Breathtaking emotional interpretation of Dido’s Lament
#singing #vocal #purcell #music #classicalmusic
I heard this last year on Radio 4’s “Soul Music”. I was driving and I had to stop the car at the side of the road and listen. The programme was all about Purcell’s aria “When I am Laid in Earth” from his opera “Dido and Aeneas” and it explored a variety of different versions to show how the music had stood the test of time.
This aria is one of my favourites anyway, but there was one interpretation that really stood out in the programme- Jeff Buckley’s. An untrained singer- a rock singer- yet singing with just so much raw emotion. I may be a classical trained singer and perhaps I could pick on his vocal technique- but that is completely missing the point. All singers can learn from this performance, flawed though it may be.
The performance was at Elvis Costello’s Meltdown Festival on July 1st 1995.
Philip Sheppard, a ‘cellist and composer who was playing that night remembers…
“I remember, this singer arrived really late, just before the show, dishevelled, all cheekbones, cool hair, black jeans and the biggest boots you’ve ever seen supporting a rake thin body.He apologised – got out his music – a kid’s exercise book with the lyrics of the songs written out in a crazy biro scrawl. – If a word was written high up the page, well then it meant it was a high note.At one point he asked me what country he was in… he was confused between Germany and the UK that day as I think he’d flown in with little sleep. And then he sang. … I remember the lights being pretty bright and the silhouette of his frame as he bent almost double to wrench every ounce of meaning from a song written 300 hundred years ago. Better than any classical musician I’ve ever heard.”
Taken from his blog- http://philipsheppard.com/about/playing-with-jeff-buckley/
You can also here a commentary, taken from the Soul Music programme here- Jeff Buckley – Dido’s Lament (comments by Philip Sheppard)
If you are interested in other interpretations of this aria then here are some more-
Swingle Singers – When I am Laid
THE SWINGLE SINGERS – Dido’s Lament
Ane Brun – When I am Laid
http://open.spotify.com/track/73ebeGnu29AvC7euagyLoB
Alison Moyet – When I am Laid
Alison Moyet – Dido’s Lament: When I Am Laid In Earth
Klaus Nomi – When I am Laid
