This release in the
Parnassus
label's Black Swans series features mezzo-soprano
Inez Matthews
. The erasure of African Americans from the music-historical record is rarely as vividly shown as in the case of this singer, known primarily as the voice-over singer of
Ruth Attaway
's Serena Robbins in the 1959 film of
Gershwin's Porgy and Bess
. Little biographical information about her is known. She was not a musical theater singer making the leap to
Gershwin
's opera but a classically trained artist who appeared in opera and made several recordings, including these 1954 traversals of
Schubert
's song cycles
Die schoene Muellerin, D. 795
, and
Winterreise, D. 911
. (She also recorded
Schwanengesang, D. 957
.) They're rather remarkable, and not only because of the singer's origins, which were remarkable enough in 1954. Prior to
Matthews
,
Lotte Lehmann
was apparently the only other female singer to record these male-perspective cycles, and it would be interesting indeed if someone were to uncover her thinking about undertaking these when so much female-centered repertory was available. More remarkable still is that the interpretations work and do not draw attention to themselves unduly;
has a somewhat abstract sound that lifts her readings beyond the sphere of gender. It is deeply melancholy with a shining quality. She is a bit less successful in
Die schoene Muellerin
, whose squarish rhythms confine her voice a bit, but that cycle is nevertheless worth hearing. In
Die Winterreise
, where she has room to let the buried expression surface, as it were, she is very strong indeed. Sample the psychologically and harmonically complex
Auf dem Flusse
, a song that has defeated many a more famous singer.
has remastered the recordings, and the 1954 sound is displayed to its best advantage. A remarkable historical document. ~ James Manheim