Another selection from Handel’s Messiah today, with the usual difficulty that *everyone* has recorded the Messiah and there are six hundred options and none of them are ever quite what I want (because this is one that I’ve studied as a solo, so I have particularly strong opinions on it!). And so again, I’ve ended up with a style of voice I normally wouldn’t like and certainly wouldn’t associate with Handel (too heavy, basically).<\/p>\n
What made me choose this recording in the end was that all the other soloists sounded like mezzo sopranos – lovely and light in the coloratura bits, but lacking something in the lower range. This singer (sadly, I don’t know her name) is a true alto; I don’t think I’ve ever heard a voice of this type before, actually. And her low notes are just wonderful.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, listening to the recording again in the background as I write this, I don’t like it that much – but when I switch to the YouTube page and watch her sing, I do. And then I come back here and don’t, so much – all of which suggests that a large part of this singer’s charm is in how she puts the song across. I suspect she would be even better live.<\/p>\n
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of this one.<\/p>\n
Edited in December 2017: Sigh.\u00a0 This recording has now disappeared, and since I never knew who it was in the first place, I can’t find another recording of her.\u00a0 And so I have spent another hour or so scouring YouTube for a proper contralto singing this aria and once again had to choose between the vocal quality that I find so fascinating and the style of singing that I think this aria wants!\u00a0 Perhaps one just can’t have that depth of voice with the lightness of delivery on the coloratura and I’m seeking the impossible?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n But then I found Maureen Forrester, a Canadian operatic contralto, who really has some wonderful low notes and still makes the coloratura flow effortlessly.\u00a0 Hooray!\u00a0 (Having said that, these days I think I really do prefer a Mezzo-Soprano for this aria, but this is still pretty wonderful.)<\/em><\/p>\n [youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RFZTrVJzt-o&w=560&h=315]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another selection from Handel’s Messiah today, with the usual difficulty that *everyone* has recorded the Messiah and there are six hundred options and none of them are ever quite what I want (because this is one that I’ve studied as a solo, so I have particularly strong opinions on it!). And so again, I’ve ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,263,485,541,696],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advent-calendar","tag-g-f-handel","tag-maureen-forrester","tag-o-thou-that-tellest-good-tidings-to-zion","tag-the-messiah"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}