Louise Kirkby Lunn - Recording Activities and Final Performances

Recording Activities and Final Performances

In the same year (1912) as her Australian tour, Kirkby Lunn recorded two duets with the famous Covent Garden and Met tenor, John McCormack, from operas composed by Wolf-Ferrari. These duets have been re-mastered and re-issued on CD, as have some of her other, solo, 78-rpm discs. Her main body of her recordings were made for the Gramophone Company between 1909 and 1916 but there were also Pathe records cut earlier, including duets that feature Ben Davies, another tenor. Among the operatic excerpts on her recorded output are music by Wagner and, as we have seen, Verdi, Ponchielli, Gluck, Mozart and Wolf-Ferrari. The acoustic recording process of the day was not particularly kind to Kirkby-Lunn's "warm rich notes of true contralto quality" (as critic Herman Klein spoke of her voice), although in some pieces such as the Gounod 'Entreat me not to leave thee', or the Arthur Goring Thomas 'A Summer night', her famed control of the broad compass, and the poise and grandeur of her delivery, are apparent.

In 1919–22, Kirkby Lunn reappeared at Covent Garden, choosing her celebrated part of Kundry for her last appearances there with the British National Opera Company. After this she remained before the public for several years more in concert and recital. (At much the same time, Marie Brema was making her reappearances in Orfeo.)

Read more about this topic:  Louise Kirkby Lunn

Famous quotes containing the words recording, activities, final and/or performances:

    Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.
    Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)

    Juggling produces both practical and psychological benefits.... A woman’s involvement in one role can enhance her functioning in another. Being a wife can make it easier to work outside the home. Being a mother can facilitate the activities and foster the skills of the efficient wife or of the effective worker. And employment outside the home can contribute in substantial, practical ways to how one works within the home, as a spouse and as a parent.
    Faye J. Crosby (20th century)

    The prologues are over. It is a question, now,
    Of final belief. So, say that final belief
    Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)

    This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.
    Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)