One Hour With You-Rare Material

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 01:13:03
Personnel: Giuseppe Bamboschek (piano). The compilers of this unlicensed European compilation of Jeanette MacDonald recordings appear to have been aware of RCA Victor Records' legitimate and definitive CD collection of MacDonald's work, San Francisco and Other Jeanette MacDonald Favorites, released in 1991, since they avoid repeating its tracks, with only one exception, "March of the Grenadiers." That's good news for MacDonald fans, who can safely buy this album as a complement to the earlier one. If the RCA disc constituted the best of MacDonald's studio recordings, this one is something of a rarities collection. It is notable for including her complete HMV Records session from September 25, 1931, in London, as well as her French-language recordings of "One Hour With You" ("Une Heure Pres de Toi") and "Isn't It Romantic?" ("N'est-ce Pas Romantique?"). And there are five live recordings, probably captured from radio broadcasts. (The annotations only claim four, but the version of "If I Loved You" also is a live track.) Of course, the consumer is forced to contend with the usual shortcomings of gray-market product. Mastered from CDs, the tracks have uneven and generally only fair sound quality, with the live performances especially bad, and the annotations are unreliable. Still, the album has far more annotations than many discs of this sort contain, and it seems to have been assembled with far more care. There aren't that many solo MacDonald CDs out there (most mix in tracks with and by Nelson Eddy), so this one is worth searching out by her fans, particularly because there is so little overlap with the official best-of. ~ William Ruhlmann