The wonderfully witty verse of Gilbert created together with the music of Sullivan really requires a performer particularly in tune with the idiom to do it full-justice (although I know that Danny Kaye made some succesful recordings of various songs and Kenny Baker was an excellent Nanki-Poo in the 1939 film of The Mikado).
Unfortunately all of the singers you mentioned are no-longer alive. The wonderfully-accomplished Cleo Laine is, happily, still with us but has long-since retired; it's a pity she never gave her attention to anything from the "Serious" song repertoire, although she made a very succesful recording , together with the late Annie Ross, of Facade.
When it comes to the opposite side of the coin - opera singers performing jazz and light music - I'm not so sure that this is always a succesful exercise as I feel that, often, their style of singing doesn't suit the music. Maybe the recordings of Renata Tebaldi and Mario del Monaco singing show-songs make me wince because of the almost unintelligible attempts they make at the English language.
Kiri Te Kanawa and Jessye Norman are notable in being able to sing the lighter repertoire, but when I hear the records of Benjamin Luxon and Bryn Terfel singing such pieces, good as they are, I get the impression of great opera-singers taking a busman's holiday.
Given the love for Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and Brahms evident in Sinatra’s recordings of “Full Moon and Empty Arms”, “None But the Lonely Heart” and “Cradle Song”, I am not surprised that Sinatra loved Vaughan Williams. Also his recording of “Ebb Tide” suggests he appreciated the capacity of an orchestra to evoke the sea - an evocation of which Vaughan Williams was a master.
I think I am unusual in wishing that the greatest pop singers had sometimes sung modern art song - songs in which the words are so important. I’d love to hear Matt Monro sing Vaughan Williams’ “Let Beauty Awake”; or Sinatra or Andy Williams or Tony Bennett sing Ned Rorem’s “Early in the Morning”; or Judy Garland sing Britten’s “Before Feeling and After” or Samuel Barber’s “The Crucifixion”; or Rosemary Clooney sing Richard Hundley’s “Come Ready and See Me”. Amongst classical singers who sing in English, Peter Pears, Janet Baker, Benjamin Luxon and Frederica Von Stade do have a wonderful feeling for the words they sing. But such feeling is even more evident in the singing of the greatest pop singers.
I was very interested and surprised to discover that Frank Sinatra was apparently an admirer of Vaughan Williams.
In her autobiography, Peggy Lee is full of praise for Sinatra’s role in this recording. She describes him as a “marvellously sensitive conductor”, and says that the concept of the album was his. The fact that Sinatra and Lee were great friends may contribute to the effusiveness of her praise. But given the musicality of Sinatra’s singing and the force of his personality, I do not find it all that surprising that he could take on the role of conductor.
I have a vinyl album, "The Man I Love"..."Peggy Lee sings, Frank Sinatra conducts, the arrangements are by Nelson Riddle" where the sleeve note states "In his album 'Tone poems of Color' he (Sinatra) displayed impressive skill as the conductor of purely instrumental music." Well, some of us older ones will remember Danny Kaye gesticulating wildly in front of various top-rank orchestras without appearing to know exactly what he was doing....but Sinatra ? The accompaniments on the album are quite sensitively handled and I began to wonder what particular accomplishments Sinatra had to achieve such results. Was Nelson Riddle the "eminence grise" in the recording studio that the musicians were actually following ?
Perhaps some of the experts in the field of lighter music who post here occasionally might know the answer.
Message Thread
« Back to index | View thread »
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb