Loudest Tenor Redux
Martin Cohn
Just yesterday, there was a review in the local paper of a recording of
Beethoven's Lenore (Fidelio - first version) and the Florestan was
Richard Cassilly.
I heard this guy years ago at the Met, when he was a comprimario,
singing one of the armed men in the Magic Flute. He had a loud
penetrating voice. Louder than Corelli? I can't say since I never heard
them sing side by side on the same stage.
Cassily went on a career singing first tenor roles. But aside from his
stentorian tone, I don't think he ever made much of an impression. He
was sort of a "poor man's Jimmy McCracken."
While we're on the subject of LOUD, there was another thread on great
bass voices where many people commented on the huge size of Marti
Talvella's voice. I think they are confusing his physical size - he's
way over 6 feet tall and built like a football player - with the size of
his voice. I heard him sing the Grand Inquisitor to Nicolai Ghiurov's
Philip II at the Met in the late 60's and there was no comparison
between the two in size, or quality of voice. Ghiurov voice was much
more powerful and beautiful. This is not to denigrate Talvella, he was a
major artist and always worth hearing. What's more I challenge any opera
house in the world to get two basses of that quality on the stage today.
Martin Cohn
mikri...@interramp.com
I believe I have written before that Ghiaurov's was the loudest male voice I
ever heard on stage. He could sing indefinitely at modest levels, but when he
let it out (in the 60's), he blew the stage away.
The loudest tenor I ever heard is surprising to many: Josef Traxel. His was a
purely lyric voice that lacked the Italian squillo, but his mixed voice
dominated the stage remarkably and his mezza voce was of the order of
Nilsson's. No, I did not hear Melchior or del Monaco; yes, I did hear Vickers
and Corelli - repeatedly.
You may get an idea of the size of Ghiaurov's voice from the Giulini recording
of the Manzoni Requiem. It is obvious that the engineers put him in another
room to maintain some sort of balance with Schwarzkopf, Ludwig and Gedda.
Mike
Robert T. Jones
>There was a thread a while back about who was the loudest tenor around.
>Just yesterday, there was a review in the local paper of a recording of
>Beethoven's Lenore (Fidelio - first version) and the Florestan was
>Richard Cassilly.
>
>I heard this guy years ago at the Met, when he was a comprimario,
>singing one of the armed men in the Magic Flute. He had a loud
>penetrating voice. Louder than Corelli? I can't say since I never heard
>them sing side by side on the same stage.
>
>Cassily went on a career singing first tenor roles. But aside from his
>stentorian tone, I don't think he ever made much of an impression. He
>was sort of a "poor man's Jimmy McCracken."
>
>While we're on the subject of LOUD, there was another thread on great
>bass voices where many people commented on the huge size of Marti
>Talvella's voice. I think they are confusing his physical size - he's
>way over 6 feet tall and built like a football player - with the size of
>his voice. I heard him sing the Grand Inquisitor to Nicolai Ghiurov's
>Philip II at the Met in the late 60's and there was no comparison
>between the two in size, or quality of voice. Ghiurov voice was much
>more powerful and beautiful. This is not to denigrate Talvella, he was a
>major artist and always worth hearing. What's more I challenge any opera
>house in the world to get two basses of that quality on the stage today.
>
>Martin Cohn
>
The loudest tenors I can recall were Jon Vickers, Mario del Monaco, and
Franco Corelli. Pretty much in that order.
Joe
> There was a thread a while back about who was the loudest tenor around.
The loudest tenor I *ever* heard was Robert Nagy of the Met. I'm sure
he's long since retired. The Met tried to make some sort of star out of
him in some 70s revivals of die Frau ohne Schatten but nothing could alter
the fact that he also had one of the *ugliest* voices around.
Joe
--
If fools and folly rule the world, the end of man in our time may come as a rude shock, but it will no longer come as a complete surprise. - Abdul Rahman Pazhnak
WGray64403
might place Del Monaco and Corelli in a tie but Vickers was definitely
Number One. How about Loud Sopranos? In my limited experience Gwyneth
Jones made the loudest soprano sounds I've ever encountered in an opera
house.
HenryFogel
>bass voices where many people commented on the huge size of Marti
>Talvella's voice. I think they are confusing his physical size - he's
>way over 6 feet tall and built like a football player - with the size of
>his voice. I heard him sing the Grand Inquisitor to Nicolai Ghiurov's
>Philip II at the Met in the late 60's and there was no comparison
>between the two in size, or quality of voice. Ghiurov voice was much
>more powerful and beautiful. This is not to denigrate Talvella, he was a
>major artist and always worth hearing. What's more I challenge any opera
>house in the world to get two basses of that quality on the stage today.
>Martin Cohn
In his prime, Ghiaurov's voice truly was one of the biggest and most
impressive. I remember seeing him do Boito's Mefistofele in Philadelphia
-- and when he opened up you truly did believe you were in the presence of
some superhuman force. At the end of the opera particularly, Ghiaurov
made about as imposing and impressive a sound as I have ever heard in an
opera house.
Henry Fogel
Joe
(WGray64403) wrote:
> In my limited experience Gwyneth
> Jones made the loudest soprano sounds I've ever encountered in an opera
> house.
I once attended a Cleveland Orchestra concert performance of Elektra at
Carnegie Hall. The extended scene between Elektra (Ute Vinzing) and
Klytamnestra (Astrid Varnay) still makes my ears ring!
Joel P. Klein
>I think Robert Jones has it just about right with his Loud Tenor list. I
>might place Del Monaco and Corelli in a tie but Vickers was definitely
>Number One. How about Loud Sopranos? In my limited experience Gwyneth
>Jones made the loudest soprano sounds I've ever encountered in an opera
>house.
I've heard Vickers several times here in Chicago. He had a large
voice, to be sure, but lacked that Italiannate squillo. Tucker's
voice rang more brilliantly, was larger on top, and I feel had more
ultimate carrying power. In those days, I had to sit in the galleria,
several miles from the stage, and I remember that I had no difficulty
in hearing Bjoerling either.
Now for ultimate power with brilliance, is anyone out there old enough
to have hear Melchior live and in full voice?
mikri...@interramp.com
In Article<4ldq5m$l...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, <henry...@aol.com> writes:
>
> In his prime, Ghiaurov's voice truly was one of the biggest and most
> impressive. I remember seeing him do Boito's Mefistofele in Philadelphia
> -- and when he opened up you truly did believe you were in the presence of
> some superhuman force. At the end of the opera particularly, Ghiaurov
> made about as imposing and impressive a sound as I have ever heard in an
> opera house.
>
>
> Henry Fogel
Thanks for the confirmation. I was there that night (Kraus and Ligabue were in
the cast). Perhaps most remarkable to me was the ease with which Ghiaurov
moderated the volume for the rest of the cast.
Mike
Joe
<NEWTNews.8301619...@ip241.los-angeles3.ca.interramp.com>,
mikri...@interramp.com wrote:
The size and acoustics of the Academy would make him sound even bigger! I
remember that performance but can you remember the name of the squally
soprano who sang Elena in the final scene who reduced a lot of people to
giggles?
That was in those rare days when we in NY had to journey out of town to
hear that remarkable new tenor from Spain, Alfredo Kraus. So far as I
know Ligabue never made it to New York, at least not to the Met. I heard
her in the 60s in Paris in the Verdi Requiem.
Memories.
Joe Fuller
Brian MacGilvray
loudest tenor in the world today is without question Luciano Pavarotti.
Alan David Aberbach
Klein) wrote:
>wgray...@aol.com (WGray64403) wrote:
>
>>I think Robert Jones has it just about right with his Loud Tenor list. I
>>might place Del Monaco and Corelli in a tie but Vickers was definitely
>>Number One.
According to Mario del Monaco, the largest and loudest voice that he ever
heard belonged to Gino Penno.
Alan David Aberbach
aber...@sfu.ca
Lennart Lindgren
Loud tenors: Melchior, del Monaco, Anders (sometimes), K.G. Lindström ( Swedish tenor, sang
Otello) maybe Atlantov...
Kindest regards to all tenor lovers
lennart
Robert T. Jones
Nilsson. I remember that both could sustain a fortissimo that would
pulse and exert uncomfortable pressure on the ear drum. No other voices
I've ever encountered had quite that physical impact. The particular
music in which those ladies achieved that were the curse from the first
act of TRISTAN (Traubel), and the Liebestod (Nilsson) and the scene in
WALKURE in which Brunhilde pleads with Wotan (Nilsson).
Robert T. Jones
1940s. One of these was a potted version of TRISTAN with Helen Traubel.
I recall Melchior's voice big and phenomenally penetrating rather than
huge (in the beefy sense). I never thought it a beautiful sound, but
that's a personal reaction. In concert he had a wonderful, grandfatherly
warmth and humor that you can still watch in those Voice of Firestone
tapes. I never saw him in opera, alas.
Jussi Bjoerling did not have a large voice at all. But it had terrific
ping and force, and it reminded me of a small and silvery trumpet. I
would say the actual Bjoerling instrument was about two-thirds the size
of Pavarotti's. He was a small, plump, undistinguished-looking man and he
suffered from the physical comparison with prima donnas like Milanov and
Welitsch (who, I'm told, disliked him and took public revenge in a TOSCA
by cradling his little head to her generous bosom and patting it, like a
mother consoling a fretful child. It was pretty funny.)
John Lynch
John
--
--John Lynch
ano...@tiac.net
dtri...@bway.net
instrument. Bob Nagy had a huge sound, and under other circumstances
might have been better remembered today; his sound was not ugly to my
ears, merely untempered by artistry. Two German Hans-es are recalled to
mind immediately as big and unattractive voices: Hans Hopf and Hans
beirer. The commentary on Don Carlo recalls that early in the Met
revivals in the Bing regime, some were lucky enough to hear Hans Hotter
as the Grand Inquisitor, and his voice was thunderous. I heard a Verdi
Requiem in London under Solti in 1967, my first live hearing of
Pavarotti, the performance including both Gwyneth Jones and Martti
Talvela. It sounded between the two, like a battery of cannons. In
Turandot Act II, Nilsson could carry over orchestra, chorus, Corelli,
and blow out the walls. Corelli was not exactly a petite sound either.
Helge Roswaenge was another huge sound. In certain parts of his voice,
James McCracken could shake down the heavens. Del Monaco is undoubtedly
the largest tenor sound heard in my listening. Yes, Vickers could make a
big noise too, when he was not crooning and expressing a faux artistry
that used to drive me up the wall. Loud is not necessarily good, in fact
seldom so (Guy Chauvet or Gilbert Py as examples), but the opposite is
likewise true, turning a reigned-in sound into a substitute for
well-supported singing tone.
dft
HenryFogel
>Isn't is strange that nobody has mentioned LANDO BARTOLINI?
>John
Not really -- just shows that loud alone is not enough.
Henry Fogel
dtri...@bway.net
all but certain that you are talking about mccracken or somebody else.
cassilly left city opera about 1960 for europe and came back only as a
first tenor. Having heard him intermittently over his entire career,
here and in Europe, Ican state with some assurance that his voice was
fairly large, but not remotely of the size under discussion here.
dft
ote...@usa.pipeline.com
My mother in law is friends with Lucine Amara (not a powerful voice, per
se) . She, and my wife, have told me that when Lucine came over the house
she would sometimes "cut loose" for her own amusement. All the glass:
china, windows, cabinets, and vases, throughout the apartment would shake,
and my wife (then a child) had to run into her room and cover her ears.
My mother in law also knew Brigit Nilsson and attended her private recitals
in people's homes. She has told me that hers was the the loudest sound she
ever heard and she was also great friends with Mario Del Monaco!
Roy
Peter J. Ullman
P.S. I've heard him at the old Met in person
Joe
wrote:
> In article <4lhla0$9...@news1.sunbelt.net>, Robert T. Jones writes:
>
> >The loudest sopranos I have ever heard were Helen Traubel and Birgit
> >Nilsson. I remember that both could sustain a fortissimo that would
> >pulse and exert uncomfortable pressure on the ear drum. No other voices
> >I've ever encountered had quite that physical impact.
Perhaps you never heard Astrid Varnay, but I think her voice - taken in
the totality of all its registers - was the largest I ever heard. Her
loudest utterance was at the end of the Chrysothemis/Elektra scene where
"C" states that she won't get involved and Elektra cries "sei
verflucht!". Unbelieveable!
I could certainly include Nilsson in the group, but was never privileged
to hear Traubel in person.
JF
Hans C Hoff
The second armoured man has in the performances I have seen or heard been a bass ! :)
HCH
Peter Gustafsson
I have the score to the part where thw two men in armor sing to Tamino. They
sing the whole part with one octave interval, the 1st man in armor singing
tenor and the 2nd man in armor singing bass. Matti Salminen has sung 2nd man
in armor, which says everything about it would sound if a tenor tried to sing
it.
Have a nice time!
Peter Gustafsson
Martin Cohn
I have a confession to make. And I'm the guy who re-started this silly
thread! I confused Cassily with Robert Nagy. I know my memory is going,
but I'm pretty sure it was Nagy who was the first Armed Man with the
huge voice.
Martin Cohn
swa...@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu
> Melchior! Melchior! Melchior!
>
> P.S. I've heard him at the old Met in person
Tamagno! Tamagno! Tamagno!
P.S. I haven't heard him in person.
Hans C Hoff
> >>
> >> so when did you hear cassilly sing 2nd man in armor. date please?
> >
> bass ! :)
> >
> >
> >HCH
>
> I have the score to the part where thw two men in armor sing to Tamino. They
> sing the whole part with one octave interval, the 1st man in armor singing
> tenor and the 2nd man in armor singing bass. Matti Salminen has sung 2nd man
> in armor, which says everything about it would sound if a tenor tried to sing
> it.
>
> Have a nice time!
>
My score is quite similar to yours, apparently. What the men in armour
sing is however not pure Mozart, but his variation on a Bach choral,
"Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh' darein". The lower part goes down to Bflat
below C; not impossible for a tenor, but hardly the ordinary tenor
stuff.
More often than not in small theatres, the role of second man in armour
and second priest is sung by the same singer
Regards
HCH
ukh...@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
>
> Hi!
>
> In article <317E99...@sn.no>, Hans C Hoff <hch...@sn.no> wrote:
> >dtri...@bway.net wrote:
> >>
> >> so when did you hear cassilly sing 2nd man in armor. date please?
> >
> >The second armoured man has in the performances I have seen or heard been a
> bass ! :)
> >
> >
> >HCH
>
> I have the score to the part where thw two men in armor sing to Tamino. They
> sing the whole part with one octave interval, the 1st man in armor singing
> tenor and the 2nd man in armor singing bass. Matti Salminen has sung 2nd man
> in armor, which says everything about it would sound if a tenor tried to sing
> it.
>
> Have a nice time!
>
and video) of live recordings, I would agree they are all sizeable .
However my voice teacher(who's in his late 70's) assures me that Gino
Penno had the largest tenor voice he's ever heard> he, incidently, has
heard the aforementioned tenors(except Tamagno of course) live. My
teacher also mentions that Penno had difficulty singing softly , and
would often sing off-pitch. I guess a prodigious voice like that has to
be "let loose"!
ukh...@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu
> jfu...@unix.asb.com Nilsson and traubel/Flagstad have dissimilar voices, at least in
the way in which they sing. Nilsson has an inherently large voice,
however she focuses it (in the masque?) much more then many other large
voiced dramatic sopranos who have sung similar roles. flagstads and or
traubel's voice may have been inherently as large(and seemingly more rich
and voluptuous) as Nilsson's, however Nilsson's voice had more carrying
power because of her more forward production(core of voice).Thank you!
John Lynch
Cassilly is the one whose voice began to give out long before the Act I
duet in Aida some years ago. By "Gia nella notte densa" he was whispering.
Edward Sooter finished the opera.
In article <4lmldf$7...@news1.slip.net>, Martin Cohn <Nac...@aol.com> wrote:
> "dtri...@bway.net" <dtri...@bway.net> wrote:
> >so when did you hear cassilly sing 2nd man in armor. date please? I am
> >all but certain that you are talking about mccracken or somebody else.
> >cassilly left city opera about 1960 for europe and came back only as a
> >first tenor. Having heard him intermittently over his entire career,
> >here and in Europe, Ican state with some assurance that his voice was
> >fairly large, but not remotely of the size under discussion here.
--
--John Lynch
ano...@tiac.net
John Lynch
In article <anorien-2504...@anorien.tiac.net>, ano...@tiac.net
(John Lynch) wrote:
> Cassilly is the one whose voice began to give out long before the Act I
> duet in Aida some years ago. By "Gia nella notte densa" he was whispering.
> Edward Sooter finished the opera.
>
Me again. Someone very nicely corrected my error. The opera was Otello, of
course.
Lisa R. Hirsch
"Robert T. Jones" <rtj...@mail.charleston.net> wrote:
>The loudest sopranos I have ever heard were Helen Traubel and Birgit
>Nilsson. I remember that both could sustain a fortissimo that would
>pulse and exert uncomfortable pressure on the ear drum. No other voices
>I've ever encountered had quite that physical impact. The particular
>music in which those ladies achieved that were the curse from the first
>act of TRISTAN (Traubel), and the Liebestod (Nilsson) and the scene in
>WALKURE in which Brunhilde pleads with Wotan (Nilsson).
I never heard her (she retired long before I was born), but Eva Turner
was supposed to have had a tremendously loud voice. I've heard that
Walter Legge said her top C would go out the back wall of Covent
Garden and be heard clearly on the street outside.
Her Turandot sounds pretty overwhelmingly powerful.
--Lisa
Lisa R. Hirsch
swa...@ssrl01.slac.stanford.edu wrote:
I would think not!
How on earth would you judge, then? ;-)
-- Lisa
Carmen Z. Catoni
I only heard Nilsson in concert hall (an opera concert, a concert Walkure
and a recital). But I have heard two voices that, in their prime, could
compete with her as loud. One is Ghena Dimitrova (in Nabocco they had to
place her all the way behind the stage to achieve certain acustic
balance), and the other was Angeles Gulin, who recording engineers always
had a very difficult time to work with. The lady's voice blew you away!
HAPPY LISTENING!!
Luis A. Catoni
Miami, Fl
Carmen Z. Catoni
Other virtues or defects apart, I don't find Bartolini LOUD, I have seen
him several times, and in a Turandot he was drowned by the rest of the
people on stage, and it was not even in the climaxes!!
By the way, a tenor that is certainly loud if he has a good day id
Giacomini. He can emit big, baritonal trombone like sounds.
Unfortunately, that is not always.
HAPPY LISTENING!!!
Luis A. Catoni
Miami, Fl.
Carmen Z. Catoni
I was about to ask where you buy your Geritol!!!
Eric Mitchko
If reports are to be believed, Tamagno certainly wins. But I
wonder if Melchior really goes up there. Of course I never heard him in
the house; while he certainly had great stamina, and more than sufficient
power for all of the Wagner roles, if we listen to the broadcasts his
voice sounds considerably smaller than Flagstad's, and around the same
size as Traubel's and Lehmann's. If it were just one or two tapes we
were talking about I would say that it could have been weird mike
placement, or perhaps that Melchior was standing far away (as in, say,
Lohengrin), but this seems to be true for about a dozen or so of the
broadcast tapes. I say this somewhat tentatively, since it can be hard
to judge size from these sources. Any thoughts on this?
Among current tenors, Wolfgang Schmidt must certainly be the
loudest, followed by Atlantov. In the Ring Schmidt was louder than
Jones; in Ariadne he was absolutely deafening.
Brian MacGilvray
> Among current tenors, Wolfgang Schmidt must certainly be the
> loudest, followed by Atlantov. In the Ring Schmidt was louder than
> Jones; in Ariadne he was absolutely deafening.
>
No, no, no! Pavarotti is louder in the house than either of these two.
They have "larger" voices, not *louder* ones. Pavarotti is the loudest
tenor in the world, because he resonates more than anyone else.
Joe Bonner
I believe you have forgotten to mention Mario del Monaco,Itay's tenore di
forza. Not only did Mario have a huge voice,but one of the most beautiful
b flats ever heard.