Rimsky Korsakov: O fearful crags Song of the Viking Guest

Alexander Kipnis

Victor Recordings 1945/6

In the search for suitable and evocative words to describe a particular vocal quality, usually, for the bass voice one would expect of course adjectives like deep, black, sonorous, cavernous, thundering, impressive or even noble. Rarely is the word beautiful used. However, in the case of Alexander Kipnis, it most certainly applies. Alexander Kipnis was born into a very poor family in Zhitomir, Ukraine on l February 1891. They were very proud of the extraordinary quality of his singing voice, which attracted the attention of a visiting cantor from Bessarabia, who heard him as a soloist in the local synagogue choir. So taken was he by the boy’s natural talent, that, with a promise of some payment, the cantor persuaded Alexander’s mother to let him leave home and become a chorister at his synagogue. Alexander was befriended by one of the older singers with whom he lodged and who taught him the rudiments of music and also some Lieder. Kipnis then won a scholarship to enter the Warsaw Conservatoire, initially to study conducting, but of course he continued to sing, his voice having broken and become a bass. He decided to move to Berlin, undertaking further vocal studies with the well-known teacher Ernst Grenzebach. This compilation is a tribute to one of the greatest bass voices ever to have recorded.