#Ture Rangstrom

[lesser-known-composers]

Ture Rangstrom (1884-1947) - Avskedet (The Farewell)

Mezzo Soprano Vocals: Marine Chagnon

Piano: Joséphine Ambroselli

[allmymusic]

48 Ritorna Vincitor!

It’s been a while, eh?

I probably explained in the beginning that my CDs are all in pockets in a binder, which I keep at the back of a cabinet, which, trusts me, explains why this project is lagging. Digging the damn thing out is just too much hassle, keeping it out is cumbersome. So, when I needed something else from the cabinet, I photographed the next 20 or so discs on the list, and am listening to them Spotify. It may be technically cheating, but at least the artists will all get paid something like two pennies, right?

This cover is pure vintage. So grand! The white opera gloves! The pearls!

Birgit Nilson is probably the image your mind conjures up when you’re told to picture an opera singer - an impossibly stately woman in a winged helmet and a breastplate belting out (except she didn’t really) out some loud top notes, right?

You’re not wrong.

Sometime after Nilsson’s death in 2005, I saw a documentary about her, and while this is half the truth, the other half is that like Caballe, she certainly was a woman who knew her worth, but also had a genuine sense of humour about it. Nilsson was an old school diva, and one of the most important singers of her kind of the 20th century. 9 times out of 10 when Morse is listening to opera in the series, it’s Nilsson. I’m pretty sure there’s a discussion about her in there somewhere. Her picture is on the 500-krona banknote in Sweden, and I’m pretty sure her childhood home is now a museum dedicated to her. In short, she remains a Big Deal.

This album, released couple years before her death, is a typical, two-disc Best of -collection - the subtitle is The legendary - cut together from the recordings of Nilsson’s best known roles, with a selection of orchestral songs on the second disc. It’s a big listen, over two and a half hours of high octane pieces by Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Sibelius, Grieg and Ture Rangstrom, with I could have danced all night from My Fair Lady thrown in for good measure, and I confess I didn’t manage it all at one go. I also confess that I don’t find Nilsson’s voice particularly easy to listen to, for some indeterminate reason. At least on recording there’s a sharpness to it, that probably live, carrying over an orchestra, gave it its magic; lacking that distance there is (literally) some depth missing.

Nilsson brings all the right colours to her Verdi, but it’s easy to hear why she’s more famous for the German repertoire - Einsam in truben Tagen from Wagner’s Lohengrin is stunning, and there’s powerful darkness to Allein, Weh, ganz allein from Strauss’ Elektra, and the closing scene of Salome is suitable ecstatic. I’m feeling the orchestral songs a bit less - the digital transfer of the Wesendonck Lieder isn’t great, and while the Sibelius is greatly performed, I just don’t love these songs. The Rangstrom songs are a great addition; he was an early modernist composer who is, depending on who you ask, either over or under appreciated, and Nilsson certainly did him justice.

Favourite track: There are few great ones here (I love the above-mentioned Lohengrin, and Nel di della vittoria from Macbeth), but I’ll go with the first track of the second disc, Dich, teure Halle from Tannhauser, which is perfection.

Ritorna Vincitor! The legendary Birgit Nilson Birgit Nilsson, soprano Various orcherstras and conductors

Available on Amazon, and on Spotify.

[solitaryfossil]

Symphony No. 2 in D minor, "Mitt land" (1919) I. Sagan (Legend): Allegretto grave e fantastico [0:00] II. Skogen, vagen, sommarnatten (Forest, road, summer n...

Listening to… Ture Rangström’s Symphony No. 2 in D minor, "Mitt land" (1919). Second time listening to this, I quite like it. A bit old fashioned but really nice.

[madness-and-gods]

Ture Rangström | "Song of the Sea" [Havet sjunger]