A few more words about (and a few more minutes with) Singer A

by Ken

After posting the sort-of-post "I wonder how much these three singers -- whom we heard recently, and who not so long ago would have been instantly recognizable (or almost) -- are even known now," I found myself remaking a couple of audio clips that have been in the DWT Archive for ages but that I thought I could do better, when it occurred to me that this might be a good time to share the "B" version. Partly I was also thinking that I hadn't done justice to "Singer A," or to my admiration for her. I might have mentioned, for example, that in the protracted period during which I've been toiling at various versions of this impending "post-cycle" I had occasion to dip into the archive and was startled but not really surprised to see how abundantly Singer A is represented there. Though I have no way of really knowing, it's possible that there are more clips of her than of any other performer in the history of Sunday Classics.

There was probably also some concern on my part that including any version of the clip we're about to hear would be a dead giveaway to Singer A's identity. That's even spooked me in my planning for the next post in this series, the one that's designed to give readers a proper samping of the singing of Singers A, B, and C. Well, too bad. As I've been thinking about my history with Singer A, I'm realizing that she is very likely the greatest singer whose career I've had the good fortune to witness at first hand. So without further ado, let's listen to the new version of this clip:


Singer A; Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. Decca, from the Fledermaus "Gala" sequence, recorded in the Sofiensaal, June 1960


YOU KNOW, NOW THAT THE "SECRET" OF SINGER A'S
IDENTITY IS BLOWN, WE MIGHT AS WELL HEAR AS WELL --

TRADITIONAL: "He's got the whole world in his hands"


David Garvey, piano. RCA, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Feb. 28, 1965

"He's got the whole world" was the last number in a group of four spirituals with which Singer A had brought to a stunning conclusion the formal program of her first Carnegie Hall recital, in February 1965, a decade after her only previous professional NYC recital. As Dan Guss, executive producer of the eventual commercial release of the Carnegie Hall recital, explained in a booklet note for it, he'd been working back in the mid-1990s on a retrospective set for Singer A when he needed to tap the archival expertise of John Pfeiffer (1920-1996), a longtime active recording producer who'd also produced extensive releases from the treasured RCA archives, including the complete RCA recordings of such prolific label artists as Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jascha Heifetz, and Arturo Toscanini.

What Guss had turned to Pfeiffer to find out was --

whether we had any unreleased material to include as a bonus for her ardent fans. He unearthed the present recital, much to the astonishment of us all. RCA had recorded not only the recital but all the rehearsals as well, which led us to conclude it had been intended for commercial release. However, nobody could remember why it was never issued -- not even [the singer] herself -- and we could locate no documentation addressing the matter.

Guss, "anticipating we might one day want to release the entire recital," had made only limited selections for the retrospective-set bonus disc, meaning that when that "one day" finally came, in 2002!, most of the material still had never been released.

By the way, among the Carnegie Hall recital's four encores was a number we're pretty familiar with -- only a little less lullaby-like and a soupçon more knock-their-socks-off encore-like.


David Garvey, piano. RCA, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Feb. 28, 1965

#