Kathleen Ferrier sings Bach and Handel

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Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach

Label: Decca

Magazine Review Date: 3/1986

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

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Catalogue Number: 414 623-2DH

Tracks:

Composition	Artist Credit
Mass, Movement: Qui sedes	Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Mass, Movement: Agnus Dei	Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
St Matthew Passion, Movement: Buss' und Reu'	Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
St John Passion, Movement: Es ist vollbracht!	Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Samson, Movement: Return, O God of host	George Frideric Handel, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor George Frideric Handel, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Messiah, Movement: Behold, a virgin shall conceive	George Frideric Handel, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor George Frideric Handel, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Messiah, Movement: O thou that tellest	George Frideric Handel, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor George Frideric Handel, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Messiah, Movement: He was despised	George Frideric Handel, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor George Frideric Handel, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra
Judas Maccabaeus, Movement: Father of Heaven!	George Frideric Handel, Composer Adrian Boult, Conductor George Frideric Handel, Composer Kathleen Ferrier, Contralto (Female alto) London Philharmonic Orchestra

Author:

At normal control levels on my equipment I found this harash, particularly on string tone above a mezzo-forte but also affecting the voice, which acquired an uncharacteristically edgy quality matched by undue prominence of sibilants (as in ''hosts'' and ''distress''). With adjustments, the sound became much more acceptable, but the first experience gave a somewhat sour flavour to the company's claim of ''recording now enhanced''. This recital, of course has a history of 'enhancement', for eight years after its original issue it was chosen to pioneer the experiment of converting mono recordings into stereo. boult and the LPO re-recorded their accompaniments and the result was something of a technical (and, I think artistic) triumph. Now we rever to the recording in its original form, and despite this new 'enhancement' I can't in all honesty report increased enjoyment. Moreover, the weakness of the programme as a programme becomes still more apparent. The sequence of slow arias, sung in the very plain style of those days and accompanied in a way that nowadays sounds all too often laboured, intensifies regret that the opportunities for something more imaginative werenot seized.
Individually, each aria has its beauty, and they are best heard that way rather than as constituting a recital. Even so, the statement made in the brief (and badly translated) biographical note on Ferrier that these recordings have ''a rare and devastating emotional charge'' seems excessive, unless one is listening with the thought of her personal tragedy in mind: and that, I am sure, she herself would not have wished us to.'