Tag Archives: François Villon

Episode 404. Dan’s Belated Birthday Boys (Baritone Edition)

African American Singers, Art Song, Behind the Iron Curtain, Bel canto, Black History Month, Black History Month 2025, Broadway, Canadian Singers, Crossover, Full-Figured Baroque, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Lieder, Listeners' Favorites, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Operetta, Orchestral Songs, Pop Icons, Queer Pride, Rescue Mission, Schubert, Singers in Old Age, Singers of Color, Spirituals, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century Opera, Verismo, Voiceless Wonders, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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A brand-new episode today inaugurating a series of episodes belatedly celebrating my birthday that will see us through to the end of the month. I have so many singers, composers, and topics in which I am interested and hope to devote full episodes to in the near future. This is the first of two episodes focusing on baritones (and a few bass-baritones) who have not yet received full Countermelody treatment. Among the singers included: Josef Metternich, Tom Krause, Walter Berry, Theodor Uppman (pictured), Erich Kunz, Charles Panzéra, Roland Hermann, Aubrey Pankey, Kostas Paskalis, Pavel Lisitsian, Gianni Maffeo, John Shirley-Quirk, and exemplary pop singers Scott Walker and David Allyn singing a wide range of music from art songs of Sibelius, Rachmaninov, Griffes, Diepenbrock, and Vaughan Williams, to mélodies by Ravel, Debussy, and Hahn, to Lieder by Schubert and Brahms, to operetta arias to opera scenes and arias by Leoncavallo, Verdi, and Manfred Gurlitt; to pop songs by Randy Newman and Rodgers and Hart. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: also teased are forthcoming episodes on arie antiche and the Polish-Swiss composer Constantin Regamey. Come to think of it, today’s is an excellent introduction to the Countermelody podcast in all its range and scope.

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 author 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.

Episode 150. Francis Poulenc and Pierre Bernac [Pride 2022]

Art Song, Great Baritones, Lieder, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Queer Pride, Twentieth Century Music, Voiceless Wonders, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Something about this week’s episode has really gotten to me. I guess I’m just madly in love with the melodies of Francis Poulenc, and as a result, increasingly in love with the artistry of Pierre Bernac. These two formed an artistic partnership similar in intensity to that shared by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, except that in the case of the Gallic couple, this alliance did not include a romantic element. In spite of that, the pair achieved an artistic intimacy that is sometimes almost painfully honest. Maybe it’s that part of their story that so moves me: that two gay men, neither one sexually involved with the other, still achieved, on an altogether different plane, the deepest kind of intimacy. This episode features performances of the duo in melodies by Poulenc set to texts by Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Éluard and Louise de Vilmorin, as well as songs by Chabrier, Debussy, Chausson, and Samuel Barber. We also hear Bernac performing Bach and Schumann in collaboration with Robert Casadesus, Charles Munch, and Roger Désormière; and Poulenc accompanying singers Denise Duval, Hugues Cuénod, Geneviève Touraine, and Bernard Kruysen in both live and studio recordings. The episode features extensive discussion, mostly from Bernac’s book on Poulenc and his songs, of Poulenc’s devotion to poetry and his very particular compositional method of getting to the heart of a poem.