Helen Watts & Desmond Dupre & Thurston Dart & Philomusica of London - Songs for Courtiers and Cavaliers (2019)
FLAC tracks | 02:12:43 | 462 Mb
Genre: Classical / Label: Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd.
Three L’Oiseau-Lyre LPs celebrating the art of a much-loved contralto, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time, including material new to CD. The history of British contraltos on record extends beyond Kathleen Ferrier to Constance Shacklock and before her Dame Clara Butt, but their select number was joined in the 1950s by Helen Watts: ‘An extraordinary contralto,’ in the words of her modern counterpart, Nathalie Stützmann. Having left her Welsh home and graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, she quickly established herself as Ferrier’s successor on the oratorio platform with memorable performances of Bach and Handel under Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult. At the same time she began making records for L’Oiseau-Lyre, in complete and pioneering accounts of Semele and Sosarme, first of all and recently reissued by Eloquence.