Giacomo Lauri-Volpi, Aureliano Pertile... ah, these names. No doubt their potency, such as it ever was, in the world at large is much diminished, but as far as I am concerned they rise from any printed page on which they may be mentioned almost as though a special kind of type had been devized for them. But then, the initials LV have never meant 'luncheon voucher' for me, and whenever I read of Aureliano in Palmira (a somewhat rare occurrence it has to be admitted) the first reaction is always to wonder what he sang there and who was the soprano.
These present collections are alike in the admirable quality of the transfers, dissimilar in that they present, respectively, something near to the best and the worst of the two famous tenors. Lauri-Volpi, born in 1892, is heard in the years of his prime; Pertile, seven years older, still in magnificent voice, was fast crossing the line that separates force from disruption and fervour from hysteria. Both could be subtle and sensitive artists, and each was passionately committed to his work. Though their repertoires overlapped, so that both went on from heroic roles such as Radames and Manrico to sing Otello, Lauri-Volpi was the more lyrical in both voice and style, with links back to the nineteenth-century school of bel canto. Pertile belongs essentially to the age of verismo: he grew up with it, flourished in its time of triumph, and declined just as the melodramatic element in these operas and in his own performances began to seem old-fashioned.
The elegance of Lauri-Volpi's style, perhaps a little self-conscious in its variety and finesse, is well illustrated in the Puritani aria, but it permeates his singing: hear, for instance, the beautifully placed ''O paradiso'', the fine phrasing of Faust's cavatina, the poetic shading of ''E lucevan le stelle''. His voice, as heard here, has a luscious vibrancy, again of the older school, but put to thrilling use in the Puccini excerpts and most especially in Andrea Chenier's Improvviso. His performance covers the full range of expressiveness in this, marrying the lyrical elements with the declamatory, the rapt and affectionate with the revolutionary attack. He could be a great singer of Verdi, the Rigoletto solo so well studied and the Aida, with distinguished colleagues from the Metropolitan, a shining example of the refinement of Italian art as well as its power to excite.
With Pertile, excitements of the blood came first. He is not one to restrain any emotion to which he can give vent, and there are plenty of opportunities here. Beauty of tone comes second, smoothness of line a good third (if that). In earlier days this was less so, and recordings testify to the fact. But even in those included here there are moments of almost breathtaking beauty. The opening of ''Una vergine'' and of ''Cielo e mar'' are as gentle and lyrical as one could wish; almost the whole of ''Quando le sere'' has a magical indrawn quality, far more imaginative than anything we have heard in this music since. The man was an artist, and even in the final scene from Carmen, where his Don Jose is an abject mixture of brute and cry-baby, there is complete sincerity and commitment. No doubt Preiser will eventually release some of the earlier Pertile recordings transferred from their LP catalogue. In the meantime, much of his voice and soul is here, however flawed the art: caro nome.'