Airs de Cour: French Court Music of the XVII Century. - Marie Claude Vallin, Max van Egmond, Lutz Kirchhof - sound recording reviews

National Review, July 19, 1993 by Ralph Robert Toledano

In Airs de Cour: French Court Music of the XVII Century, you will hear Marie Claude Vallin and Max van Egmond singing the old songs of love requited and unrequited. Her voice is pure and unencumbered by vibrato, as these songs call for, but Egmond's baritone is sometimes a little heavy. For me, however, the interludes by lutanist Lutz Kirchhof are the most appealing aspect of this recording. The lute is a wonderfully eloquent instrument, and one that should be brought back. Kirchhof is an utter delight (Sony Classical SK 48250).

Now leap forward three hundred years to the American musical comedy and one of its finest exponents, Richard Rodgers. There are two Richard Rodgerses, it should be noted: Lorenz Hart's fellow Columbian, who wrote witty and lyrical melodies to Hart's lyrical and witty words, and the sometimes pretentious collaborator of Oscar Hammerstein II, given to repeating himself in a mode mineur. Rodgers & Hart gave us three splendid musical comedies--On Your Toes and The Boys' from Syracuse (both wonderfully recreated by Goddard Lieberson for Columbia Records in the 1950s) and Pal Joey, which revolutionized musical-comedy scripts. Syracuse has been reissued on CD (Sony Broadway SK 53329) but we must wait hopefully for a reissue of On Your Toes. Each has some of the best words and music produced by Rodgers and Hart, and the re-creation features the moving singing of Portia Nelson. A Rodgers & Hammerstein Songbook collates some of that team's biggest hits, all taken from Lieberson productions. Nelson Eddy is all over Oklahoma, and there are excerpts from The King and I, The Sound of Music, etc. (Sony Broadway SK 53331). For lovers of Oklahoma, there is a CD of the Lieberson re-creation--the most complete recorded version (Sony Broadway 53326).

The musical comedy is, along with jazz, America's major contribution to music and the stage, and perhaps some day Tin Pan Alley--which produced George Gershwin--will be admitted to the pantheon. But there is a kind of in-between world south of the border in which popular classics, reflecting a mixed culture, thrive. Placido Domingo, when he leaves the opera house, has tried to make a home in this world, but he is not quite as successful as other operatic talents of the past; Carlos Ramirez and Tito Schipa come to mind. In Entre Dos Mundos, however, he does tug at the heartstrings and ring all the nostalgic changes by bringing together such span c songs as "Un Viejo Amor," "Maria La O," and "Adios, Mariquita Linda," which the incomparable Carlos Gardel brought to Argentina (Sony SMK 48479).