Classical Kern: The Vocal Recordings

Jerome Kern by Bettina Steinke (National Portrait Gallery)

For at least the first 60 years of the last century, it was not unusual for classical vocalists to sing popular songs. Those days, singers could appear at the Met, in film, operetta and on the radio performing a variety of repertoire.

Record companies were keen to exploit the fame their artists had developed through radio or film, so it became common for these singers to adopt songs that suited their styles and had popular appeal. What better source than the rich catalogue of the beloved songwriter Jerome Kern, who wrote in a style that was close to the operettas that most of these singers had appeared in.

Today's post presents 13 of those crossover classical-popular vocalists in the Kern repertoire, via recordings dating from 1919 to 1951. We start with an album by mezzo Risë Stevens, and continue with singles from John McCormack, Lawrence Tibbett, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Grace Moore, Eleanor Steber, Gladys Swarthout, Jeanette MacDonald, Lauritz Melchior, Dorothy Kirsten and William Warfield. Finally, we have a reupload of an album by Irene Dunne, who appeared in several Kern films.

This is a companion to my recent post of the Show Boat Scenario for Orchestra from the Cleveland Orchestra and Artur Rodziński.

Risë Stevens in Songs of Jerome Kern

When her Jerome Kern album was recorded in 1945, Risë Stevens had achieved so much notoriety than Hollywood had cast her as an opera singer in Bing Crosby's 1944 film Going My Way. She had already been at the Met for six years by that time, and was to continue throughout the next few decades.

The Kern songs formed the first album she would make with the Shulman brothers - Alan providing the arrangements and Sylvan conducting them. The Shulmans were notable crossover artists themselves - when they were not performing in the NBC Symphony, they formed one half of the Stuyvesant String Quartet and were the motive force behind the jazz group the New Friends of Rhythm. Alan wrote for both classical and pop ensembles.

The New Friends of Rhythm: Alan Shulman is the first violin, Sylvan the cellist

The second album by Stevens and the Shulmans (Love Songs from 1946) has appeared on this blog already and can be found here. You also can hear her in songs by Victor Herbert and in the elusive 1945-46 set of excerpts from her signature role, Carmen.

For her Kern album, Stevens selected prime examples of the composer's artistry; only "Don't Ever Leave Me" might not be considered among his greatest hits. It is, however, one of his best songs and is especially well done here. Overall, I find the performances pleasing, although critics of the time took issue with both the singer and the accompaniments. The New York Times insisted that Stevens was "an operatic singer and not a crooner." And the formidable Max de Schauensee in The New Records declared that he had never heard such "elaborately saccharine arrangements." (He was not paying attention to the pop music of the time - swooning romanticism was the vogue.) Well, for what it is worth, I enjoy the singer and her accomplices a great deal. It helps to have songs the quality of Kern's compositions.

Stevens was popular with the advertisers as well as the record buyers. Below, she touts GE radio-phonographs: the better to hear her with.

Please forgive some surface noise on a few cuts.

Kern Songs by Classical Vocalists

John McCormack

Risë Stevens was not the first operatic vocalist to turn to the Jerome Kern songbook for material. The tradition goes back as least as far as 1919 and the incomparable John McCormack. All the singers below had an active career both in opera (or at least operetta) and popular songs, the bridge usually being either radio or films, and often both.

The earliest recording in the group is also perhaps the least well-known song. "The First Rose of Summer" comes from the 1919 show She's a Good Fellow, with book and lyrics by Anne Caldwell. John McCormack (1884-1945) made his record the same year, with his usual exceptional diction, control and involvement. The acoustic recording is one of the best of its kind. More McCormack can be found in these earlier blog collections.

Lawrence Tibbett

By 1932, baritone Lawrence Tibbett (1896-1960) had managed to become not only a star at the Met, but in films and on radio. Victor had taken notice, and he was often in its studios from 1926 on. In 1932, the Camden crew had him set down two songs from Kern's new show Music in the Air: "And Love Was Born" and "The Song Is You," both with Oscar Hammerstein's lyrics. The latter became much more popular, but our selection today is the less often heard "And Love Was Born." We'll hear "The Song Is You" in a later recording.

In 1935, Kern was in Hollywood composing for the film I Dream Too Much, starring the unlikely couple of Lily Pons (1898-1976) and Henry Fonda. Columbia brought the coloratura (Pons, that is) to the studio with her future husband Andre Kostelanetz and a male chorus to perform two of the songs, "I Dream Too Much" and "I'm the Echo (You're the Song that I Sing)." Lyricist Dorothy Fields worked with Kern on this score.

Richard Tauber

Kern then moved on to the film musical High, Wide and Handsome, again with Hammerstein. The 1936 production starred the radiant Irene Dunne, who introduced both "Can I Forget You?" and the immortal "Folks Who Live On the Hill." (Oddly, neither appeared in Dunne's 1941 Kern album, discussed below.) To represent the score, we turn to the elegant German singer Richard Tauber (1891-1948), who recorded "Can I Forget You?" in London, where he was making films and where he soon would reside. Tauber's intimate singing is ideal.

Gladys Swarthout

Kern adapted his 1933 Broadway musical Roberta, with lyrics by Otto Harbach, for a 1935 film starring Dunne, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Dunne got to sing two of Kern's greatest songs, "Yesterdays" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," and the latter made it into her Decca album. Our version comes from 1942 and the excellent mezzo Gladys Swarthout (1900-69). This recording was part of the album Gladys Swarthout Singing Musical Show Hits.

Grace Moore

Next we turn to Kern's greatest score, Show Boat and the magnificent "You Are Love," here in a version by the "Tennessee Nightingale," Grace Moore (1898-1947). It may be ironic that Moore would perform songs from this show - she reputedly would not appear on stage with black performers. Moore had made her Broadway debut in 1920 in Kern's Hitchy-Koo. It wasn't until several years later that she appeared on the opera stage. Her greatest success was in films. This disc dates from 1945, just a few years before her death in a plane crash.

Jeanette MacDonald RCA promo

Jeanette MacDonald (1903-65) was another performer whose greatest successes were behind her when she recorded "They Didn't Believe Me" in 1947 with Russ Case. MacDonald had no operatic experience, but became famous in films opposite Maurice Chevalier and then in a series of operettas co-starring her lifelong companion Nelson Eddy. "They Didn't Believe Me" is the earliest composition in this set. It comes from 1914, when it was interpolated into the Broadway production of The Girl from Utah. This recording shows off MacDonald's great charm.

Eleanor Steber

Now let's return to Roberta and perhaps my own favorite Kern song, "The Touch of Your Hand," here in an exceptional 1947 performance by soprano Eleanor Steber (1914-90), who was beginning to make a mark both on the operatic stage and on the radio. The song comes from the Broadway score of Roberta; it did not make it into the film. Steber's accompaniment is led by the ubiquitous Broadway maestro Jay Blackton. The soprano has appeared here previously via the first recording of Samuel Barber's remarkable Knoxville: Summer of 1915, which she commissioned.

At long last we return to Music in the Air and a rendition of "The Song Is You" by the vocally and physically imposing Lauritz Melchior (1890-1973). In 1947, the Danish titan had left Wagner behind for a second career in Hollywood as a singing character actor. His studio, M-G-M, kept him busy recording as well, pairing him with Georgie Stoll for this production. Melchior also occupied his time endorsing products, including at least two brews, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Rheingold (below). I like to think he switched to the latter because of his Wagnerian background, but it probably had more to do with free beer. You can hear more from Melchior in these earlier posts.

Dorothy Kirsten

One of the finest crossover artists was Dorothy Kirsten (1910-92) who was equally at home on the opera stage, records or radio programs with Frank Sinatra. Her emotional involvement is evident in "Why Was I Born?" from Sweet Adeline, a 1929 Kern-Hammerstein production. This 78 dates from 1949, and has a backing by John Scott Trotter, Bing Crosby's longtime music director. Kirsten had appeared on Crosby's radio program, and was to make a guest appearance in his 1950 film Mr. Music.

William Warfield in Show Boat

I have saved the best for last. To me, one the greatest recordings of all time is William Warfield's performance of "Ol' Man River" in the 1951 film version of Show Boat. The vocal quality, emotional involvement, control, and sheer beauty of his singing are overwhelming. His tempo is slow but the concentration and tension never slacken. I've featured all his early Columbia recordings here; this single came out on M-G-M. Kern wrote the song for Paul Robeson - and his version appeared on the blog many years ago, but it was not finer than this.

Performances of Show Boat and its songs have always been sensitive, increasingly so as time goes on. Please see this 2018 Boston Globe article for an illuminating discussion of some of the issues faced by performers and their views of the subject.

Reup: Irene Dunne in Songs by Jerome Kern

Irene Dunne's 1941 album of Kern songs may not have been the most popular item I've ever posted here, but it surely is among my favorites. I have remastered my old transfer in honor of this Kern celebration; it is available here.

Unlike the artists mentioned above, Dunne never appeared in opera or operetta. She had wanted to become an opera singer when young, but was told her voice was too small. She did well, however, as a singing lead in films, then achieved her greatest successes in screwball comedies, where she excelled. She was an endearing performer.

Melchior touted beer; Dunne stuck to cola

New Transfer of Knoxville: Summer of 1915

I had a request for a reup of the first recording of Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915, and decided to do a new transfer instead. My first attempt was done in the early months of this blog, and because the original LP was noisy, I used a reissued edition that had added reverb. This time I went back to the first 10-inch LP for the transfer, and the results represent a substantial improvement and are closer to the original intentions.

The piano pieces on the LP are also newly transferred, and there are fresh scans as well. All the noise problems have been addressed and the latest version (September 2023) is mastered in ambient stereo.

Samuel Barber and Eleanor Steber

Here is what I had to say about the music when first posted:

"Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is one of the high points of American music. It is a setting of a prose poem by composer Samuel Barber's exact contemporary, James Agee. Both the music and the words are inspired.

"This is the first recording of the work, done by the distinguished American soprano Eleanor Steber, who commissioned it and first performed it with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky in 1947. This November 1950 recording is of the revised version for smaller orchestra.

Rudolf Firkušný

"The modest LP above is also notable for including what I believe to be the first recording of Barber's Four Excursions, in a jaunty performance by Rudolf Firkušný. These items are based on familiar idioms, somewhat akin to the Copland and Gershwin piano pieces that are discussed below. Composed in 1944, they also were recorded in November 1950 in Columbia's 30th Street studio in New York.

"Knoxville: Summer of 1915 is often considered a nostalgic idyll, but it is much more than that. in 1915, Agee was 5 years old, and the piece is a memory and meditation on an evening that summer, in the year before his father's death. Agee's words were set to music by Barber when his own father's death was near.

James Agee

"Agee places the themes of family, self, time, and place in a context that is at once extraordinarily specific and timeless, minute and cosmic; full of love for his family, the poem ends nonetheless with the remarkable observation that the members of his family "treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am." This unusual, rapt, evocative piece is set to music that could not be more right.

"Steber also recorded the Barber composition later for her own Stand label; an intense live version. This version is cooler, with Steber's ample soprano and cloudy diction making the interpretation seem a little distant."

I only want to add to my previous comments that the playing by the so-called Dumbarton Oaks Chamber Orchestra under William Strickland is fully equal to this extraordinary music.

Note (September 2023): the download now includes a 1949 interview with Samuel Barber about Knoxville: Summer of 1915, in an edition from NPR, which mixes it with excerpts from Dawn Upshaw's excellent 1988 recording of the work.

First Recording of Knoxville, Summer of 1915

Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is one of the high points of American music. It is a setting of a prose poem by composer Samuel Barber's exact contemporary, James Agee. Both the music and the words are inspired.

This is the first recording of the work, done by the distinguished American soprano Eleanor Steber, who commissioned it and first performed it with the Boston Symphony and Serge Koussevitzky in 1947. This November 1950 recording is of the revised version for smaller orchestra.

The modest LP above is also notable for including what I believe to be the first recording of Barber's Four Excursions, in a jaunty performance by Rudolf Firkusny. These items are based on familiar idioms, somewhat akin to the Copland and Gershwin piano pieces that are discussed below. Composed in 1944, they also were recorded in November 1950 in Columbia's 30th Street studio in New York.

Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is often considered a nostalgic idyll, but it is much more than that. in 1915, Agee was 5 years old, and the piece is a memory and meditation on an evening that summer, in the year before his father's death. Agee's words were set to music by Barber when his own father's death was near.

Agee places the themes of family, self, time, and place in a context that is at once extraordinarily specific and timeless, minute and cosmic; full of love for his family, the poem ends nonetheless with the remarkable observation that the members of his family "treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am." This unusual, rapt, evocative piece is set to music that could not be more right.

Steber also recorded the Barber composition later for her own Stand label; an intense live version. This version is cooler, with Steber's ample soprano and cloudy diction making the interpretation seem a little distant.

For this post, I have taken the soprano item from the 12-inch LP below (which has an excellent line drawing of Steber on the cover) because the source is much less noisy than the original issue. True to the usual form, the transfer engineer for the reissue has apparently added reverb. The piano pieces are from the 10-inch LP.