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Nadia Boulanger
Ensemble Recorded
in 1937, issued as 5HMV 78s DB.5038-42
Matrix Numbers:2LA: 1525-6, 1520-21, 1519, 1532, 1535-4, 1518, 1533
Takes: All first except 2LA1518 ("Amor") - 3rd take
Download ID: 194451, 390707
Duration: 41'25"
Hor
ch'el e la terra
(6 part madrigal)
Lamento
d'Arianna: Lasciatemi morire (5 part madrigal)
Zefiro
torna, 'ciacona' (Chaconne for two tenors)
Ardo
e scoprir (Duet for two tenors)
Ohimè,
dovè il mio ben? (Romanesca for two tenors)
Chiome
d'oro, bel thesoro
(Canzonetta for two tenors)
Il
ballo delle ingrate
(Ballet extracts for solo voices & strings)
Non
havea Febo ancora (lamento della ninfa)
(4 parrt madrigal)
Ecco
mormorar l'onde
(5 part madrigal)
Play
Zefiro turna, 'ciacona'
Order
CDs:
...one
of the purest treasures the
gramophone has given us...
The Record Guide, 1952
Nadia
Boulanger
(1887-1979)
This
collection of various madrigals and other works by Claudio Monteverdi
(1567-1643) has often been regarded as one of the most important
recordings of the twentieth century. Made in 1937 under the direction
of Nadia Boulanger (who accompanies some of the pieces at the piano),
it re-introduced to the world a composer who had been virtually forgotten
for centuries; yet he was the musical genius who had practically invented
opera with Orfeo in 1607, and whose marrying of musical techniques
old and new set the stage for the entire Baroque movement.
Yet there
is more to this recording than simply the merit of discovering lost musicians.
In these ten 78rpm sides Boulanger conjured up musical perfection such
that it has rarely been unavailable since, on a variety of transfers,
good, bad and indifferent.
I am grateful
to a long-time customer of Pristine Audio for suggesting this set. I had
not listened to a note by Monteverdi since my school music O-level examinations
in 1985, when I decided that his Beatus Vir would be the one work
I had no intention of learning about, such was my lack of engagement with
it at the time. (In the light of this recording perhaps I've achieved
the maturity lacking all those years ago for that piece!)
Writing
in Fanfare magazine in 2003, Raymond Tuttle states: "While
it is not difficult to find versions that surpass these on technical grounds—I
mean both the production of notes and the electronic reproduction of sound—I
can’t think of any that are more sincere, more heartfelt. Boulanger
guides these works with the bittersweet tenderness of a mother guiding
her infant child in his first steps."
He goes
on: "Boulanger’s small, handpicked
ensemble of singers was a diverse group. There were émigrés
from Eastern Europe, a countess, and a tenor who was equally at home in
French art song and the music hall. For the most part, these were not
“great” singers, but they were dedicated to Boulanger and to
the composers that she in turn served. Hearing these musicians, one senses
that they were a family united by music.
The
age of these recordings probably works in their favor, giving them a magical
patina impossible in the clinical digital age. The feeling of exploration,
of Sleeping Beauties awakened with a kiss, is moving. Call me a sentimentalist,
but there it is."
Find
out more:
3:
Zefiro torna, 'ciacona' from Scherzi musicali, pub.
1632
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...one
of the purest treasures the 
