# Sopranos - Luonnotar - Mattila, Davidson, Hannigan



## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Herewith a soprano contest with a slight difference - Sibelius' vocal tone poem _Luonnotar_...

1 - Lise Davidsen





2 - Barbara Hannigan - 



Vimeo links don't show the starting screen
Note that it starts at 3:20, before then is Debussy's _Syrinx_ for solo flute

3 - Karita Mattila


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

If you are really adventurous, you can also try this Elisabeth Schwarzkopf!!


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

This is an easy choice. The work calls for a dramatic soprano and neither of the other two have anything like the vocal resources of Lise Davidsen. I wish that Birgit Nilsson had recorded this though.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

*Soile Isokoski* with Leif Segerstam/Helsinki philharmonic on BIS - just ahead of *Elisabeth Söderström* with Vlad Ashkenazy/Philharmonia on Decca.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

Op.123 said:


> I wish that Birgit Nilsson had recorded this though.


How amazing that would have been!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Though I am completely unfamiliar with this work, it is an easy choice for me becaus Lise Davidsen walks away with it. Mattila sounds over-the-hill and as pretty as Hannigan's voice is, there is just no comparison.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I too have thought it a pity that Nilsson didn't record this, perhaps as part of her fine collection of Scandinavian songs. Among these three singers, Davidsen has the most appropriate instrument and does a respectable job, but lacks the verbal sharpness, dynamic variety and sense of storytelling that Hannigan, with her slighter instrument, provides enthusiastically. The work isn't a vocalise; it relates a creation story from Finnish mythology, and Hannigan clearly understands that she's playing the part of an ancient bard, whose singing/recitation dramatized the stories of his people and held their listening hearts and minds in thrall. I can't hold it against her that her bard sounds like a young girl!

We would expect no less attention to the text from Schwarzkopf, whose recording I haven't heard in many years. Like Hannigan's, her voice isn't really made for the music, and after a very promising, arresting beginning we realize that hers is a strongly conceived performance of music that doesn't quite suit her. The recording's perspective is odd and the reverberation excessive and possibly artificial - at least I hope the acoustics weren't actually this bad - so we aren't getting as fair a representation of Schwarzkopf as of Davidsen and Hannigan.

_Luonnotar_ is an extraordinary piece of music that casts a spell. I don't agree that it requires a dramatic soprano; the orchestration isn't heavy, a voice of medium weight can handle it quite well, and most singers who have recorded it are not categorized as dramatic. Despite thinking that Davidsen has the more suitable sound for it, I have to give the nod to Hannigan for making this bardic poem come to life.

EDIT: I just realized that I overlooked Mattila altogether. She's the only Finn in the bunch, and it's therefore a pity that her dramatic instincts are defeated by the simple fact that her voice is worn out. At the end I get the feeling that she's hugging the conductor for support and reassurance.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

These are the translated lyrics

_There was a maiden, a girl of the air,
a slender Nature-Spirit, beautiful
She sensed the strangeness of her life
of always being alone
in the vast voids.
She descended, down to the waves.
A wave drove the maiden;
for seven hundred years
the maiden, mother of the water, turned round
and round.
She swam to the northwest, to the south,
she swam around all the airy horizons.
There came a great gust of wind,
It raised the sea to a surge.
"Oh, miserable, my days!
It would have been better
to live as the maiden of the air.
Oh, Ukko, highest god!
Come here when I summon you!"
There came a duck, a plain bird.
It flew around all the shores of the air.
It flew to the northwest, to the south.
It did not find places for its nest.
No! No! No!
"Shall I make my home on the wind,
my dwelling on the waves?
The wind will upset it, the wind will upset it,
a wave will ruin my dwelling!"
So then, the mother of the water
raised her knee out of the waves.
There the duck made her nest.
She began to brood.
The maiden felt the growing heat.
She jerked her limb:
the nest tumbled into the water.
It broke into pieces.
The eggs began to change, to grow beautiful.
The egg's upper half
became the sky, up above.
The upper half of the egg-white
became the gleaming moon;
that which was in the mottled part
became the stars in heaven.
They became the stars in heaven.
_

These are the words and I have to say I get no sense of them at all from Davidsen's performance. Nor do I really agree that it needs a large dramatic soprano, and in any case her performance is the least dramatic of the four. Admittedly this is a fairly declamatory piece, but Davidsen's lack of legato bothers me and I prefer all the others, including Mattila, who is captured a little late in her career. As the only Finn here, I take it that her Finnish is authentic. I'm sure she would have made a better showing a few years earlier.

Others have commended performances by Söderström and Isokoski, neither of whom are dramatic sopranos, and I have a performance featuring Phylis Bryn Julson, who is also a lyric rather than dramatic soprano, which would support the contention that a large dramatic soprano is not what the music requires. Hannigan brings the piece to life in a way Davidsen does not. She really tells a story and draws the listener in, so of the three above, she is my favourite.

I enjoyed hearing Schwarzkopf's version again. This was the only time she sang it, at a 90th birthday celebration for Sibelius, who was in the audience. The performance took place in Helsinki in 1955 and she learned it in Finnish for the occasion. She is in fabulous form and I like it very much. Schwarzkopf herself apparently thought it one of the best things she ever did. I wonder what Sibelius thought. Had her version been part of the competition, I might well have voted for it, despite the rather muddy recording.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

They used Google Translate?!


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

HenryPenfold said:


> They used Google Translate?!


Possibly. I found a better translation and have changed my post.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> These are the words and I have to say I get no sense of them at all from Davidsen's performance. Nor do I really agree that it needs a large dramatic soprano, and in any case her performance is the least dramatic of the four. Admittedly this is a fairly declamatory piece, but Davidsen's lack of legato bothers me and I prefer all the others, including Mattila, who is captured a little late in her career. *As the only Finn here, I take it that her Finnish is authentic. I'm sure she would have made a better showing a few years earlier.*


That is one of the reasons why I included Mattila's performance however I was rather surprised at the state of her singing.

I'm sure that most here know my biases so I won't rehash them other than I built the poll around the Hannigan performance.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Am I alone in finding that a singer conducting her own performance disconcerting? Or weird? I have the same feeling with an instrumentalists doing the same. Joshua Bell, for instance, in
*The Four Seasons* when he had to go through contortions while playing. That said, I had to stop to stop watching Hannigan in order to enjoy the music.
Lise Davidsen has a great voice, but I don’t like how she uses it and I was shocked at Mattila’s ragged singing. So Hannigan wins, not by default, but by total commitment to the piece at hand, even though I don’t really find the voice arresting.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Am I alone in finding that a singer conducting her own performance disconcerting? Or weird? I have the same feeling with an instrumentalists doing the same. Joshua Bell, for instance, in
*The Four Seasons* when he had to go through contortions while playing. That said, I had to stop to stop watching Hannigan in order to enjoy the music.
Lise Davidsen has a great voice, but I don’t like how she uses it and I was shocked at Mattila’s ragged singing. So Hannigan wins, not by default, but by total commitment to the piece at hand, even though I don’t really find the voice arresting


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MAS said:


> Am I alone in finding that a singer conducting her own performance disconcerting? Or weird? I have the same feeling with an instrumentalists doing the same. Joshua Bell, for instance, in
> *The Four Seasons* when he had to go through contortions while playing. That said, I had to stop to stop watching Hannigan in order to enjoy the music.
> Lise Davidsen has a great voice, but I don’t like how she uses it and I was shocked at Mattila’s ragged singing. So Hannigan wins, not by default, but by total commitment to the piece at hand, even though I don’t really find the voice arresting.


I find it weird too, and once I realized (very quickly) what she was doing I stopped watching and simply listened. I normally listen to all these videos before watching so as to focus on the singing, and I never did watch Hannigan while she sang. The tradition of keyboard players functioning as their own conductors goes back centuries, and it's hardly more strange for violinists or other instrumentalists, but I want to see a singer create a poetic world in her own physical/psycological sphere and establish a rapport with the audience from the first note of the music, undistracted by the practicalities of leading a band.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Hannigan does that a lot now in things as disparate as works by Sibelius, Stravinsky, Mahler, Gershwin & Berg. I have seen a video of her rehearsing and it's clear that she does what any good conductor should do, i.e. prepare the piece such that the orchestra needs little prompting during the performance.

P.S. The Mahler is the 4th symphony!

P.P.S. It's good to see that the conductor and soloist are totally in-sync 👏


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Barbara Hannigan without a moment's hesitation. I've never seen a more graceful conductor - It's as if she isn't bound by the laws of gravity.- An near balletic expression of the art of conducting.

I watched the video and "saw a singer create a poetic world in her own physical/psychological sphere and establish a rapport" - at least with me - "from the first note of the music" - I wasn't distracted - I was enchanted.

I didn't mean to utilize quite that much of Woodduck's post but if I could have written it better than that I would have but I can't and so I didn't even try. I'm far too prosaic to craft verse of that quality - Although we disagree, my compliments.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> Barbara Hannigan without a moment's hesitation. I've never seen a more graceful conductor - It's as if she isn't bound by the laws of gravity.- An near balletic expression of the art of conducting.
> 
> I watched the video and "saw a singer create a poetic world in her own physical/psychological sphere and establish a rapport" - at least with me - "from the first note of the music" - I wasn't distracted - I was enchanted.
> 
> I didn't mean to utilize quite that much of Woodduck's post but if I could have written it better than that I would have but I can't and so I didn't even try. I'm far too prosaic to craft verse of that quality - Although we disagree, my compliments.


If you like Mahler, there is a YouTube video of her conducting the Gothenburg Symphony in the Mahler 4th with her also singing the last movement. It is an unlisted video so I would have to send you the link if you are interested, let me know via PM. I won't claim it as being amongst the best but it is well done and was also her first time conducting Mahler.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Well, OK... But if Leonard Bernstein ever conducted this I'm sure the audience was grateful that he didn't turn around and sing it.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Well, OK... But if Leonard Bernstein ever conducted this I'm sure the audience was grateful that he didn't turn around and sing it.


Unless he could actually sing it as well as she can...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Shaughnessy said:


> Unless he could actually sing it as well as she can...


Have you ever heard Bernstein sing?


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Woodduck said:


> Have you ever heard Bernstein sing?


He starts at the 1:00 mark - He's good... But is he Lauri-Volpi good? Probably not. Gigli good? Kind of doubt it. Schipa? - Seriously? Pinza? Björling? Martinelli? - No, no, and nope...

Can he convincingly sing roles as lyrical as Rodolfo in _La bohème_, the Duke in _Rigoletto_ and Alfredo in _La traviata_, yet still excel in parts as heavy as Cavaradossi in _Tosca_, Don Jose in _Carmen_ and Radames in _Aïda_. Canio, in _Pagliacci_,?

A qualified "maybe" paired with a definitive "maybe not"...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Great to see this. I saw some of Bernstein's Omnibus lectures when they were first televised in the '50s. Those were the days.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> He starts at the 1:00 mark - He's good... But is he Lauri-Volpi good? Probably not. Gigli good? Kind of doubt it. Schipa? - Seriously? Pinza? Björling? Martinelli? - No, no, and nope...
> 
> Can he convincingly sing roles as lyrical as Rodolfo in _La bohème_, the Duke in _Rigoletto_ and Alfredo in _La traviata_, yet still excel in parts as heavy as Cavaradossi in _Tosca_, Don Jose in _Carmen_ and Radames in _Aïda_. Canio, in _Pagliacci_,?
> 
> A qualified "maybe" paired with a definitive "maybe not"...


Doesn't this belong in 'The best singing ever recorded' thread


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Doesn't this belong in 'The best singing ever recorded' thread


It's at least as good as the vocal contributions of Glenn Gould.


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Becca said:


> Doesn't this belong in 'The best singing ever recorded' thread


I thought that opera singing was ranked thus - "Pretty Good" - "Good" - "Best" - "Better" - "Even Better Than That" - "The Most Beautiful" -


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Shaughnessy said:


> I thought that opera singing was ranked thus - "Pretty Good" - "Good" - "Best" - "Better" - "Even Better Than That" - "The Most Beautiful" -


...followed, if one is to believe some threads, by "The Greatest Of All Time"


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Just a quick note on how I found my way here - I clicked on the "TalkClassical" logo at the top left and this thread was listed first on the "Recommended For You" page.

The "Schipa: Tenore Unico" thread was listed third.

That was yesterday - Both of those threads are now long gone but "Recommended For Whom?" may actually be pinned there as it has consistently been in that listing of 25 for the past three days.

Oddly ironic when you think about it...

They were right to recommend the thread though - Thoroughly enjoyed it - My thanks!


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