With a name like
Amedeo Bassi you might expect a sonorous and powerful Italianate
bass. What you get is actually a real verismo tenor, a contemporary
of Caruso, and a warm proponent of Giordano whose music he recorded
with the composer at the piano. He was born near Florence in
1874 and was making successful debuts in important Italian opera
houses before the turn of the century. By 1900-01 he was a guest
at the Met in New York – though it didn’t lead to much at the
time – and travelling to South America. He premiered Mascagni’s
Amica with Farrar in 1905, was a member of the Met (at
last) between 1906 and 1908 and finally sang at La Scala. This
was the high point of his professional life with calls coming
from all points – notably Covent Garden to alternate with Caruso
and Bonci. He gravitated to the Chicago Opera where he gave
a number of local premieres, as indeed he had in London – and
was to do again in the case of the role of Dick Johnson in La
fanciulla del west in London in 1911.
But still the career
progressed. He was a strong presence with Toscanini at La Scala
in the first half of the 1920s, where he often sang Wagner,
and was greatly in demand. But he soon scaled down performances,
retiring from all stage work in 1926, at the age of fifty. But
he did sing recitals intermittently until 1940 before teaching
– his most famous pupil was Ferrucio Tagliavini. Bassi died
in Florence in 1949.
That’s the biography
– what of the voice? Well if you start with Vesti la giubba
and you probably will, as it’s the first track, you will
find the verismo in all its trenchant superficiality – maniacal
laugh, sobbing, and a vibrato which widens at phrase endings.
Bassi was also clearly an exponent of metrical stretching –
or loose rhythm if you prefer. Examples abound. The Fedora
extracts show it graphically, but so does the Tosca,
which is rather coarse interpretatively. And yet the La fanciulla
del west extract is much better and an important
document given his involvement with it in local premieres. His
singing with Giordano at the piano is much more subtle than
the blowsier orchestrally accompanied examples – even if the
wind and mini-string bands of the time on disc hardly conformed
to “orchestral accompaniment.”
He was also associated
with d’Erlanger’s Tess and sings Stanotte ha fatto
un sogno... Il sogno è la coscienza with commendable artistry.
These 1906 Pathé sides are better suited to him musically than
the sometimes self-indulgent 1904 selection – listen to the
floridly open vowel sounds in the 1904 La Bohème which
are not under perfect control. His Recondita armonia
makes surprisingly little impression. O dolci mani is
taken from a poor copy plagued with detritus and pitch instability
though the Denza is suddenly much better. There’s a primitive
sounding side with Ruffo in 1904.
Talking of Ruffo
there are ten sides by him to complete the collection. These
are tough sounding 1904 Pathés complete with lamination thumps,
inherent pressing faults and very rough starts – as is the case
with some of the Bassi sides which begin and end abruptly to
try to limit this kind of thing. These sides don’t flatter the
Ruffo voice; sonorous and outsize it may be but the granitically
dramatic Gounod extract sounds unwieldy. His Giordano is decidedly
less sensitive than Bassi’s – there’s a fair amount of “brio
and bawl” in La donna russa. These sides are for specialists
only.
Nevertheless it’s
for the Bassi selection that collectors will want this disc.
They will be rewarded with some uneven but at its best stylish
and cultured musicianship. The Giordano extracts in particular
are valuable but what a pity that there is no surviving evidence
of his later singing.
Jonathan Woolf
Amedeo Bassi
(tenor) 
