Between Xmas and New Year I converted all my 400+ CD's to MP3 for my iPod. Working as a salesman in a CD-store back in the early 90's I happen to have some collector's items which I came across again now. I'd like to show you some of them.
Warning: If you're a musician with a discriminating ear, then DON'T watch the second video in this post as it might be ototoxic for you!!!!!
Note the questionmarks in the title. What I'm going to show you gives you a completely different look at singers.
If you're a regular reader of my blog you will remember the post about the English salesman who sang an aria in a talent show. Here comes the opposite: Florence Foster Jenkins was an American 'singer' who started her career in 1912 and died in 1944. All her relatives and friends advised her not to sing. But when her father died and she inherited several million dollars, she funded her singing career. Her concert were very rare, normally once a year she would sing at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York. Only one month before her death she sang at Carnegie Hall in New York. The audience was always chosen by herself in personal interviews, so it wasn't easy to get a ticket. The concerts were always sold out, and people left with tears in their eyes - tears of laughter, where as FFJ thought it was tears of emotion. Once a critic stated that she 'didn't let herself get terrorize by the intention of the composers'.
To give you a reference what I'm talking about, here's 'Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen' from Mozart's Magic Flute, sung by Diana Damrau, a German opera-singer. The aria itself is a real tester. It's one of the most difficult pieces to sing in classical music:
And here, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the one and only Florence Foster Jenkins with her version of the same aria. Note her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability:
2 Kommentare:
Oh wow - what a difference from one to the other!
Yep, a difference. The first one is a real pro. She's German, 37 years old, and probably one of the big shots in the next couple of years.
Florence was actually once in a car accident. She then bought a box of expensive cigars for the guy who caused the accident, as after the shock she could sing 'a higher f than ever before'. So much for her musical knowledge (an f is always the same, it's not higher or lower...)
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