Peter Pears, tenor - arr. B. Britten: O Waly, O Waly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gHTw9XjKMc
Wow! Were has this guy been all my life?! Love his tone and the light lyric quality of his voice. And this arrangement of 'The Water is Wide' is genius--at least as it relates to the piano accompaniment. Anyway, Pears has an interesting posture--almost uncomfortable to watch but, it seems to work for him. That said, he's seems very connected to the voice--his circular, hovering motions, although awkward seem to indicate that. The sound seems grounded even though his 'high' shoulders might indicate otherwise. When watching his breath you can still that his torso expands appropriately to support his sound and his placement and space seems to be well executed--well, at least in my opinion. The sound produced seems to be evidence of that.
John Mark Ainsley, tenor - Handel's Semele: Where'er you walk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-ZpM0EEMYQ&feature=related
Ainsley's performance of Handel's, 'Where'er you Walk' is interesting to watch because most of the performance is in a seated or reclined position. Yet, he rarely seems to 'reach' for any of the higher portions of his register and he maintains a relatively effortless quality in his sound throughout the entire piece. I did notice however, tension in the face and although I don't know that this necessarily translates to tension in the voice, I wondered. I don't know much about the 'bel canto' style of singing but, the idea of seamless transition between loud-soft/high-low/head-chest of the vocal mechanism seems to be evident. Also, for a relatively light voice quality he seems to have relatively forward placement and resonance that allows his voice to sound 'larger' than it may actually be.
No comments:
Post a Comment