Méhul: Champs paternels (from Joseph en Égypte)

Mikhail Alexandrovich was one of the greatest bel canto singers of the twentieth century. He was extremely popular in Russia and his recordings were in enormous demand, but he decided to leave the Soviet Union in 1971. This collection includes works by Bach/Gounod, Mozart, Stradella, Giordani, Gluck and Rossini.

This seventh volume in the Naxos McCormack edition includes the great tenor’s only published recording of the Preislied from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, sung here in English translation as Morning Was Gleaming; music by Irish and Irish-American composers; patriotic war-related songs that evoke the pain of separation and the hope of return, including Ivor Novello’s hugely popular Keep the Home Fires Burning; and ‘Champs paternels’ from Méhul’s opera Joseph, recorded as a supportive gesture for the French forces that were suffering greatly at the time.

All these works are delivered with an intimacy of feeling, masterful phrasing and a compelling sense of engagement with the listener that were the hallmark of McCormack’s approach to everything that he sang.