# Xmas Contest: Mary Had a Baby: Battle, Hendricks, Norman



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

All three are a capella and wonderful.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

I predict many of you will have difficulty deciding. They are all unique and very beautiful. I had forgotten how gorgeous Kathleen Battle's voice is. Barbara's is the most like it was sung on the plantation. Jessye''s version was recorded early in her career when her vibrato was fast and liquid and at it's most beautiful. The original photo on her spiritutuals album was so early it was before she was glamorized . By the way, do you like the voting to be anonymous or public?


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Oh, man! Two gentrified versions by Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, while surprisingly, Barbara Hendricks "gets _down_," baby!

Don't get me wrong, I love Kathleen Battle (I took her Händel Arias on trip to the Mediterranean years ago and reveled in it) and Jessye Norman in their prettified versions. I never expected to be voting for Hendricks, who's usually bland.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> Oh, man! Two gentrified versions by Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman, while surprisingly, Barbara Hendricks "gets _down_," baby!
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I love Kathleen Battle (I took her Händel Arias on trip to the Mediterranean years ago and reveled in it) and Jessye Norman in their prettified versions. I never expected to be voting for Hendricks, who's usually bland.


Barbara's version surprised me. Hard choices for me. Thanks for playing.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Barbara's version surprised me. Hard choices for me. Thanks for playing.


Jessye and Kathleen did a spirituals concert together way back when. They did a duet, "They scandalized my name," which is a hoot!


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Dear me! That voice of Battle's is hard to resist but there is no doubt in my mind that the one that got to the heart of the song was Barbara Hendricks deep down version -- which seems like the way it should be done and not necessarily with grandiose backgrounds.
Norman's was too fanfare for me -- it lost all of it's simplicity and pathos.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Hendricks's version is not strictly comparable to the others, and I don't know how to rank them. What interests me is that Battle's version is in major and Norman's in minor, neither of them employing the major/minor blues scale that we hear in Hendricks's. I like both Hendricks's raw authenticity and Battle's ethereal sweetness. Norman's arrangement is overwrought.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> By the way, do you like the voting to be anonymous or public?


I don't care, since I never vote without commenting. I'm here to talk, brother, and I WILL NOT be silenced.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

As Woodduck says, these three performances aren't strictly comparable as the arrangements are so different. All three ladies have beautifu voices, but I have no hesitation picking Hendricks whose more authentic version appealed to me much more.

Inicidentally, I have a two disc set of Hendricks singing _Spirituals_. The first CD was recorded in 1983 with simple piano accompaniments provided by Dmitri Alexeev, the second, recorded in 1998, with the Moses Hogan Singers, but it is the first I prefer. I reviewed it here if anyone is interested.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Amazing how a single piece of music can produce three such contrasting versions. Norman's is too much (but hers is the voice I find most interesting and artistically used. The simplicity and sincerity of Hendrick's version is compelling, but I was actually most touched by the plainess of the arrangement on Battle's one. It's perhaps the one least like a spiritual, but it's the one I personally like the best.

N.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

Seattleoperafan said:


> *All three are a capella* and wonderful


no, only the second one is


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

BalalaikaBoy said:


> no, only the second one is


I don't know why but I thought the first and third were just with a chorus. Both lady's voices were so beautiful I only noticed them I guess. Good I have you to keep me on my toes.


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