Claude DEBUSSY
(1862-1918)
01. En sourdine [03:08]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Studio pianist,
piano
Recorded: 1 January 1909
Landon RONALD
(1873-1938)
02. Down in the Forest [02:51]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Studio pianist,
piano
Recorded: 1 January 1909
03. White Sea Mist [02:16]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Studio pianist,
piano
Recorded: 1 January 1909
Reynaldo HAHN
(1875-1947)
04. D'une prison [02:43]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Studio pianist,
piano
Recorded: 1 January 1909
Thomas MOORE (1779-1852)
05. Believe Me, If All Those Endearing
Young Charms [02:39]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Nellie Melba,
piano
Recorded: 1 January 1909
Giuseppe VERDI
(1813-1901)
06. Otello: Piangea cantando nell'erma
landa (Willow Song) [04:32]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 6 January 1909
07. Otello: Ave Maria, piena di grazia
[03:30]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 6 January 1909
Giacomo PUCCINI
(1858-1924)
08. La Boheme: Donde lieta usci al
tuo grido d'amore [03:16]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 6 January 1909
Landon RONALD
(1873-1938)
09. O Lovely Night [04:00]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 6 January 1909
Charles MILLER
10. Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie
Doon [02:49]
Nellie Melba, soprano / Nellie Melba,
piano
Recorded: 6 January 1909
Giacomo PUCCINI
(1858-1924)
11. La Boheme: Mi chiamano Mimi [04:15]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 22 August 1910
12. La Boheme: Donde lieta usci al
tuo grido d'amore [03:23]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 23 August 1910
Giuseppe VERDI
(1813-1901)
13. La Traviata: Ah fors' e lui...
Follie, follie!... Sempre libera [05:02]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 23 August 1910
Henry BISHOP (1786-1855)
14. Lo! Here the Gentle Lark [03:14]
Nellie Melba, soprano / John Lemmone,
flute
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 23 August 1910
Wolfgang Amadeus
MOZART (1756-1791)
15. Le nozze di Figaro: Voi che sapete
[03:31]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 23 August 1910
Luigi ARDITI
16. Se saran rose [03:05]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 23 August 1910
Charles GOUNOD
(1818-1893)
17. Faust: Ah! Je ris de me voir
si belle (Jewel Song) [03:01]
Nellie Melba, soprano
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 24 August 1910
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
18. L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il
moderato: Sweet Bird [04:35]
Nellie Melba, soprano / John Lemmone,
flute
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 24 August 1910
Gaetano DONIZETTI
(1797-1848)
19. Lucia di Lammermoor: Ardon gl'incensi
(Mad Scene) [04:58]
Nellie Melba, soprano / John Lemmone,
flute
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 24 August 1910
Jules MASSENET
(1842-1912)
20. Don Cesar de Bazan: A Saville,
belles Senoras (Sevillana) [02:57]
Nellie Melba, soprano / John Lemmone,
flute
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 24 August 1910
Ambroise THOMAS
(1811-1896)
21. Hamlet: Des larmes de la nuit
(Mad Scene) [04:46]
Nellie Melba, soprano / John Lemmone,
flute
Studio Orchestra
Walter B. Rogers, conductor
Recorded: 25 August 1910
The first volume in
the American disc series;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2005/Mar05/Melba_american1.htm
Other issues from the series;
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/Jun04/Melba_Naxos.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Dec02/NellieMelbaVol2.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Sept02/Nellie_Melba.htm
This is, I believe,
the sixth Melba disc in the unfolding
series from Naxos. The first four were
devoted to her Paris and London sessions
and the focus of interest has now switched
to her New York recordings, of which
this is the second volume. There’s one
more volume to come to complete those
sessions. She returned to much of her
previously recorded repertoire and made
discs that differ very little one from
another in any significant respect.
There can be few artists in recorded
history whose performances, even if
made a scant few years apart, bear such
close resemblance. Not even her sometimes
glacial, erstwhile recital and recording
colleague Jan Kubelík could best
her in that department.
The nature of that
sheer consistency of approach, in all
expressive contours, argues of course
for two things; uniformity of theatrical
performance and a superb, unwavering
technique. And yet not everything was
artistically successful. In a disc that
takes a chronological look – rightly
so, and it’s what we have come to expect
of this series – there are inevitably
casualties. The back of the jewel box
for instance awards an accolade to her
Debussy, which might be considered unusually
novel repertoire amidst the Donizetti,
Verdi, Puccini, Handel and more homespun
favourites she sings in these 1909-10
sides. Far from finding it "compelling"
I have to say I find it inert. That
blanche emotional response is
of course an old, repeated criticism
of her singing and often bears great
weight. And yet I don’t find the same
kind of response in her Hahn, which
sounds far more idiomatic, and must
be one of the earlier recordings of
this composer’s music on disc.
As for her Italian
repertoire much reprises performances
heard earlier in this series, such as
the Mad Scene from Thomas. Her kind
of strict purity works well enough for
Otello, if never very movingly and the
unsympathetic will find in her voice,
its deployment, and the mechanism that
animates it something rather uninvolving
in her Bohème. Throughout however
certain aspects of her technique remain
imperishable; the pure, perfectly centred
tone seldom burnished by much vibrato,
the incendiary rapidity of her trills,
and, when she chose, the deployment
of sentiment in such a song as Ye
Banks and Braes, which is preferable
to her Believe Me, If All Those Endearing
Young Charms. The coloratura remained
intact pretty much to the end – the
Covent Garden farewell of 1926 showed
her voice in still splendid estate –
and the approach embodied strong elements
of nineteenth century performance practice,
such as the interpolated G in the Mozart
and the outrageous reprise of a Melba
favourite from L'Allegro, il penseroso
ed il moderato - Sweet Bird.
Some of the discs have
quite a degree of surface noise but
the voice itself is forward in the balance
and perfectly audible; pitching seems
to me to have been carried out with
acumen. On to number seven.
Jonathan Woolf
NAXOS 8.110335 [74.33] 
