Stephanie Blythe: As Long as There Are Songs (CD review)

Stephanie Blythe, mezzo-soprano; Craig Terry, piano. Meyer Sound/Innova 875.

Most readers probably know that mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe is an opera star who has favored audiences worldwide with her voice on stage and in recordings for the past several decades. What some readers may not know is that she also sings popular music, with a voice that combines the best qualities of Ethel Merman and Kate Smith. Indeed, her fondness for Kate Smith led Ms. Blythe to perform in 2013 works made famous by Ms. Smith on the PBS television show Live from Lincoln Center - Celebration: Stephanie Blythe Meets Kate.

On the present album, As Long as There Are Songs, Ms. Blythe sings fourteen popular tunes from The Great American Songbook, with one exception mostly songs from the 1920’s through the 1950’s. She demonstrates throughout the program that she is more than just a good opera singer but a good pop singer as well. She doesn’t sound like a typical opera singer trying to do pop material but a serious pop entertainer who could easily carry a Broadway show. She is, in fact, quite versatile and appears able to handle any tune from any genre, new or old, with ease.

One of my favorites on the program is "White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), the famous World War II song by Nat Burton and Walter Kent. Ms. Blythe sings it with heartfelt sentiment and waves of rhapsodic notes. It's quite moving.

And so it goes, through "Look for the Silver Lining," "Always," "Love," "How Deep Is the Ocean," "The Man That Got Away," “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams." Show tunes, jazz, torch songs, Ms. Blythe does it all with equal success. And I would be remiss not to applaud Craig Terry on his sensitive and agreeable piano accompaniment.

Then there's also the bluesy and poignant medley of "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home" and "One for My Baby" by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Sinatra's got nothing on Ms. Blythe.

The program ends with the most-recent number, Gordon Jenkens's "This Is All I Ask" (1965), a wonderful throwback to those earlier songs, and one with which Ms. Blythe practically knocks down the house. She puts most of today’s pop divas to shame. 

Probably the only thing I didn't like about the product was the booklet insert. Not the content of the booklet, which is quite informative, but the shape. It's a single piece of paper folded in thirds; but it's not folded to stretch horizontally but up and down. For the life of me, I couldn't find my way around, further complicated by having the back printed in the opposite direction from the front. I dunno. It’s certainly a minor quibble.

Producer Evans Mirageas and engineers John Pellowe and Miles Rogers recorded the album for Meyer Sound Laboratories in 2013 at Meyer Sound Lab’s Pearson Theatre, Berkeley, California. The location greatly impressed Ms. Blythe when earlier she sang there live; it’s a relatively small hall that provides an ideal acoustic for both intimate and grand vocal gestures. Moreover, Meyer Sound Laboratories captured the sonics using no filtering, spatial enhancements, or compression, providing a most lifelike presentation. Perhaps what many readers may not realize is that most recordings these days use a good deal of compression in order to minimize the dynamic range--the differences between softest and loudest notes--making musical recordings easier for some listeners to enjoy on car radios and iPods. However, such recordings are not always the most natural-sounding affairs. Meyer Sound’s recordings are, therefore, more realistic than most.

How does all this translate to what we actually hear on the disc? Obviously, it translates pretty well. We do hear the venue, and it does affect what we hear of Ms. Blythe’s voice. The hall appears slightly dry, meaning it doesn’t have the billowy resonance of some venues. This means we hear Ms. Blythe’s voice more nearly as it probably sounds rather than embellished by the ambient acoustic of the concert hall. What we get instead is an ultraclean, ultra-clear voice, with a truly astonishing dynamic range. I’m not sure everyone recognizes how much of a range the human voice can produce, from the gentlest whisper to the most earsplitting crescendo, and here we find it all.

Whether everyone will appreciate the sound is another story, though; it is different from what one usually hears on a vocal album, less smooth, less warm, and more real. The sound may not complement all loudspeakers, either, especially not brighter speakers that could aggravate the delicate balance of the high end. In any case, if you have a good playback system, you should appreciate the sound. The voice glistens with clarity, and the piano accompaniment remains natural and unobtrusive. Both benefit from a quick transient response, too, although, as I say, it could be a bit jarring if you’ve been listening to more compressed sound all these years.

To listen to an excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa