Rosa and Carmela Ponselle: 1926 'Schubert Serenade' in HD

The Ponselle Sisters - Rosa and Carmela - sing
the Schubert "Serenade"
recorded on May 19, 1926 at Camden, New Jersey
- unpublished until the LP era -

Digitized from the original master take 1 with Magix audio software applied to reduce noise and enhance tonal quality. No added reverb or artificial ambiance was used.

[jimdrake-writer]

About this unpublished Victor electrical recording, Rosa Ponselle insisted to me that she had never made this or any other Victor recording with Carmela—and when I asked Carmela, she was just as insistent that they had never recorded anything together for Victor. I distinctly remember playing the RCA LP track for her, which she admitted was their voices but was appalled at how bad their German was. In the line “In den stillen Hain hernieder, ” when she heard them pronounce “Hain” as a one-syllable word rhyming with “rain, ” she cringed and said loudly, “It’s ‘hah-een, ’ you two wops!”

[StevenSmith-nqxe]

Beautiful. (And what an anecdote in the Comments!)