Mary Garden in her own time was considered the most modern of singers. When comparing with her contemporaries and immediate predecessors, one can hear that her use of words, mannered phrasing—I do not use the word in any pejorative sense—and wilful personality must have come as quite a jolt to canary-fancying Edwardians. Garden's recording career was not extensive: the four G&Ts with Debussy at the piano, a short series for Pathe in 1903, three Edisons (her rarest recordings), then the well-known American Columbias of 1911-12 and finally, when she was in her fifties, the sessions for Victor gathered on this CD.
Garden was above all a woman of the theatre; she did not spend much time on the concert platform, although of course Debussy accompanied her and she was soloist in his La damoiselle elue. Her virtues are simple: wonderfully clear, characterful diction, a bit of a Scottish accent always discernible, a certain sound technique, and although at this date she never attempts a sustained pianissimo, the voice is rich and even throughout its range—she had been singing for nearly 30 years when these recordings were made.
The repertory is limited. Three opera arias, a rather unsatisfying Carmen Card scene, without Mercedes and Frasquita, two takes of a brief extract from Alfano's Risurrezione (her last role) and three different ones of ''Depuis le jour'' from Louise, her first great success and a part she sang at the Opera-Comique over 100 times. Harold Barnes's discography of Garden (Recorded Sound 76: October 1979) reveals that the published version was the fruit of a 1926 marathon recording session which resulted in 16 takes—that it was the fourteenth that was chosen says something for the stamina of singer and recording crew. The fact she wanted to return to the same aria the following year and made three more versions with piano must be a further example of perfectionism. The one that survives has always been my favourite of the available matrices. When one compares it with her 1912 Columbia (Symposium, 8/93—where the voice is silvery and the legato smoother, the crescendo at the final ''Ah, je suis heureuse'' easily achieved), this seems a close-up farewell reading.
There are only two songs in French, Debussy's Beau soir and Szulc's Clair de lune—frustrating that there was no attempt to record something from Pelleas; when these sessions began in Camden, New Jersey in October 1926, Garden had just been singing Melisande again at the Opera-Comique with Messager conducting (as at the premiere). Two of Reynaldo Hahn's Five Little Songs, to verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, are delightful. She changes the words of ''The Swing'' slightly, looking down ''on flowers'' rather than ''on cattle''; strange to think of Hahn composing these songs during the First World War at the Front, as he wrote, ''in the sad winter of 1915''.
Best of all are the other songs in English. Cadman's At Dawning was Garden's own favourite of her recordings; it was the fifth take that was issued and it reveals her relish of language and song, the phrasing and tone like that of a great cellist. In the sentimentality of Hume's Afton Water, Rogers's At Parting and Tate's Somewhere a Voice is Calling one can hear a good deal of her dramatic temperament. On the evening of the last session in November 1929, Garden and the crew went down to Wanamaker's music store in Philadelphia to record two ballads, in which Alexander Russell plays the organ—Harrison's In the Gloaming (three takes on this CD) and what must have been her favourite song, Jock O'Hazeldean, since she recorded it for Pathe and Columbia as well. It is the only number in the whole sequence with a note of ironic humour, and one can hear Garden smile as she sings the last line, ''She's o'er the border an' awa' with Jock O'Hazeldean''. Fascinating personality, great singer; this CD is a must for any student of belle-epoque vocal style.'