The stories of those first sessions came back to mind while hearing the opening Otello solos. The first Otello of all, in semi-retirement and with a heart that had begun to give trouble, was so overjoyed and incredulous at hearing the playback of his voice that he embraced the magical contraption and went on to give so realistic a performance of the Death scene that those who were looking after the apparatus came round to the front to make sure the man had not done himself a mischief.
The miracle is manifest from the very start. Here was the voice that set the chandeliers rattling and which produced in the theatre such an annihilating effect in the 12 bars of Otello's entry, now confined in a room with only a piano for accompaniment, giving all that still incredible ring and solidity of voice out into the temperamental recording-horn, which might well have rejected and distorted it; yet what comes through, after all these years, is not only the phenomenal quality of the voice but the utter sincerity of the artist. The panache of his conclusion to the ''Esultate!'', the great elegiac breadth of his farewell to arms, and above all the tenderness and grief in ''Niun mi tema'': they would be moving at any time, but doubly so when one thinks of him in turn moved by what must have been precious memories of the role that was for ever to be associated with his name. This is all in reference to the first-time recordings: the later ones have their excellence too, but for depth and spontaneity of emotion the 'firsts' are still most impressive.
Of the recordings from other operas, the Guglielmo Tell solos are perhaps finest. ''Corriam'' (done twice for the same catalogue number but most commonly found with the second matrix) is transposed down a semitone, but still astonishing in the fullness, not just of the high Bs but of the whole voice. ''O muto asil'' is the greater wonder, for here all the fluidity and grace of a lyric tenor are combined with the energy and body of a robusto. Sometimes Tamagno has to take an extra breath, as in ''Deserto sulla (breath) terra'', which he dedicates to the memory of his father. But all are dedicated; there is an overwhelming sense here of sincere devotion to a noble art (and the fact that he was also devoted to his fee makes no difference to that).
The records originally came out, in England, at £1 for each single-sided disc: I can't do the sum, but it must amount to a great deal more, in real terms, than the cost of his complete output on CD. Not that it is more 'complete' than such things usually are. The 'unpublished' issues have appeared in the Historic Masters series which were promoted in the early 1970s by the British Institute of Recorded Sound and as collectors will know, there is at least one other extant item, in the fabled Messaline recording. Never mind: here is the presently available oeuvre, finely transferred. Occasionally the pitch of a note fluctuates, but it is of the kind associated with the recording and not the singing (or the transfer). Meanwhile, anyone sceptical about these primitive recordings of singers might start with the 'unpublished' ''Ora e per sempre addio'' (track 13). Well reproduced, it gives a marvellously vivid representation of the voice, a living presence, there with his faraway listener, in the room.'