Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas has a long and dense history in the recording studio.  The first recording dates back to 1935 and the vast stream of recordings since serve as a kind of barometer of the changes in style in performing 17th century music.  I haven’t listened to every recording but I can look at four key moments in the discography and compare them.  I’ve also listened or watched a fair number of fairly recent productions.  The video review page has six entries for this work; all 1995 or later.  There are also five reviews of live productions and reviews of several related shows.  But for the purposes of this mini-project I’m going to look at four recordings that take us from the early 1950s to the mid 1990s.  The four recordings are:

• The 1951 (or 1952 depending on source) EMI recording with Kirsten Flagstad and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
• The 1961 recording with Janet Baker
• Andrew  Parrott’s seminal 1981 recording with Emma Kirkby
• Tafelmusik’s 1995 recording

This post will deal with the first with subsequent posts on the others.

The 1951 recording has its genesis in a 1945 staging at London’s Mermaid Theatre.  Essentially the same forces were gathered a few years later in the famous Studio No.1 at Abbey Road.  There’s not much concession to what would later be called Historically Informed Performance.  Both Flagstad, as Dido, and Schwarzkopf, as Belinda, go for a big sound which feels even more old fashioned because of the 1950s RP diction.  It feels slow and emphatic and very rhythmically rigid.  It probably isn’t actually as slow as it feels as the recording is no longer than many other versions.  The largish orchestra, conducted by Geraint Jones, makes it feel quite heavy.  Oddly, the Mermaid orchestra (its that theatre’s chorus too) manages to sound loud and a bit thin at the top end simultaneously.

Aeneas is sung by Thomas Hemsley and he too sounds old fasdhioned; more because of diction than anything else.  There’s no real attempt at humour anywhere.  The Sorceress is sung by Greek mezzo Arda Mandikian and she sings with a lot of vibrato but an otherwise “straight” vocal delivery.  There’s no vocal clowning to speak of from Sheila Rex and Anna Pollak as the Witches either though they get a tiny bit “witchier” in Act 3.  The Sailor’s song and accompanying chorus is also short on humour.  It comes to a kind of apotheosis with the Lament.  The orchestra is loud and “doomy” and Flagstad is not far short of Liebestod territory.  Bottom line; nobody would perform Dido and Aeneas anything like this today.  That said I’d recommend hearing it to see from whence we have come and also because Flagstad and Schwarzkopf are rather wonderful in their old fashioned way.  It’s also perfectly acceptable as a recording as most 1950s HMV recordings are.

This recording has a long history.  It was originally issued on HMV/EMI and has had multiple re-issues on various labels.  It’s currently available on Naxos (Naxos 8111264) in physical CD, MP3 or CD quality FLAC.

Next up Janet Baker.