Search - Maggie Teyte :: Singers Series (Dig)

Joy and melancholy

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 02/06/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I wonder how many English singers, born as long ago as 1888, have been resurrected on CD in the year 2001. Dame Maggie Teyte can claim two CDs! This one forms part of the series "The Singers". All the recordings on this CD date from the 1930s. That those years were "lean years" for British singers, is also to Maggie Teyte's credit. Beggars cannot be choosers, of course, and what is here is not necessarily always her best work. The first three tracks show her at her best; elsewhere there are some quaint and queer items. In "Sweet Mistress Prue" you will hear "the sky is blue" and "how I love you" and every possible rhyming line ad nauseum. Eleven of the tracks derive from 1937 broadcasts she gave with the accompanist Rita Mackay. One of them is issued here for the first time, replacing another - a song by Hugo Wolf - that was included in a first issue of this collection on LP in the 1970s. The singer puts her stamp on everything, conveying a sense of joy mixed with a tinge of wistful melancholy. Her admirers will welcome this CD with joy. That her voice never recorded well, and that these recordings were never the best of their day, might induce a slight feeling of melancholy."

Not representative Teyte

Abhimanyu Katyal | San Francisco, CA USA | 08/28/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Maggie Teyte is known, for the most part, for her French Art Song recordings. This Decca 'Singers' edition, while entertaining, is not representative of her best, or indeed, her most iconic work. For that, you'll need to turn to her EMI recordings. All that said, these recordings show her in marvellous voice, and a couple of the performances, the Hahn and the Dvorak 'Songs my mother taught me' are very special."