When Melba Reigned – New Release

Melba Special Issue

Melba Special Issue - Due for Release December 2008

THERE IS NO LONGER ANYBODY ALIVE who could have heard Nellie Melba in her prime. We owe it to the enterprise and far-sightedness of The Gramophone Company that we can listen to the voice of Melba first recorded when she was in the middle of her sensational forty-year career. Amongst other wonderful discoveries in the archive of Deutsche Grammophon in Hamburg are many of the first metals (first plating of the wax) of these early Melba recordings. As with our pressings of the records of Patti and Tamagno (previously issued by Historic Masters), they show Melba in an entirely new light. There is a freshness and a glow about the voice: as listeners, more than a hundred years later, we can readily understand just how and why this greatest of Australian singers could make such an impact on the world’s great opera houses – above all at London’s Covent Garden which was for so many years her artistic home.

The sixteen recordings in this boxed set were originally made in 1904 – all but one in Melba’s London home at Great Cumberland Place. The first fourteen recordings are pressings from the first metals. As a bonus we are also including two records from copy metals – Melba 1 and Melba 6. The former was Melba’s very first recording; the second is a complete version of the act one aria from La Traviata – not issued at the time because of technical faults. The companion CD reproduces the sixteen recordings with one extra – Melba’s very last record Swing low, sweet chariot. Not altogether characteristic of Melba’s aural legacy, it demonstrates how well her voice would still be preserved in December 1926 at the very end of her career.

Historic Masters is privileged to be able to issue this special boxed set of Melba recordings. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to The Melgaard Foundation whose sponsorship has made this possible as well as to the EMI and Deutsche Grammophon Archives.

Professor Stanley Henig
Managing Director, Historic Masters

See also:

• Nellie Melba – Cumberland Place Recordings
• Nellie Melba and Pitch – HM Re-issues
• Nellie Melba’s Recordings – Special Issue
• Nellie Melba’s First Recordings
• Nellie Melba’s Life and Work