Dear Isabelle, John and others, --- Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...> wrote: > (...snip)I've never been able to appreciate Ameling's voice. (...) They just sound like they're speaking on pitch, not > singing at all -- thin-blooded, like a mosquito. > (...) > I never liked lieder because I associated it with > the > "high and light" type of voice... then I heard > Jessye > Norman's lieder recordings, and the world opened up > to > me. Her Gretchen (Schubert) and Liebst du um > Schonheit (Mahler) are divine. > > Whether you like lighter or heavier voices, can be a matter of taste, for many people probably it is also related to their own voice, via the 'learn to like your own voice' principle. Personally I can appreciate many kinds of voices, as long as the voice, and the singer that owns it, is good.
But in the case of Ameling singing Lieder the problem with such a light voice is also, that it often seems to orbit miles above the piano, hence the mosquito idea. In Ameling's recording of Schumann's Liederkreis opus 39, the connection between the piano and the voice seems completely lost for that reason, although rhytmically they are perfectly together.
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf recently admitted ashamed that she had sung songs written for men in the past, until she understood how wrong it was. I don't completely agree with that, but in some songs sung by light soprano voices like Ameling's and Bonney's, it can be a problem. After all most Schubert/-mann songs (and those are the ones that are most often performed, at least here in Holland and Germany) have been written for a tenor voice.
Isabelle further wrote : (...)snip: > She stikes me as the perfect example of a "lieder" > voice, like Dawn Upshaw and Sylvia McNair. Firstly I think that often is underestimated how much many Lieder ask from a voice: ideally you should be able to to change dynamics and colours within a very large range, so I think you need quite a good voice, not a voice that is just not able (anymore) to sing opera. Secondly, I think that also Lieder are written for different 'fachs' (Faecher), although this may not always be clear at first sight, and that no voice can do everyhthing (well). Transposing and octaving can do wonders sometimes, but not all the time.
Finally: to appreciate Lieder fully, it is of utmost importance to know their language well (when singing them this is even more the case). If you don't understand the words while you hear them, you will be listening to a Lied like a blind man that goes to a stage play: you will only understand half of what's going on.
Just my 2 centjes.
Best greetings, Dre.
__________________________________________________ Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com
|
| |