Shéhérazade (Frederica von Stade recording)

Recording#

The album was recorded digitally in Symphony Hall, Boston on 8 October 1979 (tracks 1–3) and on 8 April 1980 (tracks 4–7), and in the CBS 30th Street Studio, New York City on 10 November 1979 (tracks 8–10).

Cover art#

The cover of the album was designed by Christopher Austopchuk under the art direction of Henrietta Condak, and features a photograph of von Stade taken by Valérie Clément.

Reviews#

Alan Blyth reviewed the album on LP in Gramophone in July 1981, comparing von Stade’s performance of Chansons madécasses with a version sung by Janet Baker, and comparing her performance of Shéhérazade with versions sung by Baker, Régine Crespin and Jessye Norman. Shéhérazade, he wrote, was usually sung by a soprano, but, like Baker before her, Frederica von Stade had demonstrated that the cycle could be successfully performed by a mezzo-soprano too. The only point at which the work’s tessitura had challenged her was the climax of “Asie”, where her tone had blanched at Ravel’s taxing high B flat. This said, her interpretations had their disappointments. The timbre of her voice and the volume and feeling of her singing were all insufficiently variegated. Her reading of the Hebrew songs lacked “earthiness”, and although she conveyed some of the “primitive elements” in the Chansons madécasses, she failed “to hint at the fierceness in such a song as ‘Aoua!’”. Steane returned to the album in Gramophone in January 1998, reviewing a compilation CD which coupled von Stade’s Shéhérazade with her later recordings of Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and Claude Debussy’s La damoiselle élue. He had become fond of von Stade’s singing, he wrote, because she “brought to everything, but especially the French repertoire, a personal touch which was partly a matter of timbre, partly of style, partly a fusion of both, evoking a kind of affectionate sadness, exactly the mood for ‘L’indifférent’”. There was no denying that when she sang a passage that was particularly high or particularly loud, her voice no longer sounded as fresh as it had done in her youth. But for the most part, her Shéhérazade was fine, exemplified in “L’indifférent” by “the caress (an exquisitely gentle portamento) in the ‘séduisante’ and the forlornly wistful invitation ‘Entre’”. Patrick O’Connor reviewed the album in Gramophone in June 2004 in a survey of the Shéhérazade discography. “Von Stade”, he wrote, “sounds almost too nice and friendly, like Cherubino embarking on a prank.” David Shengold mentioned the album in Opera News in December 2016 when reviewing a box set of von Stade’s Columbia recordings

Accolade#

The album was nominated for a Grammy award for the best classical solo vocal performance of 1981.

CD track listing#

Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) Shéhérazade (1903), with texts by Tristan Klingsor (1874–1966) * 1 (9:29) “Asie” * 2 (2:57) “La flûte enchantée” * 3 (3:37) “L’indifférent” Cinq mélodies populaires grecques (1904–1906), with traditional texts translated by Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi (1877–1944) * 4 (1:40) No. 1: “Chanson de la mariée” * 5 (0:58) No. 5: “Tout gai!” Deux mélodies hébraïques (1914), with traditional texts * 6 (4:38) “Kaddisch” * 7 (1:46) “L’énigme éternelle” Chansons madécasses (1925–1926), with texts by Évariste Desiré de Forges, vicomte de Parny (1753–1814) * 8 (5:51) “Nahandove, ô belle Nahandove” * 9 (4:43) “Aoua! Méfiez-vous des blancs” *10 (4:16) “Il est doux de se coucher”

Musical#

• Frederica von Stade (b. 1945), mezzo-soprano
• Boston Symphony Orchestra, (tracks 1–7)
• Seiji Ozawa (b. 1935), conductor (tracks 1–7)
• Doriot Anthony Dwyer (b. 1922), flute (tracks 8–10)
• Jules Eskin (1931–2016), cello (tracks 8–10)
• Martin Katz (b. 1944), piano (tracks 8–10)

Other#

• Paul Walter Myers (1932–2015), producer
• Budd Graham, engineer
• Martin Greenblatt, engineer
• Milton Cherin, engineer

Release history#

In February 1981, Columbia released the album on LP (catalogue numbers M-36665 in Britain, IM-36665 in the US), with sleeve notes by Arbie Orenstein, Alain Feron (in French) and Uwe Kraemer (in German), and an insert with texts and translations. The album was also issued on cassette (catalogue numbers 40-36665 in Britain, HMT-36665 in the US). Although excerpts from the album were made available on compilation CDs, it was not released in its entirety on CD until 2016, when it appeared (in a miniature replica of its original LP sleeve) with a 52-page booklet in Sony’s 18-CD collection Frederica von Stade: The Complete Columbia Recital Albums (catalogue number 88875183412).

Sequel#

The album was followed by a second album of French art songs performed by von Stade, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Seiji Ozawa: Nuits d’été & La damoiselle élue, a 1984 release featuring works by Hector Berlioz and Claude Debussy.