Andreas Scholl

[Maciek]

General appreciation thread for the singer.

But my question right now is more specific: how do his newer Decca recordings differ from the older ones on Harmonia Mundi? Has he deteriorated, got better? Anything specific?

[knight66]

Maciek,

It looks like there is not much interest in or appreciation of Scholl hereabouts.

I have never enjoyed him as much as I enjoy Daniels, the voice has less natural colour in it. However, early on he did produce some good discs for Harmonia Mundi. He then moved to Decca, his first disc there was a bit of a hotchpotch, Handel Heroes. It was nevertheless a worthwhile disc; though it strikes me that the companies have been flooding us to saturation point with such product.

I heard him in Saul in the Royal Albert Hall, he sang David and made almost no discernable impression at all; especially when compared with his very beautiful recording of the main harp accompanied aria from it. In part this may simply be the lack of wisdom in performing in such a huge venue. This brings us nicely to the limitations of this kind of voice; it lends some authority to ZB's stance that it is not a genuine category of voice. My feeling is that it is perfectly genuine, but that it cannot properly operate in great barns of concert halls.

My problem with Scholl is that he seems to be a less and less interesting singer. His latest discs seem bland to me. I did once rate him as a distinguished Bach singer and his Vivaldi Stabat Mater is excellent; but there are a number of superb versions of that, Daniels' being my favourite.

I have seen him in opera on DVD. Here he seems to look uncomfortable, very tall and trying not to look outsized, he is not a positive stage presence.

Recently I have had my attention drawn to Daniel Taylor, very much a musician who takes you on a journey. He does for me what I hoped Scholl would. These days however, Scholl strikes me as being less interesting and interested. He has, like others, been exploring repertoire to try and expand it, but this included cross-over; but that's Decca for you. I think he is again recording with HM. But where once I looked out for his work, now I am happy to let it pass me by.

Mike