Barbra Streisand, 80 today, sings Debussy
NewsProbably not the birthday song featured on your local nostalgia station.
One more for the road?
Streisand was born in Brooklyn on 24 April 1942.
Oh all right then: one more.
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Whey do these sound so right when they sound so wrong
Like Hollywood actors who do Shakespeare: Look mom, I can do iambic pentameter.
Look mom, I can sing French, Italian, German phonetically.
Bon anniversaire Barbra
Cento di questi giorni Barbra
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag Barbra
Sweet introduction. Without this
post, I wouldn’t have known to
say “Happy Birthday,” Barbra, and many years more of love and music! (From one of
the audience, at the original
production of “Funny Girl.”)
More than her inferiors (winners of America’s Got Talent and the like who “do” an opera aria) this fine singer, while making a decent effort with it, shows up exactly the difference between a popular singer with good range and decent tone and a trained opera singer whose voice includes layers and colour and texture beyond what is a thin offering in comparison.
This is more apparent in the Handel and Canteloube than the DebussyFauré, granted. But even there, just compare her to someone like Renee Fleming.
She has earned the right to sing these songs (and the aria) but it should sound a cautionary tale to the young AGT aspirants. Singing is more than a matter of hitting the notes.
Say what you will, but in fact “Classical Barbra” is by far the best-selling lieder album of all time!
One of her most underrated albums in her repertoire. Her tone, control and evocation are extraordinary and sublime. If there were only more. Alas, the public is fickle and it did not sell well in it’s time.
For a Streisand album it didn’t sell well, but for a leider album the sales were phenomenal. In USA, it sold steady at about 400 units per month. By comparison, a comparable Elly Ameling album might sell 400 copies per year.
“For me, the Streisand voice is one of the natural wonders of the age, an instrument of infinite diversity and timbral resource.” – Glenn Gould
http://barbra-archives.com/bjs_library/70s/high_fidelity_1976.html
Barbra is my very favorite female vocalist ever. And I adore opera, so it totally surprises me that I could feel or say this. Nevertheless, it’s true. She really is perhaps the most gifted performer and interpreter of all the female vocalists I’ve heard. Her singing, in addition to being excellent technically and diction-wise (exceptional diction for a popular singer) possesses “the personal” in immeasurable quantity. Happy Birthday, Barbra Streisand. Thank you for all the musical beauty you’ve shared with us, your listeners.
I enjoyed being in the cello section for this recording and Barbra graciously accepted my compliments afterwards. She sang together with an enormous string orchestra and the microphone was placed somewhere near her tonsils.
That must have been quite the string section if you were in the cellos!
I remember when the LP was new and it got a little airplay on the local classical station, with somewhat apologetic introductions from the announcers (this was before the trend for folksy announcers on classical radio). I don’t think the pop stations did much with it. So, it was neither fish nor fowl. Not “really” classical. But classy.
It reminded me a little of a 10″ 78 rpm disc we had that my mother just loved (so my dad and I would play it as an “apology” to her for yet another listen to the Francescatti/Casadesus 78s of the Franck Sonata), that being Tino Rossi singing Bizet. Likewise not really “classical” (and no excuses needed for Rossi’s French).
Here it is for the curious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMfPxlnrxXY
That somehow reminds me of something my father recollected, with a sad shake of the head — that when South Pacific was a big hit the local radio stations played the top songs from the Broadway LP. He remembered an announcer scoffing at the voice of Ezio Pinza — saying something like “they call this singing?” The two worlds of music, and in particular singing, don’t understand each other as well as they might. That station was probably happier when Perry Como recorded his “cover version” of Some Enchanted Evening so they could quietly bury the Pinza.
Another sublime great classic by Tino Rossi has to be Catari (Core ingrazio)
Some of the credit for this album should go to the arranger, conductor, composer Claus Ogerman who was one of the most gifted and least known all-around musicians of his time.
Happy Birthday Barbra. I have been in Love with you and your music since the 60’s. Keep up your lovely work…
When I first heard this (whatever year that was) I, a young singer in training, I didn’t care for it. Now, as a retired professional, I find it beautiful. Who’s to say it’s not “classical” enough. Not me, anymore.
A perfect example of pop culture poisoning our great classical legacy.
Streisand was at her peak in the early days; “The Barbra Streisand Album”, “My Name is Barbra”, her role in ‘Funny Girl’ (OK, she had a stunning director). Her “Cry me a River” was beyond stunning. Then she started singing schlock and screaming pop and it was all over. But those legacy albums were unforgettable.
Happy birthday. Barbra streisand. Thank you for all the music, laughs and most, your beautiful heart.
Debut-see.
Can’t-ah-lube.
Breath of fresh air to hear this.
I used to laugh at this. Now I admire it. The French isn’t bad, the notes are there….what the heck…. If everyone who can almost carry a tune sings “nessun dorma” in horrific Italian, why, this is genius.
Why not dip your toe into the pool of classical music? I think this is a pretty damn good album, and I don’t think she was trying to set the classical world ablaze with her talent.
I also have a feeling that this might have been recorded in quadraphinic format, and released in stereo because of the “muffled” quality of the recordings.
Comedy, drama, pop, classical, even rock…. she has a range.
I recall how my mother, who did not buy normally buy records, would always buy Barbra’s albums when they came out. I never caught her listening to them but they would be on the record player when I got home from school.
I think she enjoyed Barbra’s image of a talented woman who didn’t seem to have to play the man’s games that the starlets had to.
There will never be another one like you.
Blessings and best wishes. Happy Birthday.
This is one of my all time favorite albums! Played it over and over and over! The fact that Barbra sang all those selections so beautifully made it even better! I chose to sing one of the “auf Deutsche” selections at a German club. Happy, happy Birthday to one of the most talented, beautiful performers in my lifetime.