These four variously special singers -- Margaret Price (s), Yvonne Minton (ms), Alexander Young (t), and Justino Díaz (bs-b) -- share a particular connection

MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: The post still needs some filling in and filling out, even now that all the texts and our always-intended Yvonne Minton Wagner excerpt are in place. However, as noted below there's still a bunch of other stuff of Minton's we should really hear, now while we're listening -- and so too, at least to some extent, with the others. It has occurred to me, I'm afraid to say, that we may be facing an overtime situation, by which I have in mind, over the next few days, going into one or more overflow, or "bonus," posts. Uh-oh! -- Ken

The young Margaret Price amd Yvonne Minton

MOZART: Così fan tutte, K. 588: Act I, Duet, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, "Ah guarda, sorella"

[A garden by the seashore. FIORDILIGI and DORABELLA are both gazing at miniatures hanging round their necks.]

FIORDILIGI: Ah tell me, sister,
If one could ever find
A nobler face,
A sweeter mouth.
DORABELLA: Just look,
See what fire
Is in his eye,
If flames and darts
Do not seem to flash forth!
FIORDILIGI: This is the face
Of a soldier and a lover.
DORABELLA: This is a face
both charming and alarming.
FIORDILIGI and DORABELLA: How happy I am!
If ever my heart
changes its affection,
may love make me
live in pain.

Margaret Price (s), Fiordiligi; Yvonne Minton (ms), Dorabella; New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, cond. EMI, recorded Jan.-Feb. 1971

by Ken

No, we're not finished with Salome. I've just gotten sidetracked. Hey, as occasional visitors know, it happens. (Frequent visitors know that it happens, um, frequently.) What caused it this time was an unscheduled encounter with a composer who shares with Richard Strauss a particular gift of imagination: the ability to conjure a startling range of musics, which really is what our Salome explorations have been about. I've usually thought of it, especially in an operatic composer, as a remarkable range of empathy -- the ability to imagine all his characters from the inside. But what good is identifying with those characters if you don't have the ability to create them in arrestingly individual musical ways?

We're not going to get to our mystery composer this week, because I thought we needed to fix in our heads the musical identities of the singers who were featured in this unexpected encounter: the SATB quartet (as noted in the post title) of soprano Margaret Price, mezzo Yvonne Minton, tenor Alexander Young, and bass-baritone Justino Díaz. So that's really all we're going to do this week, hear some vocal samples. And I thought we'd do it in voice-range order, high to low. In fact, we've already heard today from our "S" and "A," both of whom, in further fact, have made frequent Sunday Classics appearances.

MARGARET PRICE, soprano
(1941-2011),
born in Blackwood,
Monmouthshire, South Wales

Boy, have we heard a lot of Dame Margaret! The retrospective series that followed her passing in 2011 extended to at least a ninth part, with at least one more promised therein, to be devoted to Price as song-singer; neither my memory nor the archives provide conclusive evidence as to whether this ever happened. (If it did, I can't trace it.)

It's hard not to keep returning to her Fiordiligi in Otto Klemperer's 1971 recording of Così fan tutte, and I haven't tried very hard to resist. It was that recoding that made her an international sensation, and it's this earlier part of the Welsh soprano's career that's going to matter most for our present purposes. Not the very earliest part, which stretches back to 1962, when she made her operatic debut with Welsh National Opera as Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. The following year, at the ripe old age of 23, she made an unscheduled debut at Covent Garden, as a late replacement for Teresa Berganza, whom she was understudying. Then-Covent Garden music director Georg Solti apparently didn't want her in the company, saying she "lacks charm," and she was specifically contracted only for understudying.

Price continued to work on the voice, and kept at it after the period we're looking at. Evidence of her versatility is in a Mozart-aria LP she recorded, I believe after the Così with Klemperer, where she sings all three principal female roles from The Marriage of Figaro. Taking the arias in dramatic order, we start in Act II with her first operatic role, Cherubino (a notably earnest, un-cutesy one), and proceed through her eventual role, the Countess, in Act III to Susanna in Act IV.

MOZART: Le Nozze di Figaro, K. 492:

Act II, Arietta, Cherubino, "Voi che sapete"

You who know
what love is,
see, ladies,
if I have it in my heart.
What I am undergoing
I'll explain to you;
it is so new to me
that I do not understand it.
I have a feeling full of desire,
sometimes pleasurable,
sometimes agony.
I freeze, then I feel
my soul burning up,
and in a moment I am freezing again.
You who know etc.

-- all Figaro translations (mostly) by William Mann

Act III, Recitative and aria, Countess Almaviva, "È Susanna non vien" . . . "Dove sono"

Recitative: And Susanna doesn't come! I am anxious
to know how the Count
received her proposal. Somewhat rash
the project seems to me with a husband
so mercurial and jealous.
But what harm can it do
to exchange clothes
with Susanna, and hers with mine,
when night is in our favor? O heaven! To what
humiliation I am reduced
by a cruel husband who treats me
with an unparalleled mixture
of infidelity, jealousy, and disdain.
First loved, then insulted, at length betrayed,
now I must look for help to one of my servants.
Aria: Where are those lovely moments
of sweetness and pleasure?
What has become of the vows
sworn by those lying lips?
Why to tears and sadness
has it all changed?
Will the memory of that happiness
not pass through my breast?
Ah! if only my constancy,
which loves him while I languish,
can bring me the hope
of turning his ungrateful heart.

Act IV, Recitative and aria, Susanna, "Giunse alfin il momento" . . . "Deh vieni, non tardar"

Recitative: At last the moment draws near
which I shall enjoy without shame
in my darling's arms.
Timid fears, go from my heart,
come not to disturb my delight.
O how fiery love seems
marched with the charms of this place,
this earth, this sky!
How well the night seconds my plans!
Aria: Then come, delay not, fair joy;
come where love calls you to delight,
while night's torches do not burn in heaven,
while the air is still dark and the world is silent.
The stream murmurs here and the world plays softly,
rejoicing the heart with its gentle whispers.
Here the flowers smiles and the grass smells fresh;
everything here quickens the pleasure of love.
Come, my beloved, through these dark trees.
I long to crown your brow with roses.

In all the Figaro excerpts:
Margaret Price, soprano; English Chamber Orchestra, James Lockhart, cond. RCA, recorded c1972

We devoted a fair amount of attention to the Mahler Fourth Symphony, specifically its place as the concluding work of the triptych of Mahler symphonies anchored to the German folk-poetry anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn), in the January 2010 post "In which we continue stitching together bits of big Mahler symphonies." The finale of the Fourth Symphony is of course Mahler's setting of "Das himmlische Leben ("Heavenly Life"), which naturally pairs with the independent Wunderhorn song "Das irdische Leben ("Earthly Life"), which we also heard in that post.

One recording of the Mahler Fourth we did not hear at the time was that uniquely tuned-in Mahlerian Jascha Horenstein's -- mostly, I suspect because I didn't have it on CD. I still don't, but for this post I've gone back to the LP, with apologies for the surface noise of my British pressing. As with her "Voi che sapete," the performance is notable for the absence of sentimentalizing or cutesifying. To return to the Solti complaint that Price "lacks charm," it's probably true that throughout her career she was more a "cool" than a "warm" singer, but gracious, exquisitely and movingly she could sing under this general description, as I think this early-career Mahler Fourth demonstrates.

MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G:
iv. Sehr behaglich

"Das himmlische Leben" ("Heavenly Life")
[German text from Des Knaben Wunderhorn]

We enjoy heavenly pleasures
and therefore avoid earthly ones.
No worldly tumult
is to be heard in heaven.
All live in greatest peace.
We lead angelic lives,
yet have a merry time of it besides.
We dance and we spring,
We skip and we sing.
Saint Peter in heaven looks on.

John lets the lambkin out,
and Herod the Butcher lies in wait for it.
We lead a patient,
an innocent, patient,
dear little lamb to its death.
Saint Luke slaughters the ox
without any thought or concern.
Wine doesn't cost a penny
in the heavenly cellars;
The angels bake the bread.

Good greens of every sort
grow in the heavenly vegetable patch,
good asparagus, string beans,
and whatever we want.
Whole dishfuls are set for us!
Good apples, good pears and good grapes,
and gardeners who allow everything!
If you want roebuck or hare,
on the public streets
they come running right up.

Should a fast day come along,
all the fishes at once come swimming with joy.
There goes Saint Peter running
with his net and his bait
to the heavenly pond.
Saint Martha must be the cook.

There is just no music on earth
that can compare to ours.
Even the eleven thousand virgins
venture to dance,
and Saint Ursula herself has to laugh.
There is just no music on earth
that can compare to ours.
Cecilia and all her relations
make excellent court musicians.
The angelic voices
gladden our senses,
so that all awaken for joy.

Margaret Price, soprano; London Philharmonic Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein, cond. Classics for Pleasure-EMI, recorded Nov. 23-24, 1970

YVONNE MINTON, mezzo-soprano
(born 1938),
born in Sydney, NSW, Australia

Sorry, I still haven't "done" Ms. Minton properly. But while I continue figuring out how to balance some performances of hers we've already heard with others I'd like you to hear, we might start by pointing out that she sang Mahler too, and took ample advantage of the suitability of lower-range female voices to so much of this repertory. I think it's fair to say that she ranks up there with such elite Mahler singers as Christa Ludwig and Maureen Forrester, and was indeed one of the singers we heard in April 2012 singing all four of Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer.

I might add that we hear her here and in most of our other selections with her constant recorded companion, Sir Georg Solti, who was evidently quite satisfied with her "charm" quotient -- it was a happy and productive collaboration.

MAHLER: Songs of a Wayfarer: No. 4, "Die zwei blauen Augen" ("The two blue eyes")


Yvonne Minton, mezzo-soprano; Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded Mar.-Apr. 1970

Of course, no matter what else she sang, and even after she stopped singing it, she herself has always pointed out that the role she has been most closely associated with is the title role of Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. We've already heard these two performances of the "Presentation of the Rose" scene from Act II, but I don't think anyone will mind hearing them again. I'm still bowled over by them.

R. STRAUSS: Der Rosenkavalier, Op. 59: Act II, Presentation of the Rose

The Grand Hall at Herr von Faninal's. Center door leads to the entrance hall. A door, left, and right, a large window. Chairs along the wall. In the corner, on each side, a large fireplace. Young SOPHIE VON FANINAL, in the charge of her duenna, MISTRESS MARIANNE LEITMETZERIN, has been jumping out of her skin with anticipation for the arrival of her guests and, primariliy, COUNT OCTAVIAN ROFRANO, the "Rose Knight" designated by her intended husband, Baron Ochs of Lerchenau, for the "Presentation of the Rose," the formal ceremony of proposal-and-engagement. The Grand Hall is now packed, and we have witnessed the entrance of the Rose Knight and retinue. The libretto explains:

"OCTAVIAN, the rose in his right hand, goes up to SOPHIE, with courtly grace, but his boyish face is strained and flushed with bashfulness. SOPHIE is deathly pale with excitement at his appearance and the ceremony. They stand facing one another and add to each other's confusion with their shyness and beauty."

OCTAVIAN [faltering a little]: To me is fallen the honor
of presenting to the high-born bride,
in the name of my cousin of Lerchenau,
the rose of his love.
SOPHIE [taking the rose]: I am most obliged to your lordship.
I am eternally grateful to your lordship.
[An embarrassing pause; then, smelling the rose ---]
It has a strong scent of roses, real ones.
OCTAVIAN: Yes, there's a drop of Persian attar of roses on it.
SOPHIE: Like roses of heaven, not of earth -- like roses
of holy paradise. Don't you think so?
[OCTAVIAN bends over the rose, which she holds out to him; then he straightens and gazes at her lips.]
It's like a greeting from heaven. it's already too strong to bear.
It draws one as though with reins around the heart.
[Softly] Where and when have I been so happy?
OCTAVIAN [accompanying her as though unconsciously, and even more softly]: Where and when have I been so happy?
SOPHIE; I must return there . . .
OCTAVIAN: I was . . .
[They voice their various sentiments together, but not in unison.]
SOPHIE: . . . yes, even if I should die on the way,
but I shall not die. That is far away.
There is time and eternity in this moment of bliss --
and I'll not forget it till I die.
OCTAVIAN: . . . a boy and did not know her yet.
Who am I then? How is it I come to her?
How is it she comes to me?
Were I not a man, I should lose my senses.
This is a moment of bliss, and I'll not forget it till I die.

-- English text translation from Decca Records

Yvonne Minton (ms), Octavian; Helen Donath (s), Sophie; Vienna State Opera Concert Chorus, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti, cond. Decca, recorded 1968-69

Yvonne Minton (ms), Octavian; Lucia Popp (s), Sophie; Vienna Philharmonic, Christoph von Dohnanyi, cond. Live performance from the Salzburg Festival, July 26, 1978

Even with Minton's solidly full-range, even mezzo, Wagner might not seem an obvious outlet, but she had her share of strong outings. Kundry in Parsifal would certainly seem a good possibility, and it's a role she was highly enthusiastic about, but even with two recordings to work from, I don't find it a readily excerptable role (apart from "Ich sah das Kind," and I really didn't feel like going there). On records, at least, she had great success with Fricka, especially the Rheingold incarnation, and I'd love to pull out a couple of snips -- maybe paired with some chunks of her Walküre Fricka, but for now I wound up going with Brangäne's Watch from Act II of Tristan und Isolde.

Although we usually hear the Watch, when we hear it outside the opera, as a stand-alone excerpt, in order to experience it in something like its proper context I edited the two clips below to include a good chunk of the lovers' so-far-still-secret carryings-on which precede the Watch, and to lead out of it as well. With regard to the performances, after 35-plus years I still don't know quite what to make of the Bernstein Tristan recording. And Carlos Kleiber I've never quite known what to make of, least of all in Tristan -- the three performances I have hardly sound like the work of the same conductor. That said, and stipulating that while I had huge respect for Carlos K's talent, I wasn't an invariable admirer, I think this little chunk of his Bayreuth Tristan plays wonderfully, and this happens not in spite of but with the committed -- and for at least this chunk convincing -- participation of his Isolde and Tristan.


WAGNER: Tristan und Isolde: Act II, Tristan and Isolde: Act II duet, Isolde, "Barg im Busen uns sich die Sonne" . . . Brangäne, "Einsam wachend in der Nacht" (Brangäne's Watch)

On a warm summer night in a garden with tall trees before ISOLDE's apartments, ISOLDE and TRISTAN have been having a secret tryst, with the ever-faithful BRANGÄNE sent off by her mistress to watch over them. Much of the following lovers' dialogue overlaps or even, at times, is sung together.

ISOLDE: In our breast the sun lies hid;
smiling, stars of bliss shine.
TRISTAN: In your magic gently enfolded,
before your eyes secret;y swooning . . .
ISOLDE: . . . heart on heart, lips on lips . . .
TRISTAN: . . . our breaths united in one single breath . . .
BOTH [variously]: . . . when my eyes dim in death blinded with ecstasy,
the world fades away with its dazzling glare . . .
ISOLDE: . . . which lying Day brightly illluminates before us . . .
TRISTAN: . . . opposed in deluding folly . . .
BOTH: . . . then I myself am the world --
sublimest rapture of being, most holy existence in love,
nevermore to be woken from, free from illusion,
sweetly experienced desire.
BRANGÄNE'S VOICE [from the ramparts]:
Watching lonely in the night,
you to whom love's dream laughs,
heed the call of her who foresees disaster
for the sleepers, and anxiously urges them to awake!
Have a care! Have a care! Soon night will vanish.
ISOLDE: Hark, beloved!
TRISTAN: Let me die!

-- English translation from Decca Records

STILL TO COME? So we've (finally) got the texts for Rosenkavalier in place, and even an intended Wagner excerpt: the now-in-place pair of custom-edited versions of Brangäne's Watch from Act II of Tristan und Isolde. But I haven't given up on the other ideas I floated. More Mahler maybe? Maybe a snatch or two of her sensational Rheingold Fricka -- and why not some of her Walküre Fricka as well? And, oh yes, what about Gluck's Orfeo?

ALEXANDER YOUNG, tenor
(1920-2000),
born in London, England

No, Alexander Young wasn't one of the 20th century's elite tenors. Still, he applied his pleasing lyric instrument with sound taste and sense, and made himself an unobtrusively welcome participant in a fair range of musical undertakings, not least those that called for a man who knew how to sing the English language.

Notably, he was Igor Stravinsky's choice for the central role of the rake-in-the-making Tom Rakewell for his stereo remake of The Rake's Progress.

STRAVINSKY: The Rake's Progress: Act I, Recitative and aria, Tom Rakewell, "Here I stand" . . . "Since it is not by merit"

Recitative: Here I stand, my constitution sound, my frame not ill-favored, my wite ready, my heart light. I play the industrious apprentice in a copybook? I submit to the drudge's yoke? I slave through a lifetime to enrich others, and then be thrown away like a gnawed bone? Not I! Have not grave doctors assured us that good works are of no avail, for Heaven predestines all? In my fashion, I may profess myself of their party and herewith entrust myself to Fortune.
Aria: Since it is not by merit
we rise and we fall,
but the favor of Fortune
that governs us all,
why should I labor
for what in the end
she will give me for nothing
if she be my friend?
While if she be not, why,
the wealth I might gain
for a time by my toil would
at last be in vain.
Till I die, then, of fever,
or by lightning am struck,
let me live by my wits
and trust to my luck.
My life lies before me,
the world is so wide:
Come, wishes, be horses;
this beggar shall ride.
[TOM walks about.]
I wish I had money.

Alexander Young (t), Tom Rakewell; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, cond. CBS, recorded June 1964

We've heard most often as a featured player in Sir Malcolm Sargent's EMI stereo Gilbert and Sullivan series, where he served as sort of backup tenor to Richard Lewis, even though he always sang his roles better than Lewis, who got the juicy ones, sang his. For example, just recently we heard him as Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe exhorting the beautiful young Phyllis to "Spurn not the nobly born."

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: Iolanthe: Act I, Phyllis, "Nay, tempt me not, to wealth I'll not be bound" . . . Earl Tolloller, "Spurn not the nobly born"

PHYLLIS: Nay, tempt me not;
to wealth I'll not be bound.
In lowly cot
alone is virtue found.
CHORUS OF PEERS: No, no; indeed high rank will never hurt you,
the peerage is not destitute of virtue.
EARL TOLLOLLER: Spurn not the nobly born
with love affected,
nor treat with virtuous scorn
the well-connected.
High rank involves no shame --
we boast an equal claim
with him of humble name
to be respected!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
When virtuous love is sought,
the power is naught,
though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
Spare us the bitter pain
of stern denials,
nor with low-born disdain
augment our trials.
Hearts just as pure and fair
may beat in Belgrave Square
as in the lowly air
of Seven Dials!
Blue blood! Blue blood!
Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!
CHORUS OF PEERS: Of what avail art thou
to serve us now?
Though dating from the flood,
blue blood!

Elsie Morison (s), Phyllis; Alexander Young (t), Earl Tolloller; Glyndebourne Festival Chorus, Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 21-24, 1958

Young found other ways of utilizing his skill at singing English.

HANDEL: Theodora: Recitative and air, Septimus, "I know thy virtues" . . . "Descend, kind pity"

Recitative: I know thy virtues, and ask not thy faith:
Enjoy it as you will, my Didimus.
Though not a Christian, yet I own
something within declares for acts of mercy
but Antioch's President must be obeye;
such is the Roman discipline, while we
can only pity whom we dare not spare.
Air: Descend, kind pity, heavenly guest,
descend and fill each human breast
with sympathizing woe.

Alexander Young (t), Septimus; Harold Lester, harpsichord; English Chamber Orchestra, Johannes Somary, cond. Vanguard-Alto, recorded c1968

JUSTINO DÍAZ, bass-baritone
(born 1940),
born in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Justino Díaz had a fine early-career going when he was chosen to play Antony in Antony and Cleopatra, the opera Samuel Barber was commissioned to compose for the opening of the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center, and he had reason to imagine that it was going to mean Big Things for him. At least nobody blamed him, and he went on to have quite a nice career in roles in that between-baritone-and-bass range which took advantage of his physical and vocal presence (cf. Don Giovanni, Escamillo).

He made recordings, but they don't necessarily represent his repetory ideally. So I thought we'd start with a Sunday Classics first: the aria that da Ponte and Mozart wrote originally for Guglielmo in Così fan tutte but yanked it, from a disc of Mozart arias that stresses the unusual -- including the unusual-for-Justino -- rather than Figaro or Don Giovanni, he's heard as Don Giovanni's servant Leporello (the Catalogue Aria).

MOZART: Concert aria, "Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo," K. 584 (written originally for Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, K. 588)

Return his glance
and you'll see how it is:
It says everything: I freeze, I burn.
My idol, have pity, pity.
I burn, I freeze, I burn.
My idol, have pity, pity.
And you, beloved, for just a moment
cast your lovely eye on me.
And in me you will find
that which the lip doesn't know how to say.
Some love-struck Orlando
Is nothing compared to me;
A Medoro with wounded breast
is as nothing next to me:
My sighs are fire;
his lust is bronze.
So if we speak of merit,
I am sure and he is sure,
you cannot find equals
from Vienna to Canada.
The two of us are rich as Croesus,
handsome as Narcissus.
In love, Marc Antonys
would seem like clowns in comparison.
We are stronger than a Cyclops,
writers on par with Aesop.
If we dance, Pichne bows to
our refined narrow feet.
Singing, a single trill
puts nightingales to shame,
and we have other strengths
that you still don't know.
Beauty, beauty, hold fast:
If they go, I rejoice.
Heroines of constancy
are mirrors of faithfulness.

-- English translation by Christian Anderson, © 2014

Justino Díaz, bass-baritone; English Chamber Orchestra, Ettore Stratta, cond. ASV, recorded c1987

Dapertutto's great aria "Scintille, diamant" is one of my favorite numbers, though of course it isn't really Dapertutto's aria and it isn't really from Tales of Hoffmann. It's an Offenbach tune that was adapted for this purpose well after Offenbach's passing. But it's a wonderful piece, and I love the rolling richness of Díaz's delivery of the recitative. I guess the aria itself lies kind of high for a bass-baritone, and doesn't come off quite as well.

OFFENBACH: Les Contes d'Hoffmann: Act II, Recitative and aria, Dapertutto, "Allez, pour te livrer combat" . . . "Scintille, diamant"

HOFFMANN: Let's go.
NICKLASSE: Let's go.
[They exit. DAPERTUTTO, alone, gets out of his gondola.]
DAPERTUTTO: Go! To deliver you to battle
Giulietta's eyes are a sure weapon.
Schlemil had to succumb,
word of a devil and captain.
You will do as he did!
I want Giulietta to bewitche you today.
Aria: Sparkle, diamond, mirror in which the lark is taken.
Sparkle, diamond, fascinate, attract her.
The lark or the woman to this conquering bait
are going, by means of wing or of heart,
the one to leave life
and the other to lose her soul.
Beautiful diamond, sparkle, attract her.

Justino Díaz (bs-b), Dapertutto; Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded c1986

I think we may want to hear more of Solomon, but for now, here is his opening-scene invocation. (I couldn't help including at least the recitative portion -- an aria follows, naturally -- of the high priest Zadok's report of the happy outcome of the king's prayer.

HANDEL: Solomon: Act I, Scene 1: Accompanied recitative, Solomon, "Almighty power, who rul'st the earth and skies"

Almighty power, who rul'st the earth and skies,
and bade gay order from confusion rise,
whose gracious hand relieved thy slave distressed,
with splendor clothed me, and with knowledge blest,
with splendor clothed me, and with knowledge blest,
thy finished temple with thy presence grace,
and shed thy heavenly glories o'er the place.
ZADOK [recitative]: Imperial Solomon, thy prayers are heard.
See! from the opening skies
descending flames involve the sacrifice;
and lo! within the sacred deom
that gleamy light, profusely bright,
declares the Lord of Hosts is come.

Justino Díaz (bs-b), Solomon; Robert Tear (t), Zadok; Harold Lester, harpsichord; English Chamber Orchestra, Johannes Somary, cond. Vanguard, recorded 1974

Let's go a bit farther into the scene, following one of the oratorio's abundant great choruses, to hear Solomon's first air, which gives Díaz a chance to stretch the voice out quite handsomely, don't you think?

Recitative and air, Solomon, "Blest be the Lord" . . . "What though I trace each herb and flower"

Recit.: Blest be the Lord, who looked with gracious eyes
upon his vassal's humble sacrifice,
and has with an approving smile
my work o'erpaid and graced the pile.
Air: What though I trace each herb and flower
that drinks the morning dew,
did I not own Jehovah's power,
how vain were all I knew!
Say what's the rest but empty boast,
the pedant's idle claim,
who having all the substance lost
attempts to grasp a name.
What though I trace each herb and flower etc.

Justino Díaz (bs-b), Solomon; Harold Lester, harpsichord; English Chamber Orchestra, Johannes Somary, cond. Vanguard, recorded 1974

STILL TO COME? On the subject of overflowing material that's crying out for a "bonus post," I've already made an audio clip of JD doing the ever-amazing Rigoletto-Sparafucile scene (with Cornell MacNeil), and I've got a big bravura standard-rep role, Méphisto in Gounod's Faust, which I'm thinking we should sample, and -- well, let's hope I can get the madness under control.


NEXT TIME --

Veteran discophiles will surely know what composer (and which work) we're going to be hearing. Others may be a bit surprise -- pleasantly, I hope. Everyone is welcome to tune in. (And I have a feeling that those bonus mini-posts I hinted at above might actually happen.)

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