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From:  "Kubiak, Laurence L SSI-SMMS" <Laurence.l.Kubiak@I...>
Date:  Fri Jul 21, 2000  2:39 pm
Subject:  RE: Mattia Battistini.


Alain (and anybody else who is listening),

Interesting note. Very interesting that you speak of Maurane, who does
indeed somewhat resemble Battistini (although, to my ears, the centre of
Maurane's voice is a hair lower than Battistini's, and his timbre above the
staff less brilliant).

I do hope you enjoy the recordings. At their best they remain astonishing
after 100 years (find a little Tosti song called 'Amour', if you can, it's
two minutes of heaven). Many find his style wayward, incomparable on one
recording, execrable on the next, but I think this tells us more about
ourselves than Battistini. Concepts of correct style have grown much more
homogonised as the 20th century has worn on, to the point at which a very
individual performance, such as was once common, now strikes us as
incorrect. A good example is Adelina Patti's recording of 'Voi che sapete'.
I have never read an approving comment about this interpretation, and I
don't like it myself, yet I consult the score and can find no good reason,
musical or dramatic, why Chreubino should not sing so. These old
performances, whatever their faults and their oddities, often have a
vividness from which we, with our strict 21st century concepts about
'correct' style, could learn much.

Still I do find Battistini a little variable (and after awhile that hollow
bottom register starts to grate), as is Ruffo. De Luca and Sammarco are much
more consistant artists, and De Luca is indeed, as you say, a good bel
cantist. Actually, I find the singing of these two very similar, a
similarity which is partly obscured by Sammarco's juicier voice. Also, I
read somewhere that Sammarco made something of a speciality of verismo opera
(a great pity, in view of the sheer beauty of much of his singing of
nineteenth century opera), and this frayed his voice towards the end of his
carreer. What is certainly true is that De Luca kept his voice to the very
end.

As to Battistini preserving an older Bel Canto tradition, many say this, but
I'm not convinced. What I think happened (on no very good evidence) is that
Battistini made his own method to fit his peculiar voice, but that in this
method he incorporated as much as he could of the Bel Canto. Unusually for
his era, he had three teachers, and did not remain long with any of them.
One of them was the great Sbriglia, who certainly taught in the 'old school'
and had many great singers as his pupils. Pol Plancon, himself a pupil of
Sbriglia, says that his master used to say that he (Sbriglia) had told both
Jean de Reszke and Mattia Battistini that they were tenors: one took the
advice and came to regret it, the other ignored the advice and came to be
glad about it

Happy Singing,

Regards / vriendelijke groeten

Laurie Kubiak
Commercial Analyst - Europe & Africa SMMS
Sales and Contract Support, Shell Services International
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA
Telephone: +44 171 934 3853; Fax: +44 171 934 6674
Mobile: 07771 971 921: E.mail: Laurence.l.Kubiak@i...
Office: LON-SC 631


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