McCormack Edition, Vol. 5: The Acoustic Recordings (1914-1915)

"From what we hear, McCormack was a strong lyrical tenor with a clean edge to the voice. He is comfortable with the Verdi and Puccini arias heard here but lacks the power of a Pavarotti. With ballad singing he seems much more at home. A particular quality is the way he can hold on to a final note and let it gently die without any touch of aural instability. Such quality of breath control is amazing."
(MusicWeb Nov 2007)

The recording sessions that make up the present set begin in March 1914. The first two selections give us some indication of the musicianship of Vincent O'Brien, the outstanding Dublin musician who had prepared his young singer for the 1903 Feis Ceoil. To thank his mentor for making so much possible, McCormack invited him to be his accompanist on his 1913 concert tour of Australia. Now, on his way back to Ireland, O'Brien joined his pupil in a series of recordings made in New York. It is O'Brien we hear in the piano parts of Schubert's 'Serenade' and the Mascagni 'Ave Maria', both supported by Fritz Kreisler, whose melting violin illuminates both pieces. The well known music of the Intermezzo to Cavalleria Rusticana, given here with an unfamiliar text by the Victorian lyricist Fred Weatherly, is something between a song and an aria, with singer and accompanist again supported by Kreisler's sympathetic violin.

McCormack's original training for opera is documented by four selections, and each one helps us judge the singer's short-lived career on the opera stage. Because three of these are from Verdi operas, they provide valuable clues as we assess the weight of this tenor's voice and come to conclusions about to his abilities as an opera singer. McCormack was an exceptional Verdi tenor, and the excerpts from Aida, Rigoletto, and La Traviata show his real mastery of that composer's style. McCormack's vocal metal would never be heavy enough for him to sing Radames on stage, but in the opera's final duet, sung here with Lucy Isabelle Marsh, he gives a fine account of himself in the music of the rôle. The Duke in Rigoletto was much more amenable to him, and it was a part he sang often, frequently with Melba. Notice his clear, clarion singing in his opening vocal line, beautifully etched against Verdi's musical background. He is joined by, among others, Lucrezia Bori, a soprano who was a close colleague and friend. Their chemistry is immediately obvious, and is heard to greatest advantage in the final Verdi selection, the 'Parigi, o cara' from La Traviata. One critic, commenting on this recording, described McCormack's tenor as "fragrantly fresh", an apt description; his voice blends beautifully with the liquid fragility of Bori's soprano. Seldom if ever have these ill-fated operatic lovers been so musically well served. The Bori-McCormack magic is heard once again, in the 'O soave fanciulla' duet from La Bohème. As we listen to the clear musical sympathy between both singers, we are not surprised to learn that, when he would come to write his final book of memoirs, McCormack put Bori's name first on his short list of ideal Mimìs.

To come from the world of Verdi and Puccini to that of three Victorian operas in English is to leave the Continent and enter the musical world of the British Isles, experiencing works that have been called, collectively, "The Irish Ring". This melodious group of operas is made up of Michael Balfe's The Bohemian Girl, Julius Benedict's The Lily of Killarney, and William Vincent Wallace's Maritana. Selections from two of these operas are included here: the tenor solo 'When other lips' from The Bohemian Girl, and the tenor-baritone duet 'The Moon hath Raised Her Lamp Above' from The Lily of Killarney. These arias in English show what a rich source of melody and opportunities for florid vocalism the "Irish Ring" provided; the art required by these operas allows us to experience the very definition of Victorian singing. That musical style vanished long ago, but in McCormack's seamless vocal line, and in the beauty of his rich Gaelic vowels, we have supreme examples of that lost musical tradition. We note too that, thoroughly Victorian though these words and melodies may be, McCormack's technique always stands out for what it is, vocal execution that transcends the musical style of any single era. Here, as elsewhere, his musical imagination reveals him to be an utterly modern singer.

When McCormack made this series of records, he had been in America for five years, his efforts having become almost exclusively directed towards the concert stage. The outbreak of the war kept him in the United States, where he was the most popular singer of song the country had ever known. An important part of his song repertoire reflected his strong ethnic identity, both Irish and Scottish; when we listen to 'Mary of Argyle' and 'Bonnie Wee Thing' (marveling at the high tessitura he sustains in this latter recording) we remember that Scottish ancestry. His strong appeal to the thousands of Irish immigrants living in America is attested to by two selections given here. The first is 'Avourneen', the words of the song reporting on the separation and loss experienced by all who had to leave Ireland for the United States ; "those you love and those who love you" echoes both sides of the immigrant experience. The other Irish-American selection is one first made popular by a McCormack predecessor, the tenor Chauncey Olcott. Olcott achieved enormous popular success with his musical plays, as he gave his audiences shamrock drenched visions of a romanticized Ireland. 'My Wild Irish Rose' was one of that tenor's most famous melodies, but here it is sung with a level of artistry far greater than Olcott could ever have attained.

One additional title must come under the heading of "Irish song", even though the context of the piece is much wider than any single description. 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary' was a song destined to become one of the classic anthems of World War I, a conflict that began a scant four months before this recording was made in November 1914; the record we listen to here was one of the first in a long series of war songs of that era, and it remains the most famous musical theme to come out of that horrendous conflict.

A 1911 musical by Hermann Löhr, The Little Grey Home in the West gives us the present song of the same title, while 'Ben Bolt' comes to us via another theatrical vehicle, the famous play Trilby, based on George du Maurier's 1894 novel of the same name. Trilby, with its theme of the controlling Svengali exercising his power over the hapless heroine, is the distant ancestor of later film versions (including a 1931 Svengali with John Barrymore) and at least one musical well known to modern audiences as the Phantom of the Opera. The music of this latest treatment of the theme may be very different from that of the 1848 ballad 'Ben Bolt', sung in the 1895 play, but the story line in all of these versions is very similar.

An important aspect of McCormack as artist was his constant exploration of new music. Our singer was always looking for interesting material, a fact borne out by his exploration of American music that began as soon as he came to the United States. In 1911 he had created the tenor rôle in Victor Herbert's American opera, Natoma, and here we have two more results of that same adventurous spirit. These are, 'Who Knows?' a setting of a poem by the African American writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, and the more familiar Stephen Foster song, 'Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming'. Both are sung with understanding and respect, noteworthy qualities in an artist so new to the culture of the United States.

Other popular songs of the day have not perhaps achieved the status of classics, but some of them have found a minor place in musical history. One example is the well known song, 'Because', given here in an interpretation that shows the McCormack tenor in all its ripeness; it is a compelling performance. Other items were equally popular in their day and show us aspects of McCormack's art on record: listen to the echo effect he achieves in Bartlett's 'A Dream', for example. An even more striking example of McCormack's stunning technique is found at the conclusion of 'When My Ships Come Sailing Home'. In a brief memoir, the tenor's long-time accompanist, Edwin Schneider, singled out this record, noting that the singer "does a swing of the octave to B flat and down again pianissimo", adding that this vocal feat "stumped Caruso", who vainly tried to imitate it. (After useless attempts, the great Neapolitan was heard to exclaim, "The beast! How does he do it?"). Finally, observe also the unbroken vocal line that he gives two popular ballads of the day, 'Somewhere a Voice is Calling' and 'Mavis'. (Both end with one of his musical signatures, the haunting pianissimo of which he was the undisputed master.) Such popular items never survive more than a season or so, but here they are rescued from oblivion by this tenor's unique artistry. Part of McCormack's talent lay in persuading his listeners that the material he was giving them was worthy of their attention and worthy of his great art. Listen to McCormack lavish the timeless principles of Italian bel canto on these lowly American ballads of the hour.

As we delight in the wide variety of material from McCormack's song repertoire, we understand why song, not opera, became this singer's true métier. No one, including McCormack himself, would argue that he was a good actor in opera, yet we are continually impressed by the dramatic quality he brings to his songs. Listen, for example, to the pictorial immediacy he creates in 'Golden Love'. As McCormack paints the opening images of that song for us, we are utterly convinced we are in the presence of living beings, interacting with each other in the bucolic landscape described in the words of the song. McCormack's art did not need settings and costumes; with him, drama is created by urgency of tone and coloration of words, all given in the service of music that, somehow, the singer convinces us is better than it is.

One final song needs some elucidation. This is the charming little Neapolitan novelty, 'Funiculì, funiculà'. The song dates from 1880, and commemorates the first funicular railway around Mount Vesuvius. As always when McCormack uses his beautiful Italian, that language is made even warmer by his native Irish intonation. However, we have another reason to note the appropriateness of this recording in the McCormack discography: it was Luigi Denza who adjudicated the 1903 Dublin Feis Ceoil and awarded McCormack his gold medal on that occasion. Between Vincent O'Brien's presence in the first two recordings, and Maestro Denza's song, we are brought back to the threshold moment in McCormack's career when he won his first important musical prize. Italian composer and Irish musician come together for some memorable moments in this volume, just as they shared that singular moment in Dublin, the one that witnessed the beginning of one of the great musical careers of the twentieth century.