University of Virginia Library

MUSIC

Soprano Price: Near Great

By TERI TOWE

Some of the finest vocal
artists of this century have
been British and the trend
shows no signs of diminishing,
if Margaret Price's performance
on Tuesday night can be
considered indicative. Miss
Price, the young Welsh
soprano, made her initial
impression in this country
through a superb reading of the
soprano arias in Johannes
Somary's recording of Handel's
Messiah, and the critical
reception during her current
tour of the United States has
been highly favorable.

I'd say that my fellow
critics are right. Miss Price is an
effective singer; her voice is
full, rich, and appealing, and
her control and ease of
production in the high register
struck me as nothing short of
phenomenal. She is not yet the
great artist in lieder that some
of her older colleagues such as
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf are, but
her natural presence and
instinctive rapport with the
repertoire indicate that she will
one day be a truly great
interpreter of lieder.

Margaret Price's program
can hardly be said to have been
ordinary. She opened with
Eine Kleine deutsch Kantate, K V 619, Mozart's only
extended work for voice and
piano. Her reading was
effective, but the opening
sections were marred by a
slight hootiness that
disappeared as soon as she had
"warmed up" thoroughly.

Next came thoughtful
performances of the Tre
Sonetti de Petrarca by Franz
Liszt, whose music, unjustly
neglected for years, is enjoying
a renaissance these days. These
songs demonstrated that Miss
Price's is not a "soft" voice; it
has a certain hard-edged
quality about it that is not at
all unpleasant.

After intermission Miss
Price gave a convincing
interpretation of Benjamin
Britten's A Poet's Echo, which,
despite some inventive effects
in the 3rd and last songs, is
really a rather dull cycle of
settings of six Pushkin poems.

Miss Price really came into
her own, though, in a group of
English, Welsh, and French
folksongs and in the Cinq
Melodies populaires Greques
by Maurice Ravel. Her
interpretations effectively
captured the essence and spirit
of each song, and the obvious
delight with which she sang
them quite enchanted her
audience.

Before the recital began,
David Williams, the President
of the Tuesday Evening
Concert Series, announced that
the annual meeting of the
Series would be held in Cabell
Hall on March 27, at 4:00 p.m.

The annual elections for the
Board of Directors will be held
at the meeting, and considering
that the Series exists solely for
its members and that the
annual meeting is the only
chance that the members have
to express their views on how
the Series is run, I urge all
ticket holders to attend, make
nominations, and vote for
those whom they deem best fit
to run the Tuesday Evening
Concert Series next year.