The denouement?

[JasonBlack]

Quote:Talented musicians are to be found in all generations, as are some great voices. Of course classical music (including opera) has a tradition that largely transcends generational trends. So we have Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrakh ,Arthur Grumiaux, Henryk Szeryng, Erica Morini, Isaac Stern, and Mischa Elman on violin; Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz, Sviatoslav Richter, and Emil Gilels on piano. Can you really separate Lost Ernest Ansermet, Charles Munch, Karl Boehm and George Szell from GI's Herbert von Karajan, Georg Solti, Rafael Kubelik, Jean Martinon, and Leonard Bernstein as conductors? Performance of classical music is timeless, with at most subtle trends that might take decades to cause subtle changes. Listeners' tastes might change, but that is a different matter.  This is more likely to appear in the repertory played, with such composers as Gretry and Raff almost completely disappearing from the repertory as 'new' composers appear.  

Sure, but this doesn't mean the technique of classical singing has stayed as consistent as many would have liked. For example, let's compare two singers singing the same aria:

Christine Goerke (Gen X, born 1969)





Helen Traubel (Lost Generation, born 1899)






To me at least....the difference in quality is obvious.