In my previous Blog on smoking and singing (‘My Lady Nicotine’), I mentioned that my father suffered from early onset dementia, partly, at least, as a result of his heavy smoking. Poignantly, one of my final memories of him while he was still more or less ‘with us’, was his asking me to buy him an LP for his birthday. He showed me a review in the paper (it would have been ‘The Daily Mail’) of a recording in EMI’s ‘Golden Voice’ series of a singer called Alexander Kipnis.
Short historical note: the EMI ‘Golden Voice’ series were a series of recordings released in the 1960s of well known singers of the period between c. 1930 and 1950. This is a fantastic archive (I used to have most of the 20+ produced), including artists such as Hans Hotter, Heddle Nash, Eva Turner, Walter Widdop, Conchita Supervia and, No. 7 in the list, Alexander Kipnis.
I had never heard of Kipnis, indeed I knew very little about ‘classical’ singers and my interest in this sort of singing had only recently been kindled. My treble voice had obviously been singularly unimpressive, as I auditioned for church choirs and choirs at school (at my parents’ prompting) and was not wanted by any. But in the strange alchemy wrought by adolescence, my voice broke easily and settled quickly into quite a pleasant baritone. I was only aware of this when I took part in a School play that required me to do some singing, and was heard by the Cathays High School music teacher, Clifford Bunford, a significant figure on the South Wales music scene, an accomplished tenor soloist and conductor, who had once shared a concert platform with Kathleen Ferrier, no less. Having heard me, he sought me out: ‘Wilson, you’ve got a voice you have. You are going to take part in the School eisteddfod.’ For the uninitiated, an eisteddfod is a vastly important Welsh institution, a competition for a wide range of musical, literary and other artistic pursuits. Eisteddfodau take many forms, local, national and even international, and while the one at my school was comparatively modest it was taken seriously and there was a wide range of classes. It was a House competition and, unsurprisingly, given the nature of adolescent boys, that competition was fierce.
I asked Mr Bunford what I should sing, and he told me it was an ‘open’ competition, so I had a free choice. I didn’t know any suitable songs, so I decided to go to the Kipnis LP for inspiration (the clouds of sad oblivion were beginning to close about my father, and he did not listen to it, so I had easy access). I was much taken with a song that seemed to me to fit the bill – it was exciting to listen to and told a dramatic story, of a father riding through the forest with his young son, who is desired, menaced, and ultimately killed by a malevolent wood demon. This was of course Schubert’s extraordinary Opus 1, ‘Der Erlkonig’. Oblivious to the unsuitability of this for a totally inexperienced fifteen-year-old baritone I took the music to ‘Bunny’ and while he probably thought I was a ‘stupid boy!’ he manfully agreed to my choice. I got through the prelims without much bother and found myself in the final with Julian Greenwood (singing Frederick Keel’s ‘Trade Winds’) and John Aplin (singing ‘There’s a Boat That’s Leaving Soon for New York’ from Porgy and Bess). They were two years older than me and their choices far more realistic but the judges obviously wanted to encourage all three of us and we were awarded equal first place. I found the experience totally terrifying and overwhelmingly exciting – my love-hate relationship with performance had begun.
A few days later, I listened to the Kipnis LP again. I enjoyed ‘Heidenroslein’, another Schubert song, and was impressed by three Mozart arias – the two for Sarastro from ‘Die Zauberflote’ and one for Osmin from ‘Il Seraglio’. I found ‘Pogner’s Address’ from ‘Die Meistersinger’ rather indigestible, similarly one of the Hugo Wolf ‘Michelangelo Lieder’, but was very taken by Brahms’ ‘Four Serious Songs’.
The discovery that I could sing well, and was therefore good at something that most of my contemporaries were not, kindled my interest in this craft and art, and I began to listen to other singers:Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, John Shirley-Quirk (see previous Blog), Peter Pears, Alfred Deller, Charles Craig and Janet Baker (and Bob Dylan and Nina Simone but that’s another story…). I started going to opera and concerts, I listened to records with friends – I became discerning.
Returning again and again to Kipnis I fell deeply in love with his voice – it was rich, like liquid black velvet; it could be stentorian but also soft, gentle, and beguiling. It seemed to me then, and still does seem, an intensely serious voice and as I was a very serious young man this aspect appealed to me very much. Now a serious/miserable older man I still appreciate Kipnis’ gravitas and think that in some music he remains unsurpassed.
Before I consider some of his recordings in detail here is a brief biography:
Kipnis was born in 1891 in what is now Ukraine. His family was Jewish and far from affluent. He showed musical promise and went to the Warsaw Conservatoire to study conducting but he sang second bass in an operetta theatre chorus to help finance his studies. The quality of his voice was soon recognized and he went to Berlin to study singing. When WW1 broke out, Kipnis was interred as an enemy alien but as luck would have it, the commandant of his prison camp was the brother of the director of the Wiesbaden opera, and on hearing Kipnis practicing recommended him to his brother and secured Kipnis’ release to allow him to work at the Hamburg Opera. Kipnis then went on to work at the Berlin Staatsoper where he established an international reputation, which led to guest appearances in London, Chicago and Buenos Aires. With the rise of Hitler, Kipnis, like many of Jewish heritage, found it impossible to stay in Germany, so emigrated to the USA where he became principal bass at the Metropolitan Opera New York. He retired from the opera stage in 1946, and taught singing at the Eastman School, New York. He died in 1978.
The ideal starting point to begin appreciating Kipnis’ manifold gifts is his recording of ‘Wer ein Liebchen hat Gefunden’ from Mozart’s ‘Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail’. Kipnis alternates rich, sonorous low notes with the most delicate of mezza voces on the tra la leras, all perfectly controlled. His performance of the two Sarastro arias is similarly distinguished, combining rock steady beauty of tone with the supreme, and very role-appropriate, gravitas previously mentioned. Recordings of Bartolo’s aria from ‘Figaro’, Basilio’s aria from ‘Barber’, Leporello’s ‘Catalogue Aria’, Baron Ochs, extracts from Cornelius’ ‘Barber of Baghdad’, and Nicolai’s ‘Merry Wives of Windsor’ show his lighter, fleeter, comedic side, but for me, his greatest operatic recording is as Gurnemanz in the ‘Good Friday Music’ from ‘Parsifal’. Music of the utmost seriousness and humanity finds its ideal interpreter.
Kipnis was also a very important Lieder singer. I have mentioned some recordings of Schubert and Brahms and his interpretations of the latter composer are particularly distinguished – as well as the ‘Four Serious Songs’ he provides benchmark versions of ‘Von ewiger Liebe’, ‘Die Mondnacht’ and ‘Verrat’ for example. But his greatest contribution to the Lieder discography is probably the recordings he made for the Hugo Wolf Society in the 1930s. The Hugo Wolf Society Edition of 145 of Wolf’s songs (he wrote over 200) recorded between 1931 and 1938 is one of the most famous projects in the history of the gramophone (Elgar took a volume with him as a present for Delius when he went to visit him in France in 1933) and brought together some of the greatest lieder singers of the era. Kipnis’ contribution is one of the highlights of the set and his performance of the Michelangelo Lieder (the last songs Wolf wrote before being committed to a lunatic asylum) is not simply definitive, it one of the greatest lieder recordings ever made.
Kipnis’ discography is extensive and, in addition to composers I have mentioned, includes Mussorgsky, (he was a notable Boris Gudonov), Handel (hardly authentic, but magnificent), Verdi, Debussy, and a single song by Stravinsky (‘Tilim Bom’ – a little nursery rhyme – dispatched with infectious elan).
Kipnis was not perfect: his aspirations and portamenti are not to everyone’s taste and despite the rich bass sonority of his voice he was not particularly comfortable in the lowest reaches – his low D at the end of an otherwise superb performance of Schubert’s ‘Der Wanderer’ is best forgotten - but he remains my favourite singer, and his finest recordings are worth a few hours of anybody’s time. Spotify will reveal all.
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