It took some wrangling
but Odeon released John McCormack from
his contract thus allowing him to make
a series of sides for Victor in New
York in 1910. They are here in all their
early glory and essentially in chronological
order. The records divide fairly evenly
between the operatic (McCormack did
sing on stage early in his career but
that was never his metier), ballads
and folk songs – English, Scottish and
of course Irish. It was in a sense a
template of the recordings to come.
The Victors, from the
shelves of some noted collectors, are
in an excellent state of preservation
and have been adroitly remastered by
Ward Marston. The Victors were forward
in their presentation of the voice as
we can immediately hear in the Donizetti.
Whilst stylistically the Italian-trained
tenor may not unambiguously convince,
the pessimistic voices who used to write
off McCormack as an operatic failure
would have a job demonstrating it from
the examples here. His breath control
is almost peerless – he could take phrases
in one breath (Mozart most famously)
that others would routinely have to
split into two. The tone is clear, sweet,
beautifully equalized and utterly inimitable.
True there are perhaps some weak lower
notes in the compass in Tu che a
Dio spiegasti l’ali and I happen
to find a touch of cover in the voice
in Che gelida manina along with
an effortful ascent as well. But Una
furtive lagrima is much better –
an exemplar of his bel canto singing,
with head voice superbly floated, a
spun legato, and a lightly shaded and
inflected rendition; perhaps a touch
studied but formidable nonetheless.
The Puccini duet with Sammarco is dichotomous
vocally – McCormack is ardent and bright,
Sammarco rather woolly of tone. There’s
a slight wear in the tenor’s voice in
the Delibes – this was the first side
of the session on 25th March so maybe
the voice was cold. The other takes,
of lighter songs, are in good voice.
In that lighter fare
we find McCormack in fresh voice. His
liquid ease in The Minstrel Boy is palpable
– and there’s no barking here (where
he raps it out) - of the kind that could
creep into his performances in the 1920s
and 1930s and certainly did in the later
recordings of it. In Charles Marshall’s
When Shadows Gather he holds
the head note with exquisite perfection.
The transfers are first
class, allowing the voice free rein
unimpeded by treble cut or unnecessary
noise suppression. It’s good that the
booklet writer translates some of the
Gaelic and Scottish phrases that might
prove tricky – one tends to take them
for granted without stopping to ask
oneself if one understands them – though
translating "bonnie" is rather
over zealous. Otherwise a fine start
to another essential vocal edition from
Naxos
Jonathan Woolf