Public Appeal

By separate E-mails, I am sending an excellent biographical sketch on Richard Tauber. This will be in two parts of about 550 KB each. That way I avoid filling your e-mail box, but be on the lookout for it and save it to your hard disk. It is in Landscape Form so set your printer to Landscape before you print it.

The reasons I am sending this sketch are several. First of all, Tauber was a singer who was not only one of the most popular artists of his day, but also a man of many talents. He made three fortunes. Two were confiscated by the Nazis and one was dissipated because he had no financial self-discipline. However, you will quickly realize that he made his money by performing popular music even though he was a consumate Lieder and Mozart singer. One makes more money by selling any product to the greater public than by selling an exclusive product to a select few. Certainly Moet-Hennessy make good money because they have alcoholic brands to finance their other luxury goods activities. However Bill Gates sells software to the masses. Tetra-Pak sells milk and beverages to the masses. Every time you buy a paper container of liquid you are contributing to Tetra Pak's success. Tauber sold to the masses as did most of the singers of his era. If one looks at the recordings that Gigli made, one quickly sees that 85% were really popular songs. Who made them popular? Not the original artists but Gigli. Why did Gigli, Tauber, McCormack, Ponselle, Supervia, Tibbett etc., become the super pop stars of their day? Because, they could take a song of enormous public appeal and breathe their own indivuality into it. In fact the song became a new song when each of those artists rendered it. As I was a young man, Tauber dominated the popular list like no other artist. No matter how much one tried to escape it, one couldn't avoid hearing his "Pedro the Fisherman" as one flicked through the radio stations.

Let me go into that Golden Age a little more deeply. If one bothers to research the early years of the singers of that era, one will see, that in most cases, they did not have instant success. They had to grow artistically and, quite often, life was very tough while they were persevering in the development of their art. They did not make their world-wide reputation with the greater public through their operatic or classical recordings. They made their money by recording popular works. They honed their art at recitals not in the operas.

It was not until the fifties that things changed. The immediate post-war crop of singers were good but rigid in their technique. They they delivered no popular fare. They failed in the art of communication. It was as if a brick wall existed between them and their audience. There were a few exceptions such as Vittoria di Los Angeles but not many. If they did make a recording of a popular song and imparted it with a unique freshness, they outsold any other popular artist such as Bing Crosby or Frank sinatra for what was then called a "Single" (it was a 78 rpm record that only had room for about 5 minutes of music). During the time that Crosby was immensely popular, Jan Pierce departed from his usual overstiff operatic renditions and recorded, with unusual and great vocal freedom, the "Blue Bird of Happiness". It outsold every other Single for quite a few years. Tauber, Gigli and Tibbett continued to record popular numbers and they also outsold the Frank Sinatras and Crosbys of their day. Why didn't the new post-war singers do the same thing? The simple fact is that they couldn't. They did not have the vocal, musical or mental flexibility to do so. They also were such musical plodders that they did not have the temperament to sing popular songs. If one listens to their recital work, and here I am talking about the whole crop from Schwarzkopf to Dermota, one quickly hears that their focus is on making voice and not on communicating with their audience. Consequently their delivery is stiff and rigid and lacks the humanity needed to pervade the very heart and soul of the listener. Where the former singers developed their art through performing all genres of music, the latter singers followed a very narrow musical routine and repertoire.

It is up to you to follow the artists of yester-year and bring back their tradition of 'letting the audience in" on each line of a song. In short of communicating, through that great instrument of the human voice, your own humanity to your audience. That is what distinguished those great artists of the past and that is why they stand out from the singers of today.