My Birthday Requiem

Last night I had the pleasure of hearing Samuel Ramey the greatest singer of the last quarter of a century, perhaps the greatest singer of the modern era.

The K and I went to the Roosevelt University Verdi Requiem, which featured bass Sam Ramey as one of the soloists. Overall, the concert should have been OK. The Chorus lacked the proper beef to deliver a truly operatic Verdi Requiem and there were some problems with the student orchestra, (which was however, also very good.) The women soloists seemed a little under weight vocally for Verdi's writing... but the singing of Sam Ramey alone was enough to raise this concert to a level of greatness.

For those that don't know, Sam Ramey has reigned supreme over the Bass concert and operatic rep for the last 20 years. But that reign has not been without controversy. Even last night, there were apparent weaknesses and paradoxes in his singing-- and yet, he may be the greatest singer I have ever heard.

The Sam Ramey controversy can be summarized by the time when he appeared in Don Carlo with Jerome Hines, in my opinion, the greatest bass of the previous generation:

Interviewer: "we all thought the other guy (Ramey) was doing just great, and then you came out, and it was like we had forgotten what a real bass sounded like."
Hines: "Yeah, they tell me I really made him sound like my boy...."

Having heard both of these singers live, I can attest to this, Jerome Hines, well, eats Sam Ramey's lunch. Hines is by far the greater bass, and yet, Ramey is still the greater singer. In fact, this is the very reason that Ramey is the greater singer.

All great "new art" represents in a sense, a criticism of what came before it. In this way, Ramey's singing represents the perfect critique of the post war generation of singers. The "post war" generation had as it's halmark the great dramatic voices: Tebaldi, Del Monaco, Hines, London, Callas: singers who made great dramatic thrilling sounds, and were not afraid to make an ugly or unhinged sound for emotional effect. Sam Ramey on the other hand seems incapable of producing a sound that is less than exquisitely beautiful. And while the most prized characteristic of the previous of the post war singers was the full ringing heroic middle voice and top, Sam Ramey seems restrained and refined on those pitches instead seeming to blossom in the rich lower parts of his voice.

It was this refined quality that led to Ramey's career as a "bel canto" singer. "Bel Canto" was a term invented to describe the the way the singing of Mattia Battistini perfectly realized the aesthetic of the middle 19th century. It has long been considered a lost art by many, and many were ready to accept Sam Ramey as a new proponent of this style. However, a closer look would show that the post war singers had more in common with Battistini's singing than Ramey does. Firstly Ramey relies heavily on aspirates (ha ha ha ha) to aticulate notes-- something never heard in battistini's singing. But more importantly, the big middle voice and emotionally declamatory style were Battistini's most distinguishing characteristic-- the things that Sam Ramey most characteristically lacks.

So Sam Ramey represents not a throw-back to the past, but a truly new aesthetic and technique-- one which may be more perfectly suited to the modern era than any singer in history. His voice has endless character and beauty. And perhaps his greatest characteristic is that, more than any other singer I know of, his voice sounds the same on recording as it does in the house. In this way, Ramey's technique represents the perfect solution to the modern career of the recording artist/performer.