Ward Marston, producer and audio restoration engineer

This volume of the Naxos McCormack edition charts a chronological survey of recordings made in Camden, New Jersey, between April 1920 and September 1923.

Two outstanding examples of the great tenor’s art are here; the famous recording of Handel’s O Sleep! Why Dost Thou Leave Me? – a miracle of breath control and tonal beauty – and Schumann’s The Singer’s Consolation, an outstanding contribution to Lieder on record. There are four collaborations with Fritz Kreisler, some superb examples of popular songs, inimitably sung, and the bonus of three recordings that were never published n the singer’s lifetime, two of which, Rachmaninov’s To the Children and Merikanto’s A Fairy Story By The Fire are now made available commercially for the first time.

This is the only chronological survey of John McCormack’s recordings on the market. He was one of the great tenors of the twentieth century, and is still hugely popular, as the single recital discs on the market show – Pearl has a series devoted to ‘American Song’, EMI included him in their Great Recordings of the Century series, Symposium has a series of single discs, and so does Nimbus (Opera, Song, With Kreisler). But with state-of-the-art transfers and a systematic approach this Naxos series is the place to go for McCormack on disc.