Equipped with one of the most beautiful soprano voices of the
post-war era, blessed with film-star looks and considerable
acting talent, Anna Moffo had a fairly short career, retiring
while still in her early forties due to vocal breakdown. The
reason was an excessive workload. She made a comeback a few
years later but by then the lustre of her tone was gone. When
making this recording she was still in her prime, not yet 32
years of age, and her voice seems ideally creamy, flexible and
expressive for this repertoire.
By her side she has the legendary magician Leopold Stokowski,
50 years her senior but as vital as ever. He retained his vitality
to the very end of his life, making his last recording just
a few months before his death at 95. The orchestra is the New
York based American Symphony Orchestra, founded by Stokowski
two years before this recording was made. The recorded sound
is spectacular, even today, and allows us to wallow in the colourful
orchestration of Canteloube. Stokowski draws luminous playing
from the band, the opening number especially. Moffo’s voice
sails above and in front of the orchestral sonorities with a
roundness and beauty that surpasses practically every other
soprano who has recorded these songs, possibly Kiri Te Kanawa
excepted.
In L’aîo dé rotso (tr. 3) she characterizes well and
adopts a more girlish tone and Baîléro suits her voice
to perfection, sung with admirable legato. Each of these songs
is a gem and the choice and ordering creates optimal contrast
and variation. It’s a pity RCA didn’t record the complete songs
when they had this marvellous team at hand.
The fillers aren’t bad either, and the record-buying public
back in the 1960s had no reason to complain about the parsimonious
playing time. Around 40 minutes was quite normal for an LP in
those days and today it isn’t uncommon that we can get two complete
LPs squeezed together on one CD. Of course we still wish that
there had been more material available to make the disc even
more tempting.
In the wordless Aria from Bachianas Brasileiras
she soars beautifully over the plucked strings, where there
also is a very expressive, but un-credited, cello solo. She
then shows her dramatic potential in the B-section before she
returns to the A-section with even more hushed tone. In my relative
youth I had recordings of this work with Villa-Lobos’ favourite
sopranos: Bidu Sayão, Brazilian like the composer, and Victoria
de los Angeles. I wouldn’t say that Anna Moffo supersedes them
but she is not far behind interpretatively, her voice is at
least as beautiful as that of de los Angeles and she has the
superior recording.
The concluding Vocalise was written for Antonina Nezhdanova,
who also premiered the orchestral version with Rachmaninov himself
conducting. I can imagine that Stokowski also felt deeply for
this music since he collaborated a great deal with the composer,
conducting the premieres of the Symphony No 3, fourth piano
concerto and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the
composer playing the solo part. They also recorded together:
Piano concerto No 2 twice and the Rhapsody shortly
after the premiere. During his Indian Summer in the 1970s he
recorded the orchestral version of Vocalise in harness
with the Third Symphony. Be that as it may, the present recording
of the Vocalise is legendary, at least to me, since
Swedish Radio for many years used it as the signature tune for
a popular request programme. Rehearing it now after many years
evokes pleasant memories.
There is no shortage of recordings of any of this music and
many readers may be well stocked already, but this programme
– and the execution of it – is wholly delectable and the price
is certainly affordable.
As always it’s regrettable that Newton couldn’t supply the sung
texts with translations. Maybe someone test listened to the
Vocalise only and thought that the rest was wordless
as well. Don’t let this lapse deter you from enjoying one of
the most beautiful soprano voices on record.
Göran Forsling
Masterwork Index: Bachianas
Brasileiras
Anna Moffo (soprano)