Voices of Eternity: The 100 Greatest Opera Musicians of All Time


Book Description

Immerse yourself in the captivating world of opera with "Voices of Eternity: The 100 Greatest Opera Musicians of All Time." This definitive guide celebrates the exceptional talents and dramatic prowess of the most influential figures in the history of opera. From the powerful tenor voices of Luciano Pavarotti and Enrico Caruso to the mesmerizing sopranos like Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland, and from the versatile baritones such as Sherrill Milnes and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, this book explores the rich tapestry of opera through its most celebrated performers. Each chapter offers an in-depth look at the lives and careers of these iconic musicians, highlighting their remarkable achievements, vocal artistry, and contributions to the operatic tradition.




The Voices that Shaped Music: The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time


Book Description

Dive into the captivating stories behind the most iconic voices in music history. "The Voices that Shaped Music: The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time" is an anthology that celebrates the artistry, influence, and unique journeys of 100 legendary singers who have left an indelible mark on the world. From the soulful resonance of Aretha Franklin to the electrifying performances of Freddie Mercury, and the timeless classics of Frank Sinatra to the groundbreaking innovation of Michael Jackson, this book offers a comprehensive look at the singers who defined eras, transcended genres, and moved millions. Each chapter is dedicated to a different artist, detailing their rise to stardom, their signature styles, and their lasting impact on music and culture.




Opera Singers


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Musical Forecast


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The Etude


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Early 20th Century Opera Singers


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Historical recordings by opera singers have proven since 1900 to offer much reward to the singer, student, listener, and collector alike. In the first book of this kind to appear in decades, Nicholas Limansky explains why critical listening is important and describes the merits of analyzing and comparing the recordings of previous generations of singers with those of the present. He also recounts how markedly record collecting has changed through the decades-especially in large cities like New York-mainly due to technological advance. He not only treats collecting 78 rpm disks, but LPs and CDs as well. Expired copyright now enables many of these early recordings to easily be acquired and collected, enabling the broad-scale comparison of style, technique, and vocal quality among the famous performers of earlier eras. The author points out what to look for among these differences in style, technique, and ability-both good and bad. (On occasion, the most famous are not the best ) With emphasis on today's student and collector, Limansky provides information about where, how, and on what labels given recordings can be found. He discusses printed resources that offer the interested even more information. Beginners and veterans alike will find much of interest in this far-ranging book. Nicholas Limansky studied voice at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and has a performance degree from the University of West Virginia. He has sung with major professional choral groups in New York City that include The Bach Aria Group, Musica Sacra, New York Choral Artists (NY Philharmonic), Opera Orchestra of New York, The Netherlands Ballet, and Alvin Ailey (Revelations, Rainbow). He has written performance reviews for the Italian publication, "Rassegna Melodrammatic," and reviewed new vocal releases of historical singers for "Opera News, The Record Collector, Classical Singer, " and "Opera Quarterly." He lectures at the New York Vocal Record Collectors Society and is a member of its board of directors.




Great Singers on Great Singing


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A world-renowned opera star interviews 40 famous opera singers.







Life


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I Saw Eternity the Other Night


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The sound of the choir of King's College, Cambridge - its voices perfectly blended, its emotions restrained, its impact sublime - has become famous all over the world, and for many, the distillation of a particular kind of Englishness. This is especially so at Christmas time, with the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, whose centenary is celebrated this year. How did this small band of men and boys in a famous fenland town in England come to sing in the extraordinary way they did in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? It has been widely assumed that the King's style essentially continues an English choral tradition inherited directly from the Middle Ages. In this original and illuminating book, Timothy Day shows that this could hardly be further from the truth. Until the 1930s, the singing at King's was full of high Victorian emotionalism, like that at many other English choral foundations well into the twentieth century. The choir's modern sound was brought about by two intertwined revolutions, one social and one musical. From 1928, singing with the trebles in place of the old lay clerks, the choir was fully made up of choral scholars - college men, reading for a degree. Under two exceptional directors of music - Boris Ord from 1929 and David Willcocks from 1958 - the style was transformed and the choir broadcast and recorded until it became the epitome of English choral singing, setting the benchmark for all other choral foundations either to imitate or to react against. Its style has now been taken over and adapted by classical performers who sing both sacred and secular music in secular settings all over the world with a precision inspired by the King's tradition. I Saw Eternity the Other Night investigates the timbres of voices, the enunciation of words, the use of vibrato. But the singing of all human beings, in whatever style, always reflects in profound and subtle ways their preoccupations and attitudes to life. These are the underlying themes explored by this book.