Search - Butt :: Clara Butt the Acoustic Years 1

Here's a chance to dial yourself back to Edwardian England to sample one of the most extraordinary singers of the 20th century. Clara Butt stood 6-foot-2 with a frame to match and a voice that easily spanned the range between a soprano's top notes and a baritone's low ones. An important singer, even if an acquired taste for many, Butt sang with a power that defied the primitive recording equipment of the time. However, Ward Marston has done an amazing job of sonic restoration, so even these acoustic recordings--made between 1909 and 1921--convey the quality of her singing. The repertory is representative of her concert programs: a nod to operatic and oratorio selections, classical songs, and a heavy dose of the folk songs and sentimental ballads that endeared her to audiences, helping to transform her into a national institution. These days, songs like "The little silver ring" and "Snowdrops" may have little intrinsic interest; yet Butt hasn't lost her own thanks to the quality of her vocalism, her one-in-a-million voice, mastery of legato singing, and the perfect diction that lets every word sound. She can take a narrative ballad like "Barbara Allen" and make it a gripping dramatic miniature, and she transforms the quasi-religious sentimentality of "Abide with Me" into something intense. --Dan Davis