase, and sometimes note by note!

For a lover of great singing, and a student of the history of singing, this book is literally priceless.

All opera lovers will want to have this indespensible book. Records by historic performers are compared and winners are chosen. I've bought many cds based on recommendations in this book and haven't been burned yet. Steane is a genius!

J.B. Steane has been writing on singing for longer than I can remember. There must be few people who have a more thorough knowledge of singers and their associated sound documentations over the total span of recorded history. In this book he examines seventy years of singers on record from 1900-1970. One of the chief pleasures of this book is Steane's stylish and supremely informed writing. He has a special ability to describe and quantify the qualities (positive and negative) of an individual voice. The recordings of a vast range of vocalists, familiar and obscure, are described. This book, probably better dipped into rather than digested in a bolus fashion, is one of the very best volumes available on singers and their art.

This is my favourite book on singing, and I have a few hundreds. I've been waiting for years for an updating that hasn't happened. Still I don't know a better survey of the vocal art on records from the invetion of the 78 r.p.m. until the early seventies, date of the first edition. A magnificent and unique book, the best of Steane, a scholar and a lover of the art of singing with a beautiful writing style. I wouldn't sell my copy for anything.