Unreleased Jessye Norman comes to light
NewsThree years after her death, Decca have pulled together a box of unreleased masters, outtakes and concert recordings by the iconic American singer Jessye Norman.
It includes a Tristan und Isolde selection in which she sings both Isolde and Brangäne in a Leipzig session with Kurt Masur.
Plus Bejamin Britten’s little-known Phaedra Op.93, performed in Boston with Seiji Ozawa, and other goodies.
A treasure box from the undusted archive.
Important to don’t forget that also : https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaire-actu/14-juillet-1989-jessye-norman-chante-la-marseillaise
Be interesting to see if the studio recording of Elektra (which apparently she was unhappy with and blocked its release) will now ever see the light of day….
How are we to feel about that I wonder? In recent years it seems the record companies, and perhaps also the estates of deceased artists if they have a say, seem to care less and less if an artist refused to approve the public release of recordings they were unsatisfied with. A decade or so after Caruso’s death, Victor released 78 rpm sides that clearly Caruso had not approved. At one time clever collectors could “trick” HMV into selling unapproved pressings which were ordered by matrix number — the collectors would keep track of the matrix number gaps in issued recordings, so they were ordering blind so to speak.
The floodgates seemed to open with RCA Victor’s release of all of Toscanini’s infamous Philadelphia Orchestra recordings, although the Toscanini estate might have agreed given what technology could now do with the much written about problems. During his lifetime Jascha Heifetz would not approve some sonata recordings he had initially rejected even though his trusted producer could prove to Heifetz that using tape splices and other simple technology that could and did address all the original objections. But recordings which Jascha Heifetz refused to approve are now out there including his Sibelius Concerto with Stokowski (Victor’s Charles O’Connell wrote that he felt Heifetz’s approval had been unreasonably withheld, although he agreed with Heifetz’s refusal to approve a Brahms Concerto with Koussevitzky that was soon re-made and released).
Nothing at this point can tarnish Jessye Norman’s towering reputation but still — if she rejected the release does that now count for nothing?
Apparently that recording is a myth. (or was never actually started), at least according the Cheryl Studer, who supposedly was the Chrysothemis on the non-existant Elektra.
“Phaedra” was written for Dame Janet Baker, who made the first recording, so I will be interested to hear it with the quite different voice of Jessye Norman.
It will be wonderful! Great to have a totally different and equally valid interpretation.
Indeed, Brittens late masterpiece.
Wasn’t the Tristan with Thomas Moser?
and it is hardly “little-known”…
Tower Records in Japan has a release date of 27 Jan next year. I wonder if it will be released sooner elsewhere?
Decca has one selection available to preview on their website, Brangäne’s warning, and she sings it like a English choirboy at his worst – colorless, straight-toned (mostly) and flat. She sounds nothing like her glorious self, and I think it is absolutely ghoulish of Decca and her family to allow the release of things that she never allowed herself when she was alive. I remember when she recorded the Tristan selections and the reports were devastating; they didn’t think anything could be used, yet here they are.
On listening, I too thought it sounded nothing like Norman. It has since transpired that Decca had announced Norman as singing Brangäne in error (quite how this happened is beyond me) in error. They’ve since retracted that announcement and the part has now been correctly credited to Hanna Schwarz.
Exciting news for Norman fans! There have been rumors about some of these for a long time now, like the Tristan excerpts and the Levine/BPO Four last Songs. The Haydn/Berlioz/Britten recording is a new one to me, though.
There was once an announcement for a French opera arias CD in the 1980s with Ozawa. I’ve always wondered about that, since I love Norman’s voice in French repertoire.
I so enjoyed working with this wonderful woman. A great singer, but also a warm helpful human being. I miss her.
To all Jessye Norman fans out there, remember this almost forgotten recital and give it a hearing when you can.
A full Richard Strauss Live concert, five Orchestral Songs, including the Final scene from Salome and the Bourgeois Gentilhomme (!)
Klaus Tennstedt and the LPO contribute to the magic with fire and passion. The cd player is on fire!
Propably one of my absolutely favourite recital discs ever !!
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9258036–jessye-norman-sings-strauss-five-songs-salome#reviews
Welcome though this is, should any record company or publisher posthumously publish any material that the author or performer did not wish to have made public? A purely rhetorical question to stimulate debate on this erudite blog.
On the one hand, is it not disrespecting the wish of the late creator, who has no means of taking legal action to prevent it? On the other, is the artist or creator the true judge of what is a good or bad work or performance? Is there any difference between a composer choosing not to publish something (for example ‘Carnival of the Animals’) and one who has expressly forbidden it (for example, Grieg’s Symphony). Can, or should, the executors of the composer’s estate overrule the composer (for example, the original version of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto)?
It’s intriguing to consider what would have been forever lost to us if the composer’s word were to be treated as sacrosanct and if nothing that was unpublished at the time of his (or her) death were to see the light of day.
Some such works, other than those mentioned above) would include:
Bizet’s Symphony in C major
Haydn’s C major Cello Concerto
Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony (the original version)
Samuel Barber’s Second Symphony (ostensibly destroyed by the composer but for the middle movement – after he had conducted and recorded it complete!).
Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony (original version) and his Kullervo Symphony.
Puccini’s ‘Turandot and Offenbach’s ‘Tales of Hoffman’ (both incomplete when their composers died).
Most of Schubert’s works, including two substantial unfinished symphonies.
Berlioz’s Messe Solennelle.
Mahler’s 10th Symphony.
Schumann’s Violin Concerto (censored by Clara and Brahms).
…and lots more.
My favourite example concerns the Hugo Wolf Society – founded by HMV in 1931 as a subscription-funded project to record Wolf songs with various predominantly German artists. Six volumes, each of six shellac 78rpm disks, were issued by 1938, when the project ended – possibly through contractual difficulties with Nazi Germany.
On 29th August 1937 the Danish tenor Helge Rosvaenge was in the studio to record Wolf’s frenetic song ‘Der Feuerreiter’. Several attempts were made but none of them satisfied the great tenor. Finally, the recording session was abandoned. However, someone in the recording team had realised that it was Rosvaenge’s 40th birthday and had brought in several bottles of champagne. After a bacchanalian orgy, with Rosvaenge well oiled, someone suggested that he try the song again, just for fun. With his inhibitions banished, he and his accompanist, probably also inebriated, took their places before the mike. Unbeknown to both of them, a sneaky engineer had set the recorder going…
The recording was preserved but was never issued during Rosvaenge’s lifetime; he died in 1972.
In 1981, EMI reissued the set as a box of seven LPs, emblazoned with ‘including several previously unissued items’ on the front cover. The edition also appeared on 5 CDs in 1998. Indispensable to any Hugo Wolf fan. These re-issues both included Rosvaenge’s ‘Der Feuerreiter’.
It’s all about a ghostly figure in a red cap furiously riding from place to place setting fire to buildings; there’s a fire at the mill behind the mountain; after the inferno, the miller finds a skeleton with a red cap in the cellar of the ruined mill.
Hear it for yourself at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=662mM0OHYuA
Worth every pfennig spent on the champagne, I think.