TENOR CHRISTMAS QUIZ 2020 ALL SOLUTIONS

[@siukola1]

This whole CD with 2 or 3 pieces sung by the tenors is wonderful.

[@michaelvaccaro3129]

What a great Idea this was. I saw it too late. #1 is Di Stefano with Licia Albanese. What a joy.

[@道-p2e]

First voice is just ton of oxygen, obviously it is Pippo, gift voice from Heaven! Thank you for all of these glorious sounds...Magnificent!!! What a holiday TREAT!

[@idrilcelebrindal3423]

a record with clearly recognizable timbre. i was even surprised guessing this tenor with very first seconds)

[@道-p2e]

@@idrilcelebrindal3423 It is so appropriate to let him start this Christmas special. Timbre of young GDS is pure handsome. Other choices are beautiful too, great photos. Love the end of #15, so under appreciated, gorgeous voice from Sicily! This channel has the highest taste and focus of old school glory on KZbin. Bravo!

[@AfroPoli]

@@道-p2e Thank you so much. I am happy you enjoyed the game!

[@道-p2e]

@@AfroPoli I do not think I passed the quiz, but what a great test!!! So appreciated,

[@carolpaynter8181]

I've been listening to O Holy Night as sung by Franco Corelli and I sent out the link to family and friends and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

[@tenoremodernotecnicavecchi2151]

You may think this is a video revealing who the singers were, but don’t be mistaken. This is really a playlist of damn good singers!

[@AfroPoli]

Haha, thanks. Enjoy!

[@matOpera]

Angelo Mori is new to me and absolutely incredible! Thank you for bringing him to our attention.

[@mr.gradencrowley]

This was a beautiful idea. Thank you for organizing this quiz. It also happens to be a great compilation!

[@chrispietronigro1450]

This was tons of fun, thanks! Can’t get over how beautiful the second Pippo selection is, and Martinelli’s has gotta be one of the best Vesti la giubba’s I’ve heard. Is it just me or is there some vocal similarity between Mori and Hadley (setting myself up for this one I know 😁)?

[@baoanhnguyen9186]

Somehow I managed to confuse Peerce and Tucker xD

[@matOpera]

Wow, Mori just passed away. RIP

[@PartimentoFR]

kraus is amazing in this one.

[@leporello7]

Oddio, I only got one correct answer. Thanks so much for the many new great discoveries for me!

[@KurtFischer]

Probably because you're a bass like me, judging from your name. I wasn't that lucky, either, but it was a joy to hear some new to me voices and recordings. There are indeed a lot of great singers of the past still to discover.

[@AfroPoli]

@@KurtFischer This makes me happy. Discovering new voices is always fun, and it was partly also the purpose of this game.

[@KurtFischer]

@@AfroPoli Indeed it's fun. Many thanks for your work, it takes a lot of time and effort to make such a video, but be assured your viewers highly appreciate and enjoy it. Merry Christmas!

[@ritapapiri]

Non ho giocato ma mi sono divertita lo stesso. È stata una bella iniziativa. Tanti auguri a tutti. E grazie.

[@AfroPoli]

Grazie a te! Auguri!

[@tinkerwithstuff]

Hah, i did not participate because I knew I could safely identify only 3, and those were GDS, MDM and Tucker. And Carreras? sounds nothing here like i remember him, but he had some overhauls of his technique (not for the better) IIRC? I had not heard of Kurt Baum! Heavy dude. Not familiar enough with the others (like vocal mannerisms) to hear them through suboptimal audio quality. And MDM + GDS were probably who most identified ;) Do this again next year, and I'll be better prepared :D (and you'll probably dig out obscure stuff hehe)

[@AfroPoli]

Thanks! You know, I need to find recordings that YT does not recognise - otherwise the title and artist could show up in a copyright claim underneath the video... so, it has to be a little obscure 😉

[@spelea]

Next time please consider a prize to the one with the fewest right answers - then I might take my chances 😉 Thank you for the fun and have a merry Christmas.

[@AfroPoli]

Thank you! A Merry Christmas to you too!

[@chetmanley2462]

#6 was my teacher!!!

[@Greatest-here777]

Good idea! Need more

[@averybargasse6130]

I was so close! Some of those later in the list were tricky for me. Such a great quiz! Thank you.

[@AfroPoli]

You're welcome, thank you for participating!

[@averybargasse6130]

@@AfroPoli Did you happen to get my official answers?

[@AfroPoli]

@@averybargasse6130 Yes thank you very much! We are going to contact every participant soon!

[@MaxPower-cp5qi]

So I was not crazy, that was Kraus, I had no idea he had recorded that fragment of Pagliacci. I should have played...

[@AfroPoli]

I believe it is his first recording. But yes, the repertory certainly is misleading...!

[@MaxPower-cp5qi]

@@AfroPoli I thought his first recordings were made in 1957, and this is 1954! Thank you for the quiz, very interesting and didactic, and Merry Christmas!

[@AfroPoli]

@@MaxPower-cp5qi You’re welcome. Merry Christmas to you too. And btw, love that episode where you got your name from 😂

[@hwelf11]

I have had the experience of encountering someone I had previously met, and failing to recognize them because I had been used to seeing them in a different environment; I had something of the same feeling while attempting this quiz: the Kraus clip was the most egregious example. This is a voice I am reasonably familiar with and should have recognized, but I managed to get it wrong, probably because I was too fixated on thinking "Italian spinto" instead of listening more carefully to what I was actually hearing (Spanish lyric). I had no idea he had started out dabbling in this kind of rep. As I think would have been the case with many of your selections, hearing the "bonus" arias would have tipped me off - the B flats in Kraus's "Celeste Aida" had nothing of the brassy squillo of a true spinto. I'm embarrassed to admit to some of my other errors - instead of immediately knowing the singer after the first few notes, I thought of Bjoerling in connection with three of the voices I never would have thought of associating with him - the beginning of GDS's "O holy night" (I knew this couldn't be right, since Jussi recorded this in Swedish), (Jose's "L'alba separa" (maybe because of having heard the recording of that song where Bjoerling was channeling Caruso), and Fisichella's "Cuius Animam" (I didn't recall JB having held the D-flat as long - and, having only heard Fisichella on the recording of Rossini's Otello opposite Carreras, I had no idea he could sing this beautifully. Well, so it went - silly me misidentifying voice after voice I should have known - I only got two right - Martinelli (the touch of hardness in the passagio while managing not to sacrifice an ounce of charisma was the giveaway for me), and Del Monaco (I even had a few doubts on that one, because I've been fooled before by some other Melocchi tenors - speaking of whom, ,Mori is one I had not heard of, but Wiki says he was a student of Marcello del Monaco; which one was the "Maestro dei tenori"? Continuing my incredible obtuseness, I even managed to miss the Gigli selection, and then mistake Tagliavini's patented Gigli for the real thing! Bouut that Gigli clip was really amazing - belongs in the "kids (i.e. aspiring young tenors), don't try this at home" category. He must have been the most Protean of them all. I'm glad you included Campora (although I missed him too!) - a beautiful Italianate sound,; and Svanholm, though I don't think the Lohengrin showed him in good vocal estate - he sounded tired), and Baum, who seems to come in for a lot of disparagement, maybe because of his arrogant temperament, - but wow, what a top he had... So, despite the fact that I knew I hadn't done well enough to bother sendng in an entry, I did want to let you know how much I enjoyed the quiz and thank you and Bongiovanni for helping keep alive a precious tradition which should never be allowed to die out.

[@joannamaciejczak2599]

Baum in this excerpt sounds for me a bit like Peerce. Unfortunately I've chosen a bad tenor. It was a great fun anyway. Thank you for this quiz.

[@AfroPoli]

You were only one point away from winning something. Please try again next time! :)

[@joannamaciejczak2599]

@@AfroPoli I will certainly participate next time

[@stefanoferrari8781]

Ero indeciso fra Penno e Campora, poi fra Peerce e Baum e li ho sbagliati tutti e due !!! Però con 69 punti non mi posso lamentare... Grazie della bella iniziativa e BUON NATALE, per quanto possibile !!!

[@piergiorgiomei3747]

Grazie di questa iniziativa Abbiamo rivissuto tempi d'oro. Pur non gareggiando confesso che avrei a volte preso lucciole per lanterne raccomanderei di ascoltare queste voci a coloro che magnificano fenomeni da baraccone microfonati al massimp Buon Natale

[@stefanoferrari8781]

@@piergiorgiomei3747 Sarebbe ancora più opportuno farle sentire nei Conservatori Statali e nelle scuole di canto private...

[@piergiorgiomei3747]

@@stefanoferrari8781 Concordo pienamente Tanti auguri di buone feste

[@vicmanu]

Damn! I was not sure about only two of them.... I guessed, but my guesses were wrong on both cases: Aragall and Baum!!! How could I miss them?! The worst part is I actually thought about the right answer in Aragall's case, but went to listen him up and dismissed it, I ended up guesstimating Raimondi in a slightly distorted recording instead! Baum I really missed, though. I had read a tip that pointed towards him on the video comments, but never paid attention to it. Somehow I thought the timbre, if not the manner (Baum doesn't linger on the consonants), was somewhat close to a young Peerce and so I took a wild guess. This is the one I wasn't really sure up to the very end. But taking Aragall for Raimondi, after actually having thought of Aragall!!!! Ah, well... That's life. At least I got right all the music - even if I had to do a little searching to find out the last one. Anyway, such a great quiz! Thank you, it was great fun!

[@grouchomarx5609]

Baum's excerpt had wrong speed and pitch. So Mr. X #14 had too quick vibrato and lighter timbre than he should - it was quite misleading. I also had some doubts in #2 (between Aragall and Raimondi). :)

[@AfroPoli]

@@grouchomarx5609 Yes, you are quite right. We awarded some extra points for those who confused Baum with Peerce or other tenors who sound similar. Sorry for that.

[@AfroPoli]

I heard you are among the winners. Well done, vicmanu!

[@vicmanu]

​@@AfroPoli Yes!!! Thank you very much!! I was completely astonished when I opened up my e-mail and saw the news, but I'm absolutely happy and thrilled!

[@ulrikewermann1268]

The recordings with Aragall are really very bad and falsify his voice totally. I now his voice like my own and can hear that this is him only in some tones in these recordings. Aragall himself was very unhappy a long time because they could not find a way to record the real timbre of his voice.

[@matteogritani1635]

Grazie mille! tutto questo è meraviglioso 😊

[@AfroPoli]

Grazie a te!

[@siukola1]

Kurt Baum I didn't find out. (Thought it was Alessandro Valente). Then I mixed up Richard Tucker with Jan Peerce. :) But all the others I got right. And the pieces. But that was mostly not so difficult.

[@grouchomarx5609]

I really could swear that was Jan Peerce. It was a tricky question :)

[@siukola1]

@@grouchomarx5609 What is the moral: If you are too sure, you can easily be wrong. :) I was completely sure and didn't recheck it.

[@AfroPoli]

@@siukola1 The speed of the record was slightly off as a few have pointed out. So, we gave a few extra points to those who picked a tenor with a similar voice.

[@Floppefrog]

where is Jussi?

[@AfroPoli]

Jussi was too easy to guess! :D