Customer Reviews

Purcell: Music for a While / O Solitude

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This recording has moved me beyond words.

Certainly, Deller's voice has aged but he more than makes up in experience. His voice is still voluptuous, and its languid tones have nothing to envy the voice of a soprano.

While a few of the songs will be listened to with a distracted ear, other won't. For instance "The Plaint", which probably the most stunning song of this recital. The tempo is just right (which is rare for this piece, often overly slowed down), and Deller does not overdramatize the already sad text. "O Solitude" and "An Evening Hymn" (along with the title song) are the other two gems ... "An Evening Hymn" with it's beautiful ostinato, and light singing.

Something must be said for the other performers. While Deller's voice is the heart and soul of this recording, its quality is in no small part due to (younger) William Christie and Wieland Kuijken. I listened recently to Anne Sofie von Otter's renditions of "Music for a while" and "An Evening Hymn", and although her voice is clear, the tempi are wrong and the incompetence of the harpsichordist makes Christie's performance stand out all the more.

If you aren't prejudiced against counter-tenors (and if you haven't yet entered the Visse/Deller or Jacobs/Deller polemic-which I will *NOT* get sucked into), you will find be entranced by this recording.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the previous review. Is is just astonishing that the mediocre Visse can even be compared to the great Deller. It is not that he himself was responsible for the turn of the tide on these "head voices" along the past XX century. It is not that Britten appreciated his art and created the role of Puck for him in A Midsummer's Night Dream. It is not that Dominique Visse's tessitura lies higher than Deller's. It is not that we are short of countertenors at this age (my personal favorite is David Daniels). But take the time to listen to this timbre, intonation, expresiveness and perfect phrasing in O solitude and judge for yourself. Hope to have done the right thing to put Deller where it belongs.

My twin sister got this record as a present when she was 14, maybe a bit too early. But it remained a great memory and 30 years after, I bought it for me : it is even more beautiful than I remembered. It is not only great classical music, it's also that there is something moving in the voice and in the lyrics. Just what you can appreciate when you also like pop songs.

First I should like to point out that Deller's role in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was that of Oberon rather than Puck. Secondly, a much more serious point, is that the idea of natural tenors making better countertenors is something of a myth. It is almost totally to do with the ability to produce a pleasant-sounding headtone, something which high natural tenors do as part of their normal singing. There is something of a blur between falsetto and head voice, admittedly, and it is the case that the physical process is very similar indeed. So I am of the opinion that there was nothing more unnatural about Deller singing countertenor than there is about Visse. And I think the results speak for themselves. Instead of the... sound produced by Visse, and David James for that matter, Deller's purity of tone still places him ahead of many other countertenors active today. That said, this recording does appear to be a late one and .... Still an interesting recording though, showing that musicality can often triumph over rather dull "authenticity".

While I agree that Dominique Visse and David James (hardly the 2 outstanding countertenors of our age anyway) cannot come close to the artistry and voice of Alfred Deller, I do think that this recording leaves a little to be desired as it appears to have been made not long before he died, therefore when he was in his sixties when most singers should have given up, Deller included I'm afraid. The agility in the upper registers, the sheer brilliance of tone, both are somewhat lacking, and often the result sounds slightly strained. I would probably recommend going for the HMV recordings, as these would show Deller right at the peak of his powers, although this recording would be a good comparison of his early and late singing, and changes in performance practice.

Henry Purcell is one of the most tragical musical figures inbaroque ages.died a young talent who had wrote the most moving beautiful tragedy operas.what I find particularly attractive about his music and operas is the affinity to English literature which is extremely dramatic.

Purcells songs are tended to be recitativelike and in my personal opinion that at best should be enriched with emotional spontanety.Mr Deller bring a Purcells songs at its best.especially his voice: refined,full of emotion and spontanety that combine into brilliant dramatic impersonation of Purcellian figures of tragidies,plays and passion.if there are something to complaint about,that is it sounds too naked too natural that I can hardly restrain my tears.here Mr Deller does either act and sing.a Celestial fest of songs!

As long as there are Stars I would not mind paint all of them with my crayon for this singer and these songs.

I'm really incredulous: do some people really refer to Alfred Deller as the most beautiful countertenor voice? They do! Haven't these people ever heard of David James or Dominique Visse? I fail to appreciate the "beauty" of Deller's voice. To me, it just sounds contrived. Well, all countertenor voices are in some way "contrived," but not necessarily so. I read somewhere that, according to radiographic research, natural tenors singing in their uppermost register produce their voices by exactly the same physiological means as do falsettists. To me, that means that the higher one's natural voice is, the better is one's chance to cut it as a countertenor. Well, Deller is a natural baritone. No wonder, then, his singing is so grotesquely unnatural. Ugh. Yet, I have the greatest respect for Deller for all the work he's done raising the mainstream profile of early music and pioneering (together with Munrow) the period performance practice.