Today I present the African American soprano Ellabelle Davis (1907-1960) who during the late 1940s and early 1950s was greatly celebrated as a concert singer and who appeared around the world, the “Toast of Three Continents” as an early Musical America ad featuring the soprano proclaimed. She even appeared on the operatic stage, primarily as Aida, though her artistry was best suited to the concert platform. Additionally and unusually for the time, she made a number of recordings, including two 10-inch LPs for London-Decca records in 1950. During my research into Ellabelle Davis, I discovered that she had made a second series of recordings, a group of 78s for the Philips record company. I had assumed that, because of their format, these were earlier recordings, but upon further research, I found that these were recorded in 1952 with the Danish pianist Kjell Olsson (1917-1997) at the time of her final tour of Denmark. And to my surprise and delight, these included not only two sides of French art song, but also a disc of spirituals which she did not record elsewhere, and even the Brahms Zigeunerlieder, long a staple of her concert programs. In her day she was frequently written up in the New York Times and appeared repeatedly in high-profile concert appearances in the city, and even moreso, around the world. Yet her career was slowed by illness, and she died prematurely at the age of 53 of cancer, after attempting a career comeback the previous year. I present a number of her extant studio recordings and attempt to place her career within the context of larger social issues in the United States (and around the world) at that time, including considering why artists like Dorothy Maynor, Marian Anderson, and Davis herself, heavily promoted by the mainstream and celebrated for their modesty and dignity (always coded language!), were a more palatable counterpart for white audiences to more progressively-minded artists like Paul Robeson
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Exactly two years ago I introduced my listeners to the magisterial African American dramatic baritone Eugene Holmes (1932 – 2007). Holmes first found world-wide recognition with he appeared in the first modern revival of Frederick Delius’s problematic opera Koanga. Following that earth-shattering success, however, Holmes did not become a world star, but rather for nearly thirty years found his artistic home at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, where he was the reigning Verdi baritone with the company. His career there was bookended by two rare recordings of spirituals, one from just before his success in Koanga, the other appearing after Holmes had spent nearly twenty years in Düsseldorf. This episode presents a live excerpt from a 1972 London performance of the Delius (a voodoo curse, in fact, as delivered by the title character!), as well as the complete contents of both albums of spirituals. In addition, and perhaps most exciting, the episode is rounded off with two excerpts from a live 1981 Deutsche Oper am Rhein recording of Verdi’s dark masterpiece Simon Boccanegra with Holmes in the title role, joined by the exquisite Bulgarian soprano Stefka Evstatieva. In all of these recordings, the power of Holmes’s voice and the sensitivity of his expression combine to make these some of the finest recordings of either the spirituals repertoire, or of Verdi, that I have ever heard and are an important addition to the legacy of this woefully under-recorded artist.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
What better way to start off this Black History Month 2025 celebration than with a birthday tribute to beloved African American diva Martina Arroyo, who turned 88 yesterday, February 2?! Though she is universally regarded as one of the premier Verdi spinto sopranos of the second half of the Twentieth Century, Arroyo was equally adept at a wide range of other composers as well. In this episode, which focuses on Martina in duet, many of those composers are represented as well, from Handel to Meyerbeer to Mascagni, with a little Wagner thrown in for good measure. And what an amazing line-up of duet partners, including two of our most beloved African American mezzos/sopranos, Shirley Verrett, and Grace Bumbry. Also heard are Franco Corelli, Carlo Bergonzi, Anna Moffo, Franco Bonisolli, Bernd Weikl, Gianfranco Cecchele, Sherrill Milnes, Ludmila Dvořáková, and Giorgio Lamberti. Raise a glass to this supreme soprano, and prepare your ears for a deeply satisfying experience!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Yesterday was the 100th birthday of the sublime Canadian singer, Lois Marshall (29 January 1925 – 19 February 1997). I was sorry to see that there were very apparently few acknowledgements of this momentous occasion. Three years ago, in a Countermelody series on Great Canadian Singers, Lois Marshall was my first subject. If you haven’t heard of her (which is entirely possible, given the vagaries of posthumous fame and reputation), you are in for an enormous treat. Possessed of a rare musical scrupulousness, an interpretive honestly, directness, and integrity, as well as a finely-honed dramatic sensibility, Lois Marshall, in a better world, would have graced the world’s operatic stages. Alas, she was stricken with polio as a child, and though she managed to gain the ability to walk, staged opera was a genre which she only rarely attempted. Yet she worked with the world’s greatest conductors, among them Toscanini, Stokowski, and Beecham, and was a recitalist celebrated the world over. This episode offers an extended yet partial glimpse of the range and variety of her artistry, and includes recordings of arias by both Purcell and Puccini (the title role of Turandot!), Bach and Beethoven, as well as a dazzling array of recital repertoire from Debussy to folk song arrangements. Fellow Canadians Maureen Forrester and Glenn Gould are also featured. I wanted very much to present a brand-new Lois Marshall episode in hono(u)r of her centennial, and I promise you that is in the works, but in the meantime, I listened early this morning to the first Lois Marshall tribute I posted and I have decided to republish it today as I continue to prepare the brand-new episode. Some of today’s material, in particular an excerpt from Oskar Morawetz’s From the Diary of Anne Frank, which Lois Marshall premiered in 1970, serves as a grim reminder of the United States’ further descent into madness and inhumanity, especially since the inauguration of King Ubu. Through the darkness, however, the glorious voice and humanity of Lois Marshall provide us with an ideal example of our better selves.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Right after the disastrous US election of November 2024, I published an episode entitled “Mezzos on the Verge,” which featured some of my favorite mezzos in rafter-shaking performances of “on the edge” repertoire. At the time, I had enough additional material to produce a second episode, which I have called “Mezzos in Extremis.” And what better time to present that episode than as the new regime has begun its process of dismantling democracy. The material today ranges from Mozart to Britten, Handel to Janáček, Bach to Wagner, and features performances both live and studio from exceptional singers as Fedora Barbieri, Eva Randová, Margarete Klose, Irina Arkhipova, Brigitte Fassbaender, Viorica Cortez, Giulietta Simionato, Joyce DiDonato, Jennie Tourel, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and Dunja Vejzović, among others. I have structured the program so that the explosive expressions of insanity, fury, and rage gradually give way to the quieter (and possibly more profound) emotions of sadness, doubt, and contrition. And because I always like to compare and contrast singers, I take great joy in presenting several pairs of contrasting singers in the same repertoire: Dunja Vejzović and Paula Rasmussen in Handel’s Serse; Giulietta Simionato and Brigitte Fassbaender as Dorabella in Così; and Fedora Barbieri and Joyce DiDonato as Dejanira in Handel’s Hercules. The episode is offered in solidarity with all those who find themselves today in extreme situations.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
It’s been a tough week all around, not just nationally and internationally, but also personally for me and my family. Because I did not have the time or energy to put out a brand-new episode today, I am presenting to you a former bonus episode first published sometime in the past couple years which features a collection of some of the finest late career recordings of pop standards that Eileen Farrell made between 1988 and 1991 arranged and music directed by Loonis McGlohon or Robert Farnon. The songs all stem from the tradition of the Great American Songbook, whether well-known or more obscure, whether originally written for Broadway shows, for Hollywood, or simply straight from Tin Pan Alley. Backed by either a small combo or an orchestra, Farrell sounds remarkably youthful and always deeply connected to the style and essence of this music, which is no surprise since she had been singing this repertoire from her earliest days and is one of the very finest all-around singers this country has ever produced.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today, Martin Luther King Day and the day of the reinauguration of King Ubu of the Divided States of America, is an appropriate time to revisit the life and legacy of the great Paul Robeson. Both great Americans, King and Robeson, were met with great resistance, incomprehension, and opposition in their day. While Dr. King is now justly celebrated with a national holiday, his legacy is often watered down by those, even right-wing extremists, that seek to attach their own agenda to his progressive legacy. Paul Robeson returned to his native country during the dark days of World War II. Shortly after the war ended, Robeson was also subject to incomprehension and oppression related to his embrace of Communism, which led to him being blacklisted and his passport being rescinded. Finally in 1958, after eight years of being hounded by the FBI, Paul Robeson finally regained the right to travel abroad. During the years of his blacklisting, he had effectively been unable to support himself. In thanks to his supporters following his emancipation, Robeson gave a celebratory concert on June 1, 1958 at his home church, Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church in Harlem. Shortly thereafter, he departed on years’ long sojourn abroad. His first stop was the Royal Albert Hall in London, where he performed on August 10, 1958, the beginning of a nationwide tour across the UK. Thereafter he visited other countries as well, including East Germany, where he was particularly celebrated and revered and where, in 1959 in an East Berlin recording studio, he made a new recording of old and new favorites with his frequent collaborator Earl Robinson. Rare selections from each of these events are featured on this episode, which is enhanced with excerpts from, and commentary by, Paul Robeson on his greatest stage success, the title role in Shakespeare’s Othello, a work which is distressingly relevant as the United States faces its greatest challenge in recent history. This episode is both a celebration of one of the greatest patriots our country has known as well as a warning of the pitfalls that await a nation that chooses to ignore or misrepresent those great Americans in lieu of hate-filled opportunists.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today I present to you the extraordinarily versatile, even chameleon-like singer and actor Marni Nixon (22 February 1930 – 24 July 2016), who is no doubt best-known today as the so-called “Ghostess with the Mostest.” Born into a musical family in California, she became involved from an early age with the movies, and by a marvelous set of circumstances became The Voice for a number of Hollywood actresses not known for their singing voices. Her skill in matching the vocal and speech characteristics of each of these performers is exceptional, but she was so much more than that. She pioneered the work of many 20th century giants, including Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Charles Ives, and Anton Webern. She hosted a local Seattle children’s television program called Boomerang that netted her four Emmy Awards. She performed on opera stages and concert platforms around the world. She recorded widely, everything from Mary Poppins to Pierrot Lunaire, and in the mid-1970s was the first singer to perform and record Schoenberg’s cabaret songs, his so-called Brettl-Lieder, works that are now standard repertoire. Reminiscences of Marni are provided by my good friend Thomas Bagwell, currently a coach and conductor at The Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen, who was a colleague and good friend of Marni Nixon’s for the last 25 years of her life. This episode features a cross-section of this stunning artist’s extensive recorded output, recorded over six decades, including repertoire from Webern to Rodgers and Hammerstein. In between we have examples of Nixon’s performances of songs by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Debussy, Ives, Fauré and her former husband Ernest Gold; concert and song repertoire by Villa-Lobos, Boulez, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Copland, and Gershwin; plus a few outliers, from a live performance of Korngold’s Mariettas Lied to the jazzed-up exotica of Buddy Collette’s Polynesia to Mr. Magoo’s Mother Goose Suite, not to mention a spoonful of Mary Poppins. Overall, “It’s a Jolly ‘Oliday with Marni!”
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
These days I find myself in a pensive, troubled state, very much in need of the kind of consolation that only music can provide. A number of years ago, I published a pair of episodes featuring the sublime Margaret Price performing music of mourning and consolation. Today’s episode presents an expanded and refurbished version of the second of those episodes, in a program composed entirely of art song, moving through a sequence of emotions surrounding loss. Composers include Johannes Brahms, Giuseppe Verdi, Robert Schumann, Enrique Granados, Franz Schubert, Grace Williams, Sergei Rachmaninov, Felix Mendelssohn, Philip Cannon, Hugo Wolf, Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Richard Strauss, and collaborating pianists and conductors include Claudio Abbado, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Cyprien Katsaris, Geoffrey Parsons, and Neville Marriner, as well as frequent collaborators James Lockhart and Thomas Dewey. A thorough traversal of the song repertoire by one of the supreme recitalists of the late 20th Century.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Yesterday was the birthday of Countermelody favorite, the ravishing Scottish soprano Margaret Marshall. What better way to kick off Season Six of the podcast than with this tribute to Margaret. The more I listen to her, the more clearly I see her direct link with other great singers of the past, primarily Gundula Janowitz, Margaret Price, and Lisa Della Casa. The same coolness of timbre on the surface that barely conceals the beating heart underneath. The same impeccable musicianship and vocal flexibility (in fact, she more or less exceeds all three of her predecessors in that regard!) And the same affinity with the music of Mozart. I am not always the most passionate fan of Mozart, but lately I have been in just the mood for his music. So as I was doing my own private celebration of Margaret’s birthday earlier this week, listening to favorites among her many recordings, I kept finding myself choosing her singing music of Mozart. I have put together today’s program using selections from Mozart’s early church music and oratorios; Lieder; concert arias; and opera arias. These selections cover twenty of the glory years of her career, from 1975 through 1995, and consistently display those qualities described above that made her one of the finest Mozart singers of the late twentieth century. Raise a glass to the Scottish songbird as you revel in these marvelous studio and live performances!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today’s episode, “Anna Moffo und die leichte Muse,” continues the delicious theme of opera singers “letting down their hair” begun with “Hadley in Wien,” and it also forms a complement and a supplement to the “Anna Moffo Reappraised” episode that I published exactly two years ago. Anna Moffo’s recording career divides into three separate eras and markets: Italy in the late 1950s and early 1960s; which overlapped with the US in the 1960s; and finally Germany in the 1970s and beyond. Each of these eras in the Moffo career was represented on disc in different ways: jazz arrangements of standards from the Great American Songbook in her earliest (and rarest) Italian recordings, followed by breathy Italian pop songs (some even composed by Moffo herself); early twentieth century Broadway operettas and MGM movie musicals in the US when her voice was at its peak; and Viennese operetta for the German-speaking market, as her vocal instrument became more fragile, while it still represented her finest work of that period. Each of these eras and genres is thoroughly explored in this episode. She is partnered in all of this repertoire by some impressive co-stars: Sergio Franchi, René Kollo, Rudolf Schock, and Robert Merrill as duet partners, with musical direction by Ennio Morricone, Henri René, Lehman Engel, and Skitch Henderson. Recordings range from 1960 through 1983, with the vast majority coming from the 1960s. In spite of the vocal and technical frailty displayed in the later recordings, Moffo’s ability to communicate in this repertoire never flagged. And of course throughout her entire career, no singer so consistently presented a more striking image of vocal and physical glamour than did Anna Moffo.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
I can think of no more appropriate way to end this difficult year than with another episode lauding my late friend, the sublime American lyric tenor Jerry Hadley. I am of the firm belief that Jerry was one of the finest singers this country has ever produced. Everyone has their favorite among his performances, which display an eclecticism rare among opera singers, but I believe that his artistry found its fullest and truest expression in his performances of Viennese operetta. His bright, sunny vocal timbre, his capacity for vocal shading and dynamics, his sense of both humor and pathos, his ringing high notes, as well as of precision and acuity of his German diction make him an ideal interpreter of this music. The majority of the music heard on this episode comes from two albums of operetta arias that Jerry recorded in 1995 under the baton of Richard Bonynge. This is supplemented by two duets with Australian soprano Deborah Riedel from a series of English-language versions of Lehár operettas also conducted by Bonynge, as well as various live performances of Jerry in the music of Johann Strauss II and Erich Korngold. While Lehár is the most prominently featured composer, we also heard excerpts from work by Emmerich Kálmán, Carl Millöcker, Ralph Benatzky, Leo Fall, and that king of operetta tenors himself, Richard Tauber, who was also quite a capable composer. The episode concludes with reminiscences of my close friendship with Jerry, crowned by a magisterial live performance of “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz.”
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Leslie Uggams’ long-standing place in American pop culture matches that of any pop diva of similar longevity, going back all the way to her days as a child star on 1950s television variety and game shows. She won a Tony in 1967 for her performance in the musical Hallelujah, Baby, and she was the first African American woman to host her own variety show, the short-lived Leslie Uggams Show, which I, as a little homo-in-training, soaked up like a sponge! These days she’s also celebrated for her participation in the Deadpool franchise and other high-profile projects. Today I’ve decided to shed some light on her status as a pop icon in the late 1960s, focusing on her three albums for Atlantic Records and subsequent releases in the 1970s on Dionne Warwick’s Sonday Records label and Motown Records, in other words, the period from just before Hallelujah, Baby leading up to just before her starring role in the earth-shattering 1977 miniseries Roots. Uggams reveals herself to be a versatile entertainer of the first order, performing songs by everyone from Holland-Dozier-Holland to Burt Bacharach, from Jimmy Webb to Waylon Jennings, from Jon Hendricks to Jackie DeShannon, including the very first official commercial release of the Leiber and Stoller song “Is That All There Is,” a year before it became a massive hit for Peggy Lee. The episode ends with a pair of protest songs recorded in 1968.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Sometimes when I look back on past episodes of Countermelody, I surprise myself with how good they were, even in the early days when I was still trying to figure everything out. This episode, first posted as a bonus episode five years ago is a good example of that. Earlier that season I had coined the term “Full-Figured Baroque” to describe the “old-fashioned” style of Baroque performance that I personally prefer to what one currently hears in churches and concert halls around the world and on recordings. This episode was devoted to Baroque music composed specifically for the Christmas season, recorded between 1940 and 1992, and performed in deliciously non-period style, replete with deliberate tempi, judiciously applied vibrato, and stately ritardandi. There is a special focus on the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium and assorted cantatas for the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany season. Singers include Janet Baker, Tom Krause, Jerry Hadley, Margaret Marshall, Francisco Araiza, Russell Oberlin, Helen Watts, William Warfield, John Shirley-Quirk, Peter Schreier, Heather Harper, Shirley Verrett, Edith Mathis, Hermann Prey, Marga Höffgen, Agnes Giebel, Kurt Equiluz, Florence Quivar, Aksel Schiøtz, Kirsten Flagstad, Christa Ludwig, Edith Mathis, Brigitte Fassbaender. Ernst Haefliger, Jennifer Vyvyan, Anna Reynolds, Judith Blegen, Fritz Wunderlich, Elly Ameling, Peter Schreier, and Gundula Janowitz. Conductors include Neville Marriner, Raymond Leppard, Colin Davis, Karl Richter, Lorin Maazel, Helmut Winschermann, Vittorio Negri, Karl Münchinger, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Eugene Ormandy, Adrian Boult, Andrew Davis, and Eugen Jochum, among others. Don’t miss out on this full-figured Christmas treat!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
In February our beloved Elly Ameling turns 92. I cannot think of another classical singer who recorded more Christmas albums over the course of her career. One of the most obscure of these is the 1980 release “Christmas with Elly Ameling,” which was briefly available on LP, but never re-released in any format. I present it to you here complete, albeit reordered. A highlight is her performance of the delightful “Weihnachtslieder” by the German romantic composer Peter Cornelius, accompanied by Dalton Baldwin. Also included are works by Alphons Diepenbrock, Hugo Wolf, Alessandro Scarlatti, Richard Strauss, and Max Reger. That record is supplemented by excerpts from two of her earliest recordings, 1960’s “A Christmas Fantasy,” alongside Countermelody favorite Bernard Kruysen; and 1963’s “Christmas Music of the Renaissance.” Also included are a Haydn Advent cantata and two traditional Spanish carols 1977’s “Christmas Songs from Europe,” arranged by Joaquín Nin; rounded off by two exquisite Bach selections from an even rarer Elly recording, a 1979 festive Christmas concert at the Grote Kerk in Monnickendam. All of these represent Elly Ameling at her charming and exquisite best and are sure to put even the Scroogiest of my listeners in the Christmas spirit.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
One of the great personal revelations for me in the early years of producing Countermelody was discovering the great Chinese American bass Yi-Kwei Sze (斯義桂). As the first Chinese singer to pursue a career in Western classical music, his historical significance is undisputed. What I hope to demonstrate in this episode is that his importance extends to artistic, vocal, and musical matters as well. When Sze first came to the United States, he studied under the great Ukrainian bass Alexander Kipnis, and over the course of his long career, he bore that mantle proudly. Today’s episode once again explores the hidden corners of Sze’s recorded legacy, which yields enormous treasures, and includes recordings of operatic (and quasi-operatic) excerpts by Verdi, Gounod, Mozart, Berlioz, and Mussorgsky as well as an excerpt of a legendary live performance of Shostakovich’s “Babi Yar” Symphony, one of the first in the West. Also heard are live and studio recordings of Russian songs by Mussorgsky, Dargomizhsky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and Balakirev; and song recordings by Poulenc, Schumann, Schubert, Tcherepnin, Xuean Liu, Dvořák, and Brahms.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
If you have never heard of Gilbert Price, this episode will remedy that situation. With a voice that was easily produced, full-ranged, tonally refulgent, and technically poised, the three-time Tony nominee, who lived from 1942 to 1991, deserves to be more fully remembered for his deeply expressive portrayals, including the lead role role in Leonard Bernstein’s failed Bicentennial musical, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He also starred in Timbuktu!, Promenade, The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, and Langston Hughes’s 1964 musical pageant Jerico-Jim Crow, which also featured Micki Grant in one of her first featured roles. (This episode was originally produced the day after Ms. Grant died, so it is particularly appropriate that she is prominently featured.) Gilbert Price is also heard in numerous live stage performances (including an early live performance of the original version of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), a number of live television performances, and four obscure singles that he recorded for Columbia Records in the late 1960s. And just for the holidays, there is a stunning performance of the young Gilbert Price performing “O Holy Night” on The Merv Griffin Show.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.
Yesterday was World AIDS Day and many of the people I admire and follow on various social media platforms made beautiful and heartfelt posts in commemoration of this day and all the many souls that have been lost over the decades to this hideous disease. I want to weigh in today with my own tribute: to the exceptional American baritone John Reardon, who died of this disease in 1988 at the age of 58. This is an expanded version of a bonus episode I published more than four years ago which constituted a deep exploration of his recorded legacy, in both live or studio recordings, of musical, opera (especially contemporary works), and art song. You’ll hear guest contributions from the two Judys, (Raskin and Blegen; sorry, no Garland today), as well as Jo Sullivan, Beverly Wolff, Anja Silja, Evelyn Lear, and James McCracken, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Beecham, Sarah Caldwell, Erich Leinsdorf, Frederic Waldman, Lehman Engel, Jorge Mester, as well as that great stage director Bliss Hebert doing a guest turn tickling the ivories in two song cycles. If you listen extra closely, you may even hear a line or two from Beverly Sills, Robert Merrill, Cesare Siepi, and Jussi Björling! The episode also includes a birthday tribute to Maria Callas and, as a memorial to all who have succumbed to AIDS, “When Angels Cry,” a song by Janis Ian.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
If you, like many of us, are struggling to find things to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, I have put together an episode featuring a national (and international) treasure, the exquisite soprano Roberta Alexander. In fact, I could just as easily have entitled this episode “Giving Thanks FOR Roberta Alexander.” Roberta has been featured many times on the podcast and I’m thrilled to bring her to you yet again in a refurbished bonus episode from the summer of 2023. Three works are foregrounded: first is Samuel Barber’s dramatic scena Andromache’s Farewell, which was composed for Martina Arroyo for the inaugural season of the New York Philharmonic at its new home at Lincoln Center. The recording featuring Roberta and conductor Edo de Waart is from the year 1993. There follows a complete performance (one of the finest in my experience) of Aaron Copland’s song cycle Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson, his most extended solo vocal work, heard in a 1990 recording with British pianist Roger Vignoles. And finally, the crowning jewel: a live performance of Roberta Alexander in her youthful prime singing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. To my ear, this represents the perfect meeting of composer and artist, a near-ideal rendition of these songs, and one which is not readily available anywhere else on the interwebs. This episode is further interspersed with jewels from Roberta’s 1985 recording of songs by Leonard Bernstein, all of which are exquisitely (as well as sometimes painfully) appropriate at this moment in the history of the United States and provide us with food for thought as we observe with solemnity this iconic holiday.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
In the first year of Countermelody I posted a tribute to to the Mexican tenor Francisco Araiza on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Four years later, that great artist is still with us, and, today, in continuation of my miniseries on Great Mexican Singers, I present a refurbished and expanded bonus episode that I first published three years ago featuring Araiza in art song. A number of live performances are interspersed amongst excerpts from two rare LPs from the mid-1980s: one, accompanied by Irwin Gage, of some rare Schubert Lieder; and the other, accompanied by Jean Lemaire, of French, Spanish, and Mexican art songs. These performances reveal a voice of great beauty supported by a solid technique which provides for seamless legato singing. Add to this near-perfect German diction and an often-probing textual acuity as well as profound musicality and one has all the ingredients that make up an exceptional intepreter of art song. Highlights include a live recording with Carlo Maria Giulini of an excerpt from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde; the extended Schubert Lied “Viola;” and three Mexican art songs by Blas Galindo and Manuel Ponce; as well as two bracing excerpts from Araiza’s 1986 album of popular Mexican song.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today (for what I hope are obvious reasons) begins a short Countermelody series on a few of the greatest singers that Mexico, our neighbor to the south, has gifted to the world. Contralto Oralia Domínguez (25 October 1925 – 25 November 2013) is famed for her collaborations with such musical giants as Maria Callas and Herbert von Karajan, but on her own terms, she ranks alongside those monumental true contraltos like Marian Anderson and Kathleen Ferrier. Though there is no question that she was under-recorded, she left a handful of classic commercial recordings, and a plethora of recorded live performances which an artist both technically grounded and fearless in expression, one whose legato singing exuded repose just as her phenomenal coloratura singing generates genuine excitement. I cannot say enough about this artist, who has rapidly become one of my very favorites! This episode, an expansion of a bonus episode I published a few years ago, features Domínguez in extended operatic scenes by Cilea, Saint-Saëns, and Monteverdi and in religious works by Verdi and Lili Boulanger as well as Spanish and Mexican songs, capped with some stunning vocalism in baroque works by Handel and Vivaldi. Vocal guest stars include the late great Antonietta Stella, Jon Vickers, Barry McDaniel, Luigi Ottolini, and the blazing hot verismo soprano Clara Petrella; conductors include Jean Fournet, Igor Markevitch, Alberto Zedda, Oliviero de Fabritiis, Herbert von Karajan, Fernando Previtali, Nicola Rescigno, Renato Cellini, and Leonard Bernstein. In other words, the “big guns,” an indication of the enormity of the magisterial talent of Oralia Domínguez.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Something a little outside of the normal scope of Countermelody for today’s episode:
Earlier this year I published a bonus episode on the fascinating singer/songwriter Benard Ighner (1945-2017) and his modern-day standard “Everything Must Change,” which I re-present today. The song has had a profound effect on me ever since I heard the version by the great Oleta Adams on her 1990 solo debut album, Circle of One. At the time I assumed that Oleta herself had written it, but I came to discover that it was penned by Ighner and first recorded by Quincy Jones on his 1974 album, Body Heat, and that since then many, many pop and jazz singers of the past fifty years have covered the song. All these different versions have both delighted and fascinated (as well as occasionally mystified and frustrated) me. The song itself is both fatalistic and hopeful, which is exactly the place I find myself as Election Day in the US approaches. Intrigued by both the song and its composer, I dug deeper and discovered all I could about Benard Ighner. An autodidactic musical polymath, Ighner rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest pop and jazz musicians of his time, and not just the hundreds of singers and instrumentalists who have jumped on the “Everything Must Change” bandwagon! This song brings out either the very best or the very worst of those who interpret it. In choosing my favorite versions, I have veered toward those who embrace understatement rather than vocal caterwauling and children’s choruses. The episode begins with examples of Ighner’s early work from the late sixties and early seventies, including pseudonymous encounters with Dizzy Gillespie (as Benard Ito) and Lalo Schifrin (as Alexander Saint Charles); proceeding through songs he wrote and produced for Shirley Bassey, Marlena Shaw, and Carmen McRae; as well as two excerpts from his solo album, a one-off 1978 Japanese release entitled Little Dreamer. We then hear ten different versions of the song, including, among others, Nina Simone, June Christy, Peggy Lee, Sarah Vaughan, Minako Yoshida (sung to her own Japanese translation), a recent magisterial live performance by Oleta Adams, and, even Ighner himself, who, alongside his other many musical talents, possessed a velvety baritone voice of exceptional beauty, poise, and power.
May this episode provide hope, courage, and insight for all of those who do believe that we can overcome the mad popularity-contest antics of this election cycle and lean toward a future in which morality and hope can still prove to be guiding principles.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Two years ago for Halloween, I presented the first of my “Haunted Opera House” episodes. At the time, I had such a plethora of creepy musical material that I produced a bonus episode of material that otherwise would have ended up in the dung heap (like the body of Faust at the end of Schnittke’s Faust Cantata, which closes the episode). We also hear music from Damn Yankees featuring the red-hot Gwen Verdon; Dvořák’s Rusalka (a stunning duet with Teresa Stratas and Gwendolyn Killebrew); Respighi’s comic opera Belfagor (in which a devil [Lajos Miller] encounters his superior in a cunning young woman [Sylvia Sass]; Ernest Bloch’s Macbeth (in which Inge Borkh gives a luminous performance of Lady Macbeth’s Sleepwalking Scene); Willem Pijper’s strange musical drama based on the medieval legend of Halewijn, a Bluebeard of the Lowlands; La Chute de la Maison Usher, (the climax of Claude Debussy’s incomplete opera based on Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher); and Antikrist, Rued Langgaard’s unique, indescribable, and nearly unstageable mystery play. But it is Iva Bittová’s gleefully deranged performance of Alfred Schnittke’s gruesome Faust tango which will, I predict, find its way into your nightmares!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Since Christa Ludwig’s death more than three and a half years ago, her reputation has only increased. A significant portion of that reputation rests on her prowess as a singer of Lieder, a repertoire she took quite seriously and on which she focused a good deal of her performing career, especially in later years. At the time of her death, I published two episodes in her honor, the second, a bonus one, focusing on her work as a recitalist. That episode, which I reframe and re-present today, includes a full program of Lieder in mostly live performances between 1961 and 1993. She sings songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler, as well as a selection of German folksongs from a German television 1978 program hosted by the enormously popular Schlagertenor Peter Alexander. She is accompanied by Leonard Bernstein, Erik Werba, Irwin Gage, Geoffrey Parsons, and James Levine.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Episode 300 of Countermelody is upon us, and I have chosen today to bring you the German-American soprano Helen Donath in all her glory, performing Lieder of both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert, the vast majority accompanied by her husband, German conductor, pianist, and scholar Klaus Donath. With their mutual attention to subtle musical and textual detail, they make ideal interpreters for these songs, often structured as strophic or modified strophic settings. Both live and studio recordings are featured, including a live 1978 performance of Schubert’s Mignon-Lieder, set to texts by Goethe sung by the mysterious waif Mignon in his novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Another recurring theme in many of these Lieder is the longing for spring, which, even as we are only at the cusp of autumn, is something that we are already anticipating. Guest performers include tenor Peter Schreier, baritone Hermann Prey, clarinettist Dieter Klöcker, and pianist Leonard Hokanson.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Remember the summer of 2020? The good old days of lockdown? That was the first summer that I was producing Countermelody, and during that time I tried to inject a little levity into the podcast by doing a long series on crossover. One such episode was devoted to a century of tenors singing crossover, reaching back further than a century from Hermann Jadlowker and Caruso himself and extending to the present day. There was such a wealth of gorgeous material which led to an additional bonus episode on such “Rogue Tenors,” which includes (among the German-speaking singers) Helge Rosvaenge, Fritz Wunderlich, Peter Schreier, Richard Tauber, Marcel Wittrisch, Jonas Kaufmann, Anton Dermota, Walther Ludwig, Herbert Ernst Groh, Joseph Schmidt, Jan Kiepura, and Julius Patzak; others include Stuart Burrows, Roland Hayes, Richard Lewis, Lawrence Brownlee, Jan Peerce, José Carreras, Kenneth McKellar, Noah Stewart, Tino Rossi, Luigi Alva, Giuseppe di Stefano, and Jerry Hadley in a wide range of repertoire and styles ranging from Neapolitan songs Kurt Weill; from folk songs to Victorian parlor songs; from operettas and Tonfilm Schlager to jazz and rock. It’s a rollicking good ride; hold on tight and enjoy!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Armed with happy memories of our sojourn to London, which just ended yesterday, I decided to pay tribute today to another favorite British singer of mine, this time in the pop realm, the indescribably gifted Dusty Springfield. This is a bonus episode that I first published three and a half years ago which explores my favorite period of Dusty’s output: her recordings and performances from the late 60s through the late 70s. This was a rocky time in Dusty’s life and yet her vocal gift, when she used it, was at its absolute peak, and her musical curiosity and eclecticism during that time also revealed hitherto unexplored aspects of her artistry. I feature songs by, among others, Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb, Charles Aznavour, Barry Manilow, and Randy Newman. I also focus on Dusty’s studio collaborations with Angela Morley, one of the primary British arrangers, conductors and composers of the era. Three highlights include Dusty’s surprising (and over-the-top) performance of a refashioned Richard Wagner tune, a duet with Jimi Hendrix from her 1968 television series with and 1994’s transcendent “Roll Away,” an excerpt from her final album.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
David and I leave tomorrow on a short jaunt to London, my first visit there in absolute ages. As a result, I have had my favorite British singers very much in mind. In 2023, the quintessential British tenor Ian Partridge celebrated his 80th birthday, and in hono(u)r of that occasion, I produced a pair of Countermelody episodes in tribute to his exquisite artistry. Today’s episode is a refashioning of the bonus episode I produced at that time, which I entitled “Evening with Partridge,” since all of the selections reference evening or nighttime in some fashion, with additional emphasis on the themes of moonlight and The Wanderer. One might also note how the clarity of Partridge’s voice and the precision of his diction make a marvelous contrast with the half-shades of the evening. I have put together an episode which features all types of song, in musical styles from Baroque to contemporary: orchestral song, songs with guitar and lute accompaniment, and art songs with piano in English, German, and French, one of them even self-accompanied! May this episode also bring joy and satisfaction to my devoted listeners and supporters, and encourage you to further explore this esteemed gentleman, one of my favorite singers of all time.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
This week I pull out all the Baroque stops (appropriately enough), to present you with an episode chock full of contraltos, all singing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. I have chosen 28 different contraltos, active between the late 1930s and the early 2000s, who excelled in the singing and interpretation of this most spiritual, and most genius, of composers. I am dividing this episode into two separate segments, the first of which I present here, a group of singers which includes such legendary historical figures as Kathleen Ferrier and Marian Anderson, and Christa Ludwig, as well as such exceptional voices from the Americas as Maureen Forrester and Carol Smith; and, from the continent, Aafje Heynis, Germaine Cernay, Brigitte Fassbaender, Hilde Rössel-Majdan, Claudia Hellmann, Marga Höffgen, and Margarethe Bence. These women are joined by a further a group of British contraltos and mezzo-sopranos, each with distinctive and exceptional approaches to the music of Bach, including Helen Watts, Norma Procter, Maureen Lehane (for me, the big discovery of the week), and of course Janet Baker, beloved to all of us. I also pay tribute to a select group of exceptional Kapellmeister including Karl Richter, Helmuth Kahlhöfer, Fritz Werner, Kurt Thomas, and Hans Thamm, who thrived in recordings and live performances from the 1950s and beyond. If certain favorite names of yours are missing from this week’s setlist, no worries: they may well appear on next week’s episode, which continues to combine Bachian expressive profundity with plummy contralto depths.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
More than four years ago, I published my very first bonus episode on Patreon, which I offer here in a fancy new setting and with a wonderful new coda. When I first published an episode on the great Ileana Cotrubaș in honor of her 81st birthday, I promised a bonus episode which would offer further examples of this treasurable artist’s plangent and pathos-filled singing. This episode explores delves deeper into Cotrubaș’s artistic legacy, examining roles that she took on later in her career, including Elisabetta in Don Carlo, Nedda in Pagliacci, Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, and Desdemona in Otello. In addition, I play excerpts of roles that lay somewhat outside of her normal repertoire, including Tatyana in Yevgeny Onegin, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Tytania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is followed by two extended live excerpts of her two greatest roles, Mimì in La Bohème and Violetta in La Traviata. The entire episode is capped with an exquisite example of Cotrubaș singing Bach, in anticipation of a new all-Bach episode at the end of the week.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
The beloved Irish soprano Heather Harper died at the age of 88 on 22 April 2019 in London. In music ranging from the Baroque through the modern eras, she displayed an easy mastery as did very few others, as well as a radiant voice and demeanor that made her a favorite collaborator of some of the greatest conductors and composers of the Twentieth Century. Perhaps no other singer matched her accomplishment within such a wide range of styles. This episode was originally published as an addendum to an episode I published in the second season of Countermelody. It highlights Heather Harper in two Richard Strauss roles, Ariadne and the Kaiserin; and features two works which she created, Elizabeth Maconchy’s setting of Cecil Day-Lewis’s dramatic monologue Ariadne, premiered in 1971, and Michael Berkeley and Ian McEwan’s searing 1983 oratorio Or Shall We Die? Harper is also featured in rare recordings of repertoire ranging from Monteverdi to Busoni; Offenbach to Dallapiccola. A forgotten 1964 recording of Harper’s transcendent reading of “Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben” from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion rounds off the episode.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
This August I shall be supplementing each new episode published with a first-time general posting of bonus episodes which were originally available only for my Patreon subscribers. Today, in the first of my “new reissues,” I present “George Shirley Revisited,” a supplement to the tribute I posted three years ago, and which I now offer as a belated 90th birthday salute. In this episode, I offer further examples of the great tenor’s eclectic repertoire and interpretive depth. Guest vocalists include Shirley Verrett and Elisabeth Söderström and conductors include Pierre Boulez, Thomas Schippers, Eugene Ormandy, Colin Davis, Antal Doráti, Jesús López Cobos, and Igor Stravinsky himself. Composers sampled include Jules Massenet, Howard Swanson, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Richard Strauss, Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Wagner, Norman Dello Joio, Felix Mendelssohn, Vally Weigl, Joseph Haydn, and James Dashow, whose Second Voyage, a setting of John Ashberry scored for tenor voice and recorded electronic sounds, was commissioned for George Shirley by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976. I also include a number of rare recordings that George Shirley and Wayne Sanders made in 1973 for Music Minus One’s Laureate Series and that, to my knowledge, are among his rarest recordings.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
Ten days ago I reposted an episode celebrating the life and career of Paul Robeson, legendary for many reasons, but particularly remembered for his iconic and powerful performances of “Ol’ Man River.” It is often assumed that Robeson also created the role of Joe in Show Boat, but in fact that distinction went to his near-contemporary Jules Bledsoe (1897-1943), today virtually forgotten, and unjustly so. In his time, he was also celebrated for his memorable concerts, which took place both here and in Europe, and for his operatic portrayals, most significantly, the title role in Louis Gruenberg’s opera The Emperor Jones, based on the play by Eugene O’Neill, which he portrayed both in the United States and in Europe. Barred from singing at the Met because of his race, Bledsoe took his portrayal of Brutus Jones on the road, performing it in a triumphant European tour, but also subsequently in New York in 1934 under the aegis of the short-lived Aeolian Opera Company, which was intended to provide performing opportunities for Black opera singers, but which folded almost immediately. Jules Bledsoe was also a composer who wrote many songs and arrangements of spirituals, as well as a version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin entitled Bondage, as well as his own operatic setting of O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, which may or may not have been performed at the time. Even less well-known and acknowledged (and often intentionally obscured by historians) is the fact that Jules Bledsoe was a gay man in a relationship with a Dutch white man named Freddy Huygens who at the time of Bledsoe’s premature death was referred to as either his “manager” or his “closest friend.” In this episode we hear examples of all the extant recorded material I could find by Jules Bledsoe, alongside recorded examples of work by his collaborators Abbie Mitchell, Irene Dunne, Anne Roselle, Marie Powers, Todd Duncan as well as excerpts from the work of composers W. Franke Harling, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Louis Gruenberg performed by Jeanette MacDonald, Valaida Snow, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, and Lawrence Tibbett. Billie Holiday even puts in a special appearance!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes and videos available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
On March 7, 2024, the legendary African American soprano Margaret Tynes died at the age of 104. During the second season of Countermelody, I featured the singer, who at the time was a mere 101 years old, on one of my Black History Month episodes. She was a unique artist, fearlessly forging her own musical, dramatic, and vocal path, aided and abetted by a strong voice with a powerful top register. Though she made a number of significant appearances in her homeland earlier in her career (including a televised appearance in Duke Ellington’s jazz suite, A Drum Is a Woman), her later successes were focused primarily in Europe, where she was particularly celebrated for her extraordinary Salome, with which she created a sensation in Spoleto in 1961, and her Lady Macbeth. Excerpts from all of these and more are featured on this episode, which also includes spirituals and Creole folk songs, as well as arias and duets from Aida, Carmen, and Porgy and Bess. Guest artists include LeVern Hutcherson, most remembered today for his appearances on stage and screen in Porgy, and George Shirley, the first African American tenor to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
The United States seems (if this could be possible) even more divided and challenged than it did a week ago. In spite and even because of that, I am continuing my salute to the truly great Americans in our shared past to provide us with inspiration and courage in the challenging days to come. Today I repost an episode that I initially presented on June 18, 2021, the first observance of Juneteenth as a national holiday. It honors the great folk singer and civil rights icon Odetta (1930-2008). The breadth of her influence and the scope of her accomplishment should be trumpeted from the rooftops. From her first appearance on primetime national television opposite Harry Belafonte, to her prominence as the artist at the forefront of the folk music revival, to the importance of her music as a centerpiece to the Civil Rights Movement, to her additional contributions to blues and gospel music (and even, less expectedly, jazz and soul), Odetta Felious Holmes remains one of the most important musicians of the twentieth century. Not only was Odetta an important cultural icon, she possessed one of the most striking contralto voices in the history of recorded sound, and thus is an appropriate entry in my Great Contraltos series. This episode celebrates the entirety of her cultural contribution from her first recording in 1954, to one of her final live performances, in a wide-ranging portrait celebrating the significance of an artist who, for once, merits the designation “cultural icon.”
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
I am here visiting my family in Milwaukee this week, a time which has proven to be a landmark in the downward spiral of our country into fascism. And all right here in our own backyard! It all struck way too close to home for me when the minister at my mother’s church delivered the benediction at the opening ceremonies of the RNC on Monday and suddenly became a darling of the nutcases. I don’t have a huge platform: all I have is my podcast, devoted first and foremost to great singers. There is little that I can do to counteract the evil, hatred, and heinousness that spewed forth from the city of my birth this week. But I have occasionally let my progressive flag fly here, never moreso than when, in the second season of the podcast, I posted an episode in honor of Paul Robeson on the 45th anniversary of his death. To this day Robeson remains one of the most celebrated, and controversial, of all artists. A man of fierce intelligence and convictions, he exhibited prodigious natural gifts as a sportsman, singer, actor, linguist, and, perhaps most importantly, as an activist. This episode focuses of course on his accomplishments as a singer, but especially within the context of his political activism and activities on behalf of oppressed people the world over. He was vilified and hunted down by some factions as much (if not more) as he was revered and venerated by others. In this episode I highlight some of his most famous performances, focusing on his live and studio performances of African American spirituals and protest songs, folk songs from around the world (including Russia and China), and works that celebrated the brand of left-wing populism that was in vogue in the 1930s and 1940s, in particular his recording of the hybrid work, Ballad for Americans, by composer Earl Robinson and lyricist John LaTouche. Robeson is a man who lost everything for the principals he believed in and who had more integrity and conviction and right-mindedness in his thumbnail than the entire conference of right-wing wackos who descended on Milwaukee this week combined. Let his example be a wakeup call for those of us who do not want to witness the death of our country as a democracy, however flawed it is and has been over the course of its history. There is no better figure to light the way for us in this struggle than Paul Robeson.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
Every so often I discover a singer who had previously not come under my radar, but who simply blows me away with their voice, artistry, and communicative powers. Such an artist is the Baton Rouge-born African American soprano Lenora Lafayette (1926-1975), historically important as the first Black artist to perform at Covent Garden. Relocating to Basel shortly after finishing her training under Dusolina Giannini at Juilliard, Lafayette encountered early career success in Switzerland, winning the Geneva Competition and making a highly successful debut at the Basel Opera as Aida, a role which, along with Madama Butterfly, she performed hundreds of times. And yet, despite enormous career success in Europe, she was never able to establish herself in her native country. Her recorded legacy is slim but revelatory: an Aida in German under Clemens Krauss; a 1958 BBC recording of Frederick Delius’s opera Koanga; and a single commercial recording of Puccini duets with Welsh tenor Richard Lewis under the baton of John Barbirolli, who also led her Covent Garden debut. All of these precious documents are sampled on this episode. She was struck down with cancer in her early forties and died prematurely at the age of 49. And yet listening to her recordings, one is struck by the emotional power of her utterance, the firmness of her vocal technique, and the bloom of her exquisite voice. Lenora Lafayette deserves a place among the greatest singers of her generation. This episode was first published during Countermelody’s second season; listening to Lafayette again, I realize just how accurate my initial impressions of her were.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
As I embark on several weeks of vacation, I bring you the first of several episodes from the early years of the podcast in between the new episodes that I will produce with somewhat less frequency between now and September. This week I am honored to bring to you the first of two episodes from the Season One of Countermelody which introduced my listeners to the great African American mezzo-soprano Muriel Smith (1923-1985) who, among other important contributions, premiered the title role of Carmen Jones on Broadway in 1943. We examine her work in musicals and films as well as pop music and opera. Her eclecticism, her ability to color her voice in a way uniquely suited to the wide range of roles she undertook, as well as her deep connection to text and expression, mark her as an artist of the highest caliber. Featured is a rare 1955 Philips recording of spirituals represents Muriel Smith at her artistic and interpretive peak.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
Today I revisit the life and legacy of lyric baritone William Parker (05 August 1943 – 29 March 1993), to whom I devoted an episode exactly a year ago. To further explore his unmatched contribution to the art of song, I present a second episode which was originally published as a bonus episode at the same time, featuring Will in four contrasting song cycles by Charles Wakefield Cadman, Claude Debussy, Aaron Copland, and Francis Poulenc, recorded between 1975 and 1987, when he was in his absolute prime. He is accompanied by William Huckaby, Gérard van Blerk, and the late Rudolf Jansen. Also included are two haunting settings of Herman Melville’s “Billy in the Darbies,” a segment added posthumously to his Billy Budd novella; in two settings by Robert Evett and Ernst Bacon. The episode is prefaced by a brief tribute to the pianist Norman Shetler, who died yesterday in Austria nine days after observing his 93rd birthday; as well as a brief introduction by Will Parker’s nephew, Mark Doty.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available exclusively to Patreon supporters are currently available and further bonus content including interviews and livestreams is planned for the upcoming season.
It’s been a whirlwind of a week chez Gundlach and I find myself at the end of it without a new episode ready to post. In addition to that, we are already halfway through Pride Month and I realized this morning that I had no new queer material up my sleeve. So I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do: I am going to get to work on a brand new episode which will post sometime early next week. But in the meantime, I’m going to do my own Listener’s Favorite episode, one which I posted during the very first season of Countermelody, a wondrous compilation entitled “Sisters in Sappho.” It features not only two of my favorite mezzos of all time (Tatiana Troyanos and Brigitte Fassbaender – both of whom happen to have been lesbians); but also a sampling of the key figures in the Women’s Music Movement of the 1970s, including Meg Christian, Cris Williamson, Margie Adam, Holly Near, and Deidre McCalla. In celebrating these pop icons, I also pay tribute to those who, in turn, paved the way for them, including icons Janis Ian, Dusty Springfield, and Ronnie Gilbert, as well as tipping my hat to two of the queer Black singers (Toshi Reagon, Meshell Ndegeocello), that followed in the wake of these women. We all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to these extraordinary artists, who paved the way for us, their musical and artistic descendants, at the same time setting standards that will stand the test of time. Vocal guest stars include Janet Baker, Ileana Cotrubas, Cecilia Gasdia, Nicolai Gedda, Margaret Price, Gundula Janowitz, Arleen Augér, and Reri Grist.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today’s episode is one of my Listeners’ Favorites episodes, this one introduced by my wonderful friend Thom Baker. He had just written me about his enthusiasm for the Rosanna Carteri episode I posted in the fall of 2020 on the occasion of her death, just a few short weeks before her 90th birthday. Thom and I were both equally taken with this long-lived artist, who abandoned her performing career in 1966 when she was only 35 years old, brought her full-throated voice and impeccable artistry to operatic stages around the world for fifteen exceptional years. Carteri’s was a lyric yet full-bodied voice with facility that allowed her to undertake soubrette parts as well as some spinto roles. I feature extended examples of her versatility over the course of that entire career, including excerpts from La traviata, La bohème, La rondine, Guglielmo Tell, Falstaff, L’elisir d’amore, Madama Butterfly, Roméo et Juliette, Otello, Pietro Mascagni’s L’amico Fritz and Iris, Prokofiev’s War and Peace (the final version of which she created in Florence in 1954), the premiere recording of Poulenc’s Gloria and Gilbert Bécaud’s Opéra d’Aran (which she premiered in Paris in 1962). These operas represent just a fraction of her repertoire, in which are featured, among others, Giuseppe di Stefano, Nicolai Gedda, Leonard Warren, Carlo Bergonzi, Ettore Bastianini, Ferruccio Tagliavini, Giuseppe Taddei, Cesare Valletti, and Giuseppe Gismondo and conductors Tullio Serafin, Pierre Monteux, Vittorio Gui, Georges Prêtre, Gabriele Santini, and Artur Rodzinski. In other words, the crème de la crème of the operatic firmament in the 1950s and 1960s, in which company Carteri most emphatically belonged.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
The French baritone Gérard Souzay was born Gérard Tisserand on 8 December 1918 and died in Antibes on 17 August 2004. This episode was one of my first episodes, originally posted in honor of his then 101st birthday. It has been chosen by my friend Randall Scarlata as his Listeners’ Favorite episode in the last of this month’s Great Baritones series, and this is particularly appropriate and moving, because from the age of 19 until Souzay’s death, Randall had a close association with Souzay as both teacher and mentor. He tells some wonderful stories about their work together, shares some of Souzay’s bon mots and also presents with great compassion some of the personal challenges that Souzay faced. He also discusses some of Souzay’s other artistic pursuits, one in particular of which may surprise you! The episode itself explores Souzay’s recorded legacy, with particular emphasis on his earliest recordings. Repertoire ranges from Jaime Ovalle to César Franck, and Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert to Maurice Ravel, Henry Purcell, and Claude Debussy (including an excerpt from his 1955 radio performance of Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande), many of them accompanied by Souzay’s musical and personal partner Dalton Baldwin. We also hear performances by his teachers and mentors Claire Croiza, Vanni-Marcoux, Pierre Bernac, and Lotte Lehmann, as well as his sister, Geneviève Touraine. And Randall’s jewel of an introduction is a testimonial and tribute you’ll want to turn to again and again. I am proud to present again for your listening pleasure a singer who means as much to me as any other who has ever lived.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
I was thrilled to discover a while back that the pianist, interviewer, and journalist Zsolt Bognár, who produces the video series Living the Classical Life, is a devoted fan of Countermelody. We recently met up in person in NYC, where we discussed, among many other things, the supremacy of Franz Schubert and how his humanity finds perfect expression in his compositions. Zsolt has graciously provided the introduction to this episode, one of my favorites in the history of the podcast, which I originally produced for the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. As I remarked then, I repeat now: when I am at a loss for words, I always turn to Schubert and his music. In keeping with this month’s theme of great baritones, I once again offer this episode, which I have entitled “A Baritonal Schubertiade.” Listeners will discover some singers that we’ve already heard this month, primarily Bernard Kruysen and Jorma Hynninen, and two more singers (Gérard Souzay and Alexander Kipnis) who will be featured in full episodes next week. Kipnis’s recording stems from 1927, while German baritone Roman Trekel’s selection was recorded in 2017. Thus we have 90 years of great Lieder singing to enjoy in this episode: in addition to the singers already mentioned, Tom Krause (pictured with Carl Kundmann’s statue of Schubert in the Stadtpark in Vienna), Hans Hotter, Lawrence Winters, Hermann Prey, Barry McDaniel, Heinrich Schlusnus, Pavel Lisitsian, Bernard Diamant, and Karl Schmitt-Walter are also featured. And the episode begins with Zsolt’s recording of Liszt’s stirring transcription of Schubert’s “Aufenthalt.”
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today’s segment in the Great Baritones division of my Listeners’ Favorites series is introduced by my friend, baritone Jeremy Osborne, like me an American expat in Berlin. In the nearly ten years that I have known him, Jeremy has developed into a fine singer of both opera and art song. Through talent, determination, and hard work, Jeremy is forging a well-deserved place for himself in the music world. The singer he has chosen to introduce on this episode is the the great Ukranian-American baritone Igor Gorin (1904-1982). Jeremy shares with us the story of how he first became acquainted with Gorin’s exceptional talent. and the context in which he, like me, was bowled over by the sheer beauty of his voice. If one made such ranking lists, in fact, we would probably both place him near the top of a “Most Beautiful Baritone Voices Ever” list. Gorin’s is a fascinating life story, beginning in pre-Soviet Ukraine and moving back and forth from Vienna to the United States until finally, with forged documents, he emigrated to the US and became a naturalized citizen. Through a series of happy circumstances, he became one of the top US radio stars of the 1930s and 1940s and eventually appeared as well on early television broadcasts. A career in regional opera resulted, which reached its apex with starring roles at Lyric Opera of Chicago and a single appearance at the Metropolitan Opera at the age of 59. This episode features live, radio, and studio performances by Gorin in opera, operetta, Broadway, and folk and art songs over a period of nearly 40 years, including a live late career performance of Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh, in which he returned to his cantorial roots. Whether you, like Jeremy, are already a passionate devotee of this artist, or if this is your first encounter with him, you are in for a treat.
A bonus episode on Igor Gorin on my Patreon page, produced at the time this episode was first heard more than three years ago, includes complete performances of two constrasting song cycles by Modest Mussorgsky, The Nursery and the Songs and Dances of Death.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
(Leavin’ on a jet plane this afternoon, so posting a day or so early!)
It is a wonderful thing when friends share a favorite singer. Such is the case with my friend of long-standing, Julian Long (once one reaches a certain age, one no longer uses the term “old friend”). As part of this month’s series of Listeners’ Favorites episodes, Julian has been kind enough to record a new intro for a Countermelody episode that I posted three years ago as a birthday tribute to the marvelous Finnish baritone Jorma Hynninen, who on April 3 will celebrate his 83rd birthday. Unlike me, Julian heard Hynninen many times in both opera and, especially, recital. This episode focuses on Hynninen’s prowess as a singer of art song, beginning with some choice German Lieder recordings, but ultimately focusing on the songs of his native Finland. We hear Hynninen in performances across the span of his entire career, from 1968 through 2015. Needless to say, their great compatriot Jean Sibelius is foregrounded, but, there are a surprising number of fascinating composers in this magisterial country whose work also rewards exploration. If the music of Oskar Merikanto, Yrjö Kilpinen, Erik Bergman, Selim Palmgren, Fredrik Pacius, Väino Hannikainen, Taneli Kuusisto, or Toivo Kuula is not familiar to you, prepare to be delighted, surprised, and moved by the depth and variety of their creation. Soile Isokoski also joins Hynninen in an excerpt from the cantata Der Ochs und sein Hirte by Hynninen’s multi-talented pianist Rolf Gothóni, who is heard in many of the selections. The program concludes with Hynninen’s perusal of both pop standards and tango, both sung in Finnish. Don’t mind Julian and me as we go off to individually nurse our mutual crush!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
This month’s series of Listeners’ Favorites continues with the baritone Heinrich Rehkemper (1894-1949), presented to you today by my dear friend, the esteemed conductor Gavin Carr, who is the very person that first introduced him to me many years ago now. Rehkemper is one of a number of exceptional German baritones of that era who represent a very different kind of singing than we are accustomed to today: full-throated voices with an even scale from top to bottom managed with no technical gimmickry or phoniness. Rehkemper brought these traits to whatever music he was singing, whether opera, oratorio, or Lied. He left a small but important cache of discs, including many Lieder recordings, particularly of Franz Schubert. He also made the first complete recording in 1928 of Gustav Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder under the baton of none other than the great Mahler conductor Jascha Horenstein. I place Rehkemper in the context of the other significant German baritones of his era, Heinrich Schlusnus, Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, Karl Schmitt-Walter, and Gerhard Hüsch, playing examples of each singing the aria of Di Luna from Verdi’s Der Troubadour, each sung in German translation. But it is first and foremost the unique legacy of Rehkemper’s art song recordings that concerns me here, and I discuss what makes his work so important, and what today’s singers can learn through close study of his recordings. My dear friends, just because the name of today’s baritone might not be familiar to you, Gavin and I both implore you not to hesitate in partaking of the vocal and musical riches to be discovered in this episode!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
My dear friend and colleague soprano Sarah Pillow introduces one of her favorite Countermelody programs, which I repost as the first of this month’s Listeners’ Favorites episodes. Since Sarah is herself an enormously eclectic singer, it’s entirely fitting that she should choose to foreground Eileen Farrell. The American dramatic soprano Eileen Farrell (1920–2002) was one of the finest and most versatile singers the United States has ever produced. Her singing career lasted more than fifty years, and this episode covers the entire chronological range of that career, from her early work as a radio singer in the 1940s to her final pop albums in the 1990s. While the episode focuses on her crossover work (and includes work by, among others, Harold Arlen, Jule Styne, Alec Wilder, George Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, as heard on two of her lesser-known pop albums with Percy Faith and the late André Previn), we also sample her opera and concert work, with examples from Verdi and Wagner to Debussy and Charpentier, to Barber and Menotti. A late reunion with her favorite conductor Leonard Bernstein caps the episode. In all her singing Farrell combines ease of delivery and a relaxed, insouciant response to the words and music with a vocal and interpretive precision that inevitably strikes a bullseye. Bow down to the Queen of Crossover, nay, the Queen of Song!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
This week I present a Countermelody mini-series paying tribute to three great African American artists who were born in Baltimore. First up is the eclectic, versatile, and prodigiously talented Damon Evans, who introduces the latest Listeners’ Favorites episode, a tribute to an idol we both treasure, the phenomenal and pathbreaking George Shirley, who on April 18 will celebrate his 90th birthday. Damon chose to do his introduction as an interview, so as a prelude to the main episode, my listeners get to hear one amazing tenor sing the praises of another one!
George Shirley is one of the most versatile tenors of the second half of the twentieth century, and a pathbreaker as the first African American tenor to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. I first encountered him through his matchless portrayal of Pelléas in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande opposite Elisabeth Söderström. But his Mozart is equally celebrated: the podcast also features live and studio recordings of George Shirley as Tamino (opposite Judith Raskin), Don Ottavio, Ferrando (opposite Leontyne Price), as well as his extraordinary Idomeneo. Extant live performances of George Shirley including assumptions of roles as diverse as Don José (opposite Shirley Verrett), David in Die Meistersinger, Pinkerton (opposite the late Renata Scotto in an incandescent early performance of one of her greatest roles), Mephistopheles in Busoni’s Doktor Faust, and even Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos. All of these are included in the episode, as are rare recordings of art songs and spirituals from throughout his career. Raise a glass to the great George Shirley and join me in thanking him for having shared so generously with us his extraordinary artistic gifts!
My friend Paul Kirby is a musical polymath: a tenor of excellence who performs throughout the world as both a soloist and as a valued member in small vocal ensembles; he is also a killer banjo player and bluegrass singer, and a member of the Norwegian group Stemmespesialisten that combines voice lessons, voice massage and coaching. In addition he has worked as a musical administrator and is a Timani teacher in training: an education that focuses on in-depth anatomical knowledge in order to enhance movement and playing for musicians. He has also been a valued and trusted friend of mine for the past twenty years, and was a major encouragement and support when I was putting Countemelody on its feet. For his favorite episode of the podcast, Paul has chosen the Fourth of July episode I posted in 2021. In this episode I bring you a gorgeous conglomeration of great baritones and bass-baritones performing songs by the emblematic American composer Charles Ives. In this episode we hear thirty of his songs which display a wide range of compositional, musical, and literary styles. Some of the greatest Ives interpreters are represented here, including Thomas Stewart, Samuel Ramey, Donald Gramm, Sanford Sylvan, Kurt Ollmann, Gerald Finley, William Sharp, and William Parker, accompanied by Alan Mandel, Dalton Baldwin, Alan Feinberg, Warren Jones, Steven Blier, Craig Rutenberg, and others. I finish the program with Jerry Hadley performing that most celebratory of Ives’s songs, “The Circus Band.” Since this episode was first posted I have gone on to produce full episodes on Donald Gramm, William Parker, and Jerry Hadley. Thanks, Paul, for your support, encouragement, and wonderful introduction to this episode that also does not shy away from the question of Ives’s alleged homophobia, but remains focused on the composer himself as well as the array of wonderful performers who celebrate Ives’s fascinating combination of old-fashioned Americana and revolutionary compositional techniques.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
My friend and fellow opera podcaster Howard Hart introduces the first of this week’s Listeners’ Favorites episodes, my 2021 tribute to the superb zwischenfach singer Christa Ludwig, who died nearly three years ago. Ludwig was a singer whose repertoire centered around the great German composers but who also sang Verdi and French repertoire with stunning results; a mezzo-soprano who was unparalleled in Wagner, Mahler, and Brahms, but who also sang the great soprano heroines of Richard Strauss; a Lieder singer of great perception and textual acuity whose supple technique nonetheless was centered on legato singing: the greatness of this artist simply cannot be overestimated. I focus on the key composers (Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Wagner) and conductors (Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan, and Leonard Bernstein) with whom she was most closely associated, while also examining some roles that might surprise you: Cenerentola, Amneris and Marie in Wozzeck. Vocal guest stars include Gloria Davy, Victoria de los Ángeles, Reri Grist, Gundula Janowitz, Gwyneth Jones, and Ludwig’s one-time husband Walter Berry. Thank you, Howard, for lending your enthusiasm and passion to my podcast in your introduction of one of your (and my) favorite singers.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today’s Listeners’ Favorites episode of Countermelody is introduced by my good friend (and Countermelody fan) the marvelous mezzo-soprano Anna Tonna. In her introduction Anna tells about her first exposure to the podcast and introduces us to one of her favorite episodes: the one I published in May 2022 a week after the beloved singer died at the age of 89. The episode pays tribute to her artistry through the exploration of her operatic roles, from Neris in Medea opposite Maria Callas, through her matchless Mozart and Rossini portrayals, through her fascinating and highly individualized portrait of the title heroine of Bizet’s Carmen. Special emphasis is given to her performance of Spanish music, from the zarzuelas of Ruperto Chapí and Federico Moreno Torroba, to art songs of Manuel de Falla and Fredric Mompou. Vocal guest stars include Mirella Freni, Pilar Lorengar, Lola Rodríguez Aragón, Franco Bonisolli, and the incendiary Callas herself, an early mentor and supporter of Berganza. I began the preparation for this episode with an incomplete appreciation of Berganza’s voice and artistry, but, knowing that she was one of Anna’s most treasured singers and role models, my goal was to see her through Anna’s eyes, and in the end, I was completely won over. This episode perfectly illustrates the podcast as a journey of mutual discovery for both me and my listeners.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
This Listeners’ Favorites episode serves a dual purpose: first it is a celebration the publication this week of my partner David Savran’s new book, Tell It to the World: The Broadway Musical Abroad, by Oxford University Press. (I’ll be doing two episodes with David on this book in March in conjunction with the book launch.) Second, David introduces us to one of his favorite Countermelody episodes, a 2021 Black History Month celebration of the life, voice, and career of the great African American contralto Carol Brice (1916-1985), whose career encompassed both Broadway and opera. It’s that very versatility that most attracted David to Brice’s work. He describes to us his first exposure to a variety of her recordings, from Falla to Finian’s Rainbow. I myself first heard Carol Brice in her recording of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” which exemplifies all her musical virtues: simplicity and directness of utterance, lack of sentimentality, and deep identification with both text and music. Add to this a voice of such depth and refinement and a technique so secure that she is almost without equal. From her early career outings as the first African American to win the coveted Naumburg Award, through her appearances on the Broadway stage and in Porgy and Bess, Carol Brice brought an emotional honesty to her performances such as is rarely encountered in any field of genre. On this episode I feature her in a wide range of live and commercial recordings from Marc Blitzstein’s Regina to concert pieces by Brahms and Mahler, focusing in particular on a matchless 1947 song recital with her brother Jonathan Brice as her collaborator. Brice’s second husband, the baritone Thomas Carey is also featured in a pair of recordings. Thank you, David, for re-introducing my listeners to this great artist, and congratulations on your monumental new book!
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Today’s subject is Eleanor Steber, certainly one of the greatest and most versatile of American sopranos. She is introduced by one of the most recent (and most colorful) of all of my listeners, the San Francisco-based drag artiste (and vocalist extraordinaire) Dusty Pörn. In this very special episode, which I first posted in the summer of 2022 in honor of Steber’s 108th birthday, musical selections from across the duration of Steber’s long career, are supplemented by the generous and loving commentary of my friend, singer and conductor Michelle Oesterle, who was Eleanor’s stepdaughter. As such Michelle spent time (especially in the summer months) with her father and Eleanor at Melodie Hill, Eleanor’s estate on Long Island. She provides us with an unparalleled intimate portrait of Eleanor as woman and as singer and describes the profound influence that Eleanor had in her life, as well as the characteristics that combined to make her the profoundly appealing and moving interpreter that she was. She also addresses the white elephant in the room, that is, Eleanor’s alcoholism, and makes a plea for tolerance and understanding vis-à-vis this serious disease. Many thanks to both Dusty and Michelle for their loving and perceptive tributes to this greatest of singers and artists.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
January 9 is already the second anniversary of the death of the iconoclastic (and iconic) Maria Ewing, who died of cancer in her home outside of her native Detroit on January 9, 2022. She was an artist both admired and derided during her lifetime, whose importance since her death has only become more apparent. It so happens that two of my most faithful listeners, Janet Williams and Paul Padillo, chose the episode that I published in her honor as their favorite episode. Paul is a passionate opera advocate who maintains a blog as well as a Facebook page in which he writes with extraordinary eloquence about the musical genre we all adore. Janet is celebrated throughout the world as one of the finest singers of her generation who has gone on to become one of the most important voice teachers in the world today, teaching, with compassion and common sense, a technique grounded in the essentials of bel canto. Their spoken introductions to the episode highlight different aspects of what made Ewing so special. For Paul, he became a lifelong fan after hearing her performance of Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s operatic masterpiece, The Dialogues of the Carmelites. For Janet, it was a shared provenance (both were natives of Detroit) as well as a common mentor, the late David Di Chiera, who founded and ran Michigan Opera Theatre, the company featured both Maria and Janet in some of their first operatic appearances. Maria’s passing hit me particularly hard because at the time of her death, I was in the midst of creating a special episode in her honor and had been immersing myself in her fascinating performances, finding myself more and more in awe of her one-of-a-kind artistry. This tribute episode is simply not to be missed.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.
Welcome to Season Five of Countermelody! While I indulge in a much-needed break for the month of January (my first in four years!), I have asked a number of Countermelody fans and listeners to provide spoken introductions to some of their favorite episodes from the first three seasons of the podcast. Today conductor Brian Castles-Onion introduces an episode from June 2020, as we neared the height of the pandemic and the panic surrounding it. It is an interview with Ira Siff, artistic director of La Gran Scena Opera Company di New York, alter ego of the beloved “traumatic soprano” Vera Galupe-Borszkh, lecturer for the Metropolitan Opera Guild and Weekly Commentator on the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. So much has changed for everyone since the interview was recorded in January 2020, most poignantly (as relates to this episode) the death of our beloved Chic Walker (who portrayed Dame Emily Post-Morddum and Alfredo Sorta-Pudgi in La Gran Scena) on 11 April 2022; and the passing of Renata Scotto on 16 August 2023.
My association with Ira Siff and La Gran Scena Opera Company di New York goes back more than thirty years, when Ira provided me with my first employment as a professional singer when my alter ego Daniela della Scarpone sang for two years with the renowned travesty opera company. I sat down with Ira in his East Village apartment in January 2020 for a wide-ranging interview in which we discuss his early days as a standee at the old Met (where some of his opera-going experiences included Maria Callas’s final Tosca performances, Renata Scotto’s 1965 debut as Madama Butterfly, and Leonie Rysanek’s wild traversals of Verdi and Wagner). He discusses his first performing experiences in the early 1970s in association with Al Carmines and others, the genesis of La Gran Scena and their development into a worldwide phenomenon, and his subsequent “legitimate” career as lecturer, stage director, vocal coach and voice teacher and commentator all stemmed from in his words, “getting in a dress and singing soprano,” which he dubs “the strangest part.” This is a free-wheeling and extremely Opera Queeny interview, peppered with Ira’s unique anecdotes and snippets from Gran Scena (and other!) performances.
Today’s guest host Brian Castles-Onion is one of Australia’s most exciting and well-known opera conductors. Completing his tertiary studies at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music, his outstanding achievements speak for themselves. He has worked at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Julliard School of Music and the Rossini Festival in Italy, and has held the position of Artistic Director of Canterbury Opera in New Zealand. He currently continues his long run association with Opera Australia. His conducting experience includes well over five hundred opera performances throughout Australia, Asia and New Zealand alone. He was on the podium for Opera Australia’s 40th Anniversary Gala and 60th Anniversary Gala, The Robert Allman Farewell Gala and conducted the Dame Joan Sutherland State Memorial Service – which was broadcast internationally on television and radio. His book Losing the Plot in Opera has been a Best Seller in Australia and the UK. Brian became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2017 Australia Day Honours List.
Today’s interviewee and subject, Ira Siff, is a native New Yorker, who grew up on the standing room line of the old Metropolitan Opera, worshiping the famous singers of the 60’s. A graduate of the Cooper Union, with a degree in Fine Arts, Mr. Siff began to study voice, and made his debut as a tenor in 1970. For the next decade, he performed roles in opera, operetta and musicals in New York, at The New York Shakespeare Festival, Circle in the Square, Playwrights Horizons, and many other venues. Turning to cabaret, Ira created an act using vocal parody of opera, jazz, and other styles of music, gaining critical acclaim, and a loyal following. In 1981, he founded La Gran Scena Opera Company di New York, the internationally acclaimed travesty troupe, whose gifted falsetto “divas” have spoofed opera with great affection for over two decades, in New York annually, and on tours to some of the great festivals, theatres and opera houses of the world.
In 2000, he turned to stage directing, gaining critical acclaim for his productions of operas at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Sarasota Opera, The Caramoor Festival, and the Tanglewood Music Festival. All in all, he has directed operas for companies in New Jersey to New Zealand, with stops along the way in Puerto Rico, Lima, Peru and Utah. Singers whom he has directed include Sumi Jo, Dolora Zajick, Aprile Millo, Eglise Gutierrez, Krassimira Stoyanova, and the late Marcello Giordani. Conductors with whom he has collaborated as a stage director have included Richard Bonynge, Christoph von Dohnányi, and James Levine.
For the past thirty years, Mr. Siff has been a voice teacher and interpretive coach, teaching in New York, Italy, Israel, Holland and China, giving Master Classes for the Metropolitan Opera Guild, and was on the faculty of the Renata Scotto Vocal Academy. Ira was a guest teacher of bel canto technique at The Royal Conservatory in Den Haag in 2008, and then at the Dutch National Opera Academy for five seasons, and at the Amsterdam Conservatory in The Netherlands where he returned annually, and was appointed Permanent Guest Teacher. He has also given master classes in bel canto and verismo for the Metropolitan Opera Guild every season since 2008 and has presented sold-out lectures for the Met Guild as well on a variety of operatic topics. These lectures can be heard on the podcast of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Ira also lectures on opera twenty times a season for two private classes, has been a contributor of reviews and features to Opera News since 1997 and has been Weekly Commentator on the Met Broadcasts since 2007.
Countermelody is a podcast devoted to the glory and the power of the human voice raised in song. Singer and vocal aficionado Daniel Gundlach explores great singers of the past and present focusing in particular on those who are less well-remembered today than they should be. Daniel’s lifetime in music as a professional countertenor, pianist, vocal coach, voice teacher, and journalist yields an exciting array of anecdotes, impressions, and “inside stories.” At Countermelody’s core is the celebration of great singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. By clicking on the following link (https://linktr.ee/CountermelodyPodcast) you can find the dedicated Countermelody website which contains additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. The link will also take you to Countermelody’s Patreon page, where you can pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford.