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PARTISAN REVIEW
singin g ever preserved did he no t, in hi s last chapter, mention receivin g
an anthology of hi sto ric recordings tha t conta ined fin e perfo rmances
from two singers " fo rmerl y unknown to me." Perhaps hi s g rea test
virtue is the ability to li sten through the "sound barri er" o f o ld
recordings, as well as the "age barri er" of recordings from a rti sts whose
careers were nea ring an end when the g ramaphone was introdu ced. A
case in po int is Lilli Lehmann , who was bo rn in 1848 and made her
debut in 1865. A fri end pronounced her 1905 recording of "Or sa i chi
l'ono re" from
Don G iovanni
the wo rst sound he h ad ever heard . But
with Steane's skillful assistance o ne is able to detect a magnifi cent , if
fl awed, p erformance, and to imagin e an even mo re magnificent one
from the perfo rmer a t the height o f her powers.
T he Grand Trad ition
undertakes to describe and eva lu a te, pri mar–
il y by means of compa rison , a ll of the g rea t singers on record .
It
a lso
presents a " hi sto ry" o f singin g in o ur century, tha t is, an account o f the
broader tendencies in its evo lution . The autho r stops just sho rt o f
asking the most interesting and difficult ques tions abo ut hi s hi sto ry:
namely, why it takes the particul a r form it does, and wha t its signifi–
cance might be fo r the history o f culture in genera l.
Almost inva riabl y I found his descripti ons accura te and hi s
eva luations just. He is an indulgent listener (in thi s he differs ma rkedly
from Ameri ca 's best jo urnalistic criti c o f sin g ing, Conrad L. Osbo rn e),
but he does not shrink from identifying faults. Thus, o f Zinka Mil anov
he writes : "Where there a re high no tes to be fl oa ted, soft passages to be
sung with a creamy tone, phrases where the so lo vo ice can ho ld a long
line uninterrupted by decl ama tory o r o ther pressures, th en a ll is mo re
than well. At other ti mes the lack o f bi te is felt, poss ibl y by the sin ger
herself, whose tone then becomes unsteady under pressure." On e nods
agreement and sil entl y thanks the autho r fo r making exp li cit o ne's
own unarti cul a ted reservation s.
At thi s level of description and judgment the book fa il s to sa ti sfy
onl y in two rela tively minor respects. Occas iona ll y Steane seems
unwilling to specify the qu a lities of vo ice th a t make certa in singers
particul a rl y di stinctive. One would never gu ess from hi s di scu ss ion of
James McCracken, fo r exampl e, tha t hi s vo ice has a unique and
immedia tely recognizable timbre.
It
is o f course imposs ibl e to capture
tha t sound in prose, but one can a t least make ges tures in its directi on.
The same sho rtcoming mars hi s trea tment of such o ther impo rtant
arti sts as Galli-Curci, Bj6rling, and Ca ll as.
My o ther compl aint is perhaps more subj ective. But Steane seems
to me a less reliable judge of baritones than of sopranos, mezzos, teno rs,
