You mayve noticed that I was challenged by Kjartan M Behm, who thanks - I think - me for the form his artistic and musical tastes took, to post five of my own critical, formative musical moments, one a day for five days. I may fall down on that detail, some days melding into others or passing entirely unnoticed, but Ill try and keep up. To spread the fun, Im nominating 5 others, whose musical tastes may or may not have influenced mine. So, Jeff Behm, Tulta Behm, Kenneth Mcqueenie, Diane Nielsen, Rachael Long, youre up! (Another great influence, Tony Arcari, is lost to facebook, but.) My first choice: it has to be Leontyne Price, singing Chi il bel sogno di Doretta, from Puccinis La Rondine. Youtube has a nice live recording from Munich, in 1968: youtube/watch?v=s3PtVRWNYus Sorry, had to stop there, something was coming out of my eye. She, her voice, still affects me like few others, and Ive been listening to her for over 50 years. Leontynes debut album, the absolutely classic, famous Decca blue album, Leontyne Price sings arias from Puccini and Verdi, came out in 1961. My father bought it immediately, and would play it when he had the leisure to indulge himself in it, often late in the evening; when my mother and he hosted parties, hed play it around midnight. After, my mother would usually find me curled up asleep inside the speaker cabinet - my dad had made the cabinetry to hold his mono Hi-Fi set, with a cupboard that held the Big bass speaker, a louvered door that could be used to baffle the volume a bit, and a child-wide gap between the inside of the door and the face of the speaker. I would climb out of bed, slip downstairs, close myself inside the cabinet, and put my ear to the speaker. I was just getting my hearing back after some years of being deaf from scarlet fever, and Leontynes voice, particularly on the quieter or more mournful arias (this one, and Vissi dArte, others), passed without obstacles straight to my heart. This, for me, is a big part of what music is about. I know now that it could never have been, but I still find myself wishing that it was her voice that came from my mouth. So have a listen, and turn the volume up!
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 13:11:19 +0000
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