Reissues of Suzanne Danco’s early 1950s recordings have been welcomed as revelatory excursions into the artistry of a hugely talented singer. Best known today for her idiomatic mastery of the French repertoire, Danco sang a vast variety of songs and operatic roles, from Wozzeck’s Marie to pre-Bach composers. This latest disc from Testament is doubly welcome, not only for the singing but also for music that I believe is new to the growing stock of Danco reissues.
Bach’s Cantata No. 51 (Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen) opens the program. It’s a long-time favorite of high sopranos, especially those with the coloratura chops to make the closing “Alleluja!” a showpiece. Danco is as spirited as any, but she’s acutely sensitive to texts, never neglecting the words in favor of flights to the heights. The voice is sharply focused and tonally pure, and if that closing “Alleluja!” doesn’t elicit jaw-dropping wonder at its facility, it’s facile enough and more musical than many an acrobatic coloratura display. In Cantata 202 (Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten) she adopts a warmer, more intimate approach appropriate to a wedding cantata and reveals rich middle and lower registers you might not expect from so bright a voice.
Decca’s star Bach ensemble in the 1950s, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra led by Karl Münchinger, accompanies. These are heavy performances; agile rhythms lumber along clumsily, graceful lines freighted by plodding strings. They may seem unacceptable remnants of a misguided past, but in their day they were considered the epitome of the way Bach should be played, a corrective to inappropriately overweight pre-war big band Bach.
The substantial fillers include three Bach songs, including the familiar “Bist di bei mir”, a rapt “Eile mich, Gott zu erreten” by Schütz, and Caccini’s “Amarilli, mia bella”. Francesco Durante’s sprightly “Danza, danza” enlivens this serious–and seriously heavy–set, which is crowned by a gorgeous, piano-accompanied “O del mio dolce ardor” from Gluck’s Paride ed Elena. If this disc is not as mandatory a purchase as Danco’s recordings of French repertoire, it still offers a feast of fine singing and a chance to round out our picture of a superb singer.
