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Cesare Valletti - New York Town Hall Recitals 1959 & 1960; The Art of Song

£21.79

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Label: Testament

Cat No: SBT21413

Barcode: 0749677141325

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 25th February 2008

Artists

Cesare Valletti
Lao Taubman

Artists

Cesare Valletti
Lao Taubman

About

Compact disc 1 72.56

- The Art of Song (part one) 1959
- Town Hall Recital 16 October, 1959

Compact disc 2 68.44
- The Art of Song (part two) 1959
- Town Hall Recital 28 October, 1960

Cesare Valletti – tenor
Leo Taubman – piano

The leading operatic ‘tenore di grazia’ of the 1950s and 60s, Cesare Valletti (1922-2000) was also an incomparable interpreter of songs. And not just the limiting light material Italian opera singers of his generation usually programmed on those rare occasions when they did appear on the recital stage. Valletti sang it all – German Lied, French mélodie, and Italian canzone, as well as songs by Spanish, English, Russian, Scandinavian and American composers. Every facet of his extensive song repertoire is represented on these two CDs.

A few years after his Metropolitan Opera début in 1953, Valletti followed up his successes on the operatic stage with a series of concerts in New York’s Town Hall, at that time the most distinguished venue in the city for serious recitalists, and astonished New York music critics could scarcely believe their ears. Here was an Italian tenor renowned for his elegant Don Ottavio, Count Almaviva, and many other heroes from the Mozart-Rossini-Donizetti-Bellini repertoire, yet one who also sang the entire spectrum of the song literature as if to the manner born.

The Town Hall recitals of 1959 and 1960 were recorded by RCA, which issued most of the two programmes on a pair of LPs. The discs were immediately seized upon as collectors’ items, becoming even more treasured and eagerly sought for when they went out of print. What first attracted listeners to Valletti’s singing was the distinctive and attractive texture of the voice itself. Its lean, perfectly focused timbre may lack the honeyed sweetness of, say, Tito Schipa or Ferruccio Tagliavini, two of Valletti’s most distinguished predecessors in his vocal category, and the tone could thin out in the very top register when put under pressure, but there are plenty of vocal virtues to admire here: the clean attack, pure vowel sounds, a purling legato, seamless register alignment, fabulous diction, and a pianissimo without resort to falsetto. Valletti also possessed an easy agility available to few other Italian tenors who sang the bel canto repertoire in those days, as well as an unerring ear that could pitch the notes of a tricky Hugo Wolf song with absolute precision. His voice had an appealingly plangent tang that gave his sound its individuality, along with a touch of poignant vulnerability that graced both his song interpretations and the portrayals of the heartsick young operatic heroes that were his speciality. All these good things are enhanced by Valletti’s patrician musicianship and impeccable taste, energised by an extraordinarily expressive vitality, masterly control of every musical situation, and a lively engagement with the composer that animates every measure.

In addition to his two Town Hall recitals, Valletti recorded three song albums for RCA in their New York studios and the earliest one, from June of 1958, is included here.

From the booklet note © Peter G. Davis, 2008