Maggie Teyte has a firm place in the pantheon of British singers, so this entry in Decca’s The Singers series has been received with wild enthusiasm across the pond. Here in the colonies though, enthusiasm is likely to be somewhat muted; it certainly was in my nest, primarily because the selections don’t show her at her best. Teyte was a specialist in the French repertoire who made her Paris debut in 1906 under the baton of Reynaldo Hahn. She captivated the French with her Mélisande the following year. The late John Ardoin’s notes equate her singing of Debussy and Hahn mélodies with Cortot’s Chopin and Landowska’s Bach.
Trouble is, there’s no Debussy on this disc and only one slight Hahn song–“Si mes vers avaient des ailes”, a thing of beauty to be sure and sung with a profound sense of style and vocal coloring that make the words come alive. But it was made almost three decades after her early triumphs, and too often in these 1932-37 recordings her light voice betrays a lack of sheen, thinness on top, strained low notes, and fragility, especially around the break. That said, most tracks demonstrate a feeling for style, extraordinarily clear diction, and an abundance of vocally gorgeous moments. Only five of the 24 selections are from her core French repertoire, and you can imagine how they must have sounded from the younger, fresher-voiced singer in her hey-day. As it is, they’re quite wonderful, with a beautifully turned “Je t’adore” from Offenbach’s La Périchole and two selections from Messager’s Véronique. There’s also a very stylish, leisurely paced “Après un Rêve” by Fauré.
Most of the selections are of English music theatre excerpts and songs, including a pair of Dvořák songs in translations that metamorphose into Victorian parlor sweets. The pair of Noël Coward songs from Conversation Piece are winning, but “Sweet Mistress Prue”, from Henry Gibson’s Sir Roger de Coverley, is a hoot. Just listen to Teyte’s flawless enunciation of a text each of whose lines ends with “Pru,” “blue,” “rue,” and “true”. In general, most of those selections are second-rate music and Teyte is far from her best in them.
Eleven tracks derive from a 1937 BBC broadcast recital, mostly of English art songs but also including a pair of Schumann songs and three of Brahms, including a touching “Die Mainacht”, all sung with deep feeling. In the BBC tracks she’s recorded close-up, and the more forward placement lends greater immediacy to the voice than the earlier, dim-sounding studio recordings. As with all releases in this series, texts and translations, along with useless marketing stuff, are available only through your computer’s CD drive. But there’s enough of interest here to merit some enthusiasm, severely muted though it may be.
