Tag Archives: Georg Friedrich Daumer

Episode 244. Veronica Tyler (BHM 2024)

February 23, 2024African American Singers, Art Song, Black History Month, Black History Month 2024, Comic Relief, Forgotten Divas, French Opera, Full-Figured Baroque, Giacomo Puccini, Great Baritones, In Memoriam, Lieder, Needle Drop, NYCO Divas, Opera in Translation, Singers of Color, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartArthur Gold, Carmen, Charles Bressler, Die Zauberflöte, Du Bose Heyward, Emanuel Schikaneder, Erich Leinsdorf, Ernest Ragogini, Florence Price, Georg Friedrich Daumer, George Gershwin, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini Luigi Illica, Gian Carlo Menotti, Giuseppe Giacosa, Gregory Millar, Gustave Charpentier, Henri Meilhac, Henri Murger, Hermann Prey, Ira Gershwin, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Brahms, John Boyden, John Reardon, Julius Rudel, La Boheme, Leoanrd Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, Louise (Charpentier), Ludovic Halévy, Porgy and Bess, Prosper Mérimée, Regina Sarfaty, Robert Fizdale, Robert Schumann, Spirituals, Szene aus Goethes Faust (Schumann), Veronica Tyler, Warren Wilson, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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This Countermelody episode is the last in my miniseries featuring artists from Baltimore. It is also the last in my new episodes for Black History Month 2024 featuring “Forgotten Divas.” Today I offer to you the absolutely divine soprano of Veronica Tyler (1939-2020), who fits all three categories. In the 1960s, Veronica Tyler was a name on everyone’s lips: she appeared on three different episodes of Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, she was the second prize winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1966, the first time this venerable contest had featured singers, she was a featured artist at the New York City Opera, where, in their first season at Lincoln Center, she sang a Pamina in The Magic Flute of such humanity and transcendent vocal beauty that audiences were transported into another world. She sang under conductors Leopold Stokowski, Erich Leinsdorf, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy, Carlo Maria Giulini, Robert Shaw, and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. Later on she made a belated Met debut in 1985 as Serena in their premiere production of Porgy and Bess, but gradually her high profile appearances became fewer and fewer and eventually she disappeared from view. Her death on 21 March 2020 was only announced three months later, and with little fanfare. But during her heyday, Veronica Tyler was among the most elegant, compelling, and ingratiating lyric sopranos in the business. I have scoured the archives to bring to light some of the artist’s most beautiful performances, some of them virtually unheard for decades, including a 1980 album of spirituals that ranks among the best of this repertoire ever committed to disc. What inexpressible joy it brings me to present to you the unforgettable Veronica Tyler!

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 229. Happy Birthday, John Wustman

December 25, 2023Art Song, Behind the Iron Curtain, Bel canto, Canadian Singers, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Tenors, Gustav Mahler, Happy Birthday, Holiday Music, Lieder, Mezzo Madness, Needle Drop, Renata Scotto, Richard Strauss, Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus MozartAleksey Tolstoy, Alessandro Scarlatti, Arseniy Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Birgit Nilsson, Carl Loewe, Carlo Bergonzi, Carlo Pepoli, Donald Bell, Eduard Mörike, Edvard Grieg, Fiançailles pour rire, Francesco Petrarca, Francis Poulenc, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Friedrich Martin von Bodenstedt, Georg Friedrich Daumer, Gioacchino Rossini, Giovanni Bononcini, Gwyneth Jones, Heinrich Hart, Hugo Wolf, Irina Arkhopova, Italienisches Liederbuch, Johann Mayrhofer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Brahms, John Henry McKay, John Wustman, Joseph von Eichendorff, Le nozze di Figaro, Lorenzo da Ponte, Louise de Vilmorin, Luciano Pavarotti, Mildred Miller, Modest Mussorgsky, Nicolai Gedda, Nordahl Rolfsen, Norman Mackenzie, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Regine Crespin, Renata Scotto, Richard Strauss, Richard Tucker, Robert Shaw, Songs and Dances of Death, Susan Dunn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozartcountermelody

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Today, Christmas Day 2023, is also the 93rd birthday of my teacher, the great John Wustman. I can think of no better way to conclude Season Four of Countermelody than with a tribute to the man who had the greatest influence on my development as a musician. He’s probably best-known for his work with Luciano Pavarotti and as the accompanist in more than thirty Music Minus One LPs from the early 1960s, as well as for his pioneering teaching of scores of accompanists. He has been called “the dean of American accompanists” and many other things, but to me he is and remains primarily my dear friend and mentor. From the late 1950s through the 1980s and beyond, he appeared with nearly all of the greatest singers on the planet, from Richard Tucker, William Warfield, Eleanor Steber, and Jennie Tourel; to Birgit Nilsson, Carlo Bergonzi, Régine Crespin, Nicolai Gedda, and Renata Scotto. He and Russian mezzo-soprano Irina Arkhipova won the 1973 Gran Prix du Disque for their legendary (and matchless) recording of Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, only one of his many commercial recordings. I have been searching the internet for sound documents of his many live recordings and I’m pleased to say that I have found some rare ones to complement my reminiscences of studying with him in the late 1980s. He wrote to me just this past week that he is currently preparing another live performance of Schubert’s Winterreise in early 2024. I am so thrilled to pay tribute to the man who, through his powerful example and influence, forever changed the way I play, sing, talk about, think about, and hear music.

Episode 201. Britten – Pears (Pride 2023)

June 16, 2023Art Song, Comic Relief, Drag Performance, Great Tenors, Lieder, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Orchestral Songs, Queer Pride, Schubert, Singers in Old Age, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century OperaA Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Shropshire Lad, A.E. Housman, Aaron Copland, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Pushkin, Anton Friedrich Reil, Benjamin Britten, Billy Budd, Charles Dibdin, Claudio Arrau, Colin McPhee, Curlew River, Death in Venice, Dichterliebe, E.M. Forster, Eric Crozier, Francis Quarles, Frank Bridge, Franz Schubert, Gabriel Faure, Georg Friedrich Daumer, George Crabbe, Glenda Jackson, Gustav Holst, Heather Harper, Heinrich Heine, Herman Melville, Humbert Wolfe, Johannes Brahms, Kanze Jūrō, La bonne chanson, Leslie Woodgate, Liebeslieder-Walzer, Meredith Davies, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Montagu Slater, Myfanwy Piper, On this Island, Paul Verlaine, Peter Grimes, Peter Pears, Peter Warlock, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Reginald Goodall, Richard Peaslee, Robert Schumann, Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, Stevie Smith, Sumidagawa, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Mann, W.H. Auden, War Requiem, Wilfred Owen, William Butler Yeats, William Plomer, William Shakespeare, Winter Words, Yevgeny Onegin, Zorian String Quartetcountermelody

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Today’s episode explores the lives and loves of two of the most significant figures in twentieth century music: Benjamin Britten, the dean of British composers and the tenor Peter Pears, his partner, lover, inspiration and muse for nearly forty years. When as a lost young gay boy I first encountered their music-making I intuited that these two men were lovers, that they represented a way forward for me out of a lonely and forlorn childhood. Whether in the many songs and cycles that Britten fashioned for him or the operatic roles, beginning with the title role of Peter Grimes, that were tailor-made for him, Pears remains the ideal interpreter of his partner’s music, possessed as he was of a distinctive (some would say peculiar) voice, supple, reedy yet surprisingly powerful, along with pinpoint musical precision, plangent expressivity and dramatic aptitude. The episode features excerpts from many of Britten’s most explicitly gay compositions, surprising for a man living in Britain while sex between men was still illegal, including the operas Peter Grimes, Curlew River, Billy Budd, and Death in Venice and his settings of poetry by Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Auden, and Francis Quarles. We also hear Pears and Britten in live and recorded performance of songs and arias by other composers, including composers Britten revered (Schumann, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Frank Bridge), and those of whose music he was much less fond (including Vaughan Williams and Brahms). The episode contains more biographical information than your typical Countermelody episode, and does not shy away from some of the thorniest questions that one must confront when discussing these two controversial figures. But in the end it is first and foremost a celebration of the music Britten and Pears made together and the love they shared for 40 years. The episode begins with a heartfelt (and heartbroken) tribute to the great Glenda Jackson, who died this week at the age of 87.

Episode 196. Grace Bumbry In Memoriam

May 11, 2023African American Singers, Art Song, In Memoriam, Lieder, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Schubert, Singers in Old Age, Singers of ColorAdolf Heyduk, Antonín Dvořák, Beaumont Glass, Christian L’Egru, Christian Schubart, Erik Werba, Franz Schubert, Friedrich Rückert, Geoffrey Parsons, Georg Friedrich Daumer, Grace Bumbry, Hans Schmidt, Harry T. Burleigh, Heinrich Heine, Helmut Deutsch, Hermann Kletke, Hugo Wolf, Jakob Niklaus von Craigher, Johann Gabriel Seidl, Johann Georg Jacobi, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Brahms, Joseph von Eichendorff, Julius Mosen, Leonard Hokanson, Lotte Lehmann, Matthias Claudius, Robert Schumann, Sebastian Peschkocountermelody

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This past week the world of opera was plunged in mourning at the news of the death of the unique, the irreplaceable Grace Bumbry (04 January 1937 – 07 May 2023), an artist equal parts daredevil and refined, whose artistry enchanted us for more than sixty years. In recent months many of us anxiously awaited news of her health after she suffered a stroke last October, from which she miraculously if temporarily rebounded. Though the news of her death was therefore not unexpected, it is both momentous and sombre in that it signals the end of an era. In October I produced a pair of episodes in her honor, the second of which, published exclusively on Patreon, celebrated her prowess as a Lieder singer. As such, she carried on the tradition and bore the mantel of the great Lotte Lehmann, her teacher and mentor; Bumbry said of her: “Lotte Lehmann will always remain for me the most important person in my entire musical life.” The episode features examples of Bumbry’s Lieder singing over the course of more than forty years, with a particular focus on her rare 1976 EMI release with pianist Geoffrey Parsons of Songs by Schumann and Schubert, which is heard in its entirety. Though I am bereft at her passing, I celebrate her mastery of a subtle and refined art form which formed the cornerstone of her artistry.

Episode 193. Alexander Kipnis

April 21, 2023Art Song, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, SchubertAlexander Kipnis, Alexander Pushkin, Antonio García Gutiérrez, Arrigo Boito, Arthur Bergh, Arturo Toscanini, Boris Godunov, Celius Dougherty, Clemens Schmalstich, Coenraad V. Bos, Der Rosenkavalier, Der Zauberflöte, Detlev von Liliencron, Dichterliebe, Emanuel Schikaneder, Erich Ortmann, Ernst Victor Wolff, Folk Song, Francesco Maria Piave, Frank Bibb, Franz Schubert, Friedrich Schiller, Georg Friedrich Daumer, Gerald Moore, Giuseppe Verdi, Gleb Yellin, Heinrich Heine, Hermann Lingg, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Hugo Wolf, Italienisches Liederbuch, J. Michel Diack, Johannes Brahms, Joseph von Eichendorff, Ludwig Rellstab, Michelangelo, Modest Mussorgsky, Nicolai Berezovsky, Paul Heyse, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Robert Schumann, Schwanengesang, Simon Boccanegra, Tristan und Isolde, Walter Heinrich Robert-Tornow, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Wolfgang Rosécountermelody

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If I were to indulge in the foolish task of dubbing certain artists the “Greatest Ever,” I would have little hesitation in naming Ukrainian-American bass Alexander Kipnis (1891–1978) “the greatest” in several categories: greatest Wagner bass, greatest low-voiced Lieder singer, just maybe even the greatest bass ever captured on recording. Though I am trying to wean myself of these designations, I have no difficulty in naming Kipnis my favorite bass. In this episode, his operatic impersonations, though legendary, are touched on but peripherally: the focus instead is on his contributions in art song, specifically Lieder. Despite his heavily-accented German (which to my ear only increases the power of his interpretations in songs like Schubert’s “Aufenthalt” or Wolf’s Michelangelo-Lieder), Kipnis was as keenly attuned to text and its musical setting than any singer of art song before or since. As usual of late in my episodes, I begin with several short contrasting examples that illustrate the “why” question: why was this artist so important, and why does he remain so? There follow a few all-too-brief examples of Kipnis in opera, including examples stretching back to his earliest recordings in 1916, when he was barely 25 years old. Then follow a further examination of Kipnis’s Lieder recordings, including a rare 1943 radio broadcast of Schumann’s Dichterliebe accompanied by Wolfgang Rosé, the son-in-law of Gustav Mahler, as well as recordings issued under the aegis of the Hugo Wolf Society and the Johannes Brahms Society, and his matchless early recordings of the songs of Franz Schubert, which were my introduction not only to Kipnis’s magisterial voice, but also the songs themselves. In all of this material, whether tender, ardent, humorous, or transcendent, Kipnis’s dignity and humanity shine through.

Episode 121. Auld Acquaintance I

December 23, 2021African American Singers, Art Song, Behind the Iron Curtain, Eileen Farrell, Full-Figured Baroque, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Holiday Music, Lieder, Mezzo Madness, Mirella Freni, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Operetta, Pop Icons, Protest Songs, Renata Scotto, Richard Wagner, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century Music, VerismoAlban Berg, Alexander Pushkin, Allen Rogers, Antoinette Vischer, Antonio Rubino, Barry McDaniel, Benjamin Britten, Bernard Kruysen, Bo Bergman, Borislav Bezala, Camilla Williams, Carlo Alberto Rossi, Cathy Berberian, César Cui, Christmas songs, Claudio Arrau, Claudio Monteverdi, David Garvey, Dusty Springfield, e.e. cummings, Eileen Farrell, Elisabeth Soderstrom, Elza van der Ven, Ernesto Lecuona, Eugene Ormandy, Gabriel Faure, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Georg Friedrich Daumer, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Shirley, Gianfranco Rivoli, Gilbert Bécaud, Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi, Gloria Davy, Heather Harper, Huguette Dreyfus, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Janet Baker, Jean Lamy, Jennie Tourel, Johann Christian Bach, John Raitt, Jonas Kulka, Jorma Hynninen, Josef Ulsamer, Julia Migenes, Karl Weigl, L’amico Fritz, Lawrence Winters, Leone Magiera, Leslie Scott, Lionel Hampton, Loonis McGlohon, Luciano Berio, Luciano Pavarotti, Manny Curtis, Margaret Marshall, Mirella Freni, Nicola Daspuro, Nicolae Herlea, Odetta, Ottorino Respighi, Pagliacci, Paolo Tosti, Peter Altenberg, Pierre Boulez, Pierre Delanoë, Pietro Mascagni, Pino Calvi, Renata Scotto, Richard Wagner, Robert McFerrin, Robert Stolz, Rosanna Carteri, Rudolf Ewerhart, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Scott Walter, Shirley Verrett, Spirituals, Stig Westerberg, Sully Prudhomme, Tannhäuser, Teresa Żylis-Gara, Ture Rangström, Walter Calé, Werner Eisbrenner, Xavier Cugat, Yi-Kwei Szecountermelody

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This special episode, the first of two year-end celebrations, presents artists who have already been featured on Countermelody in rare recordings that have recently become available to me. A few of the artists heard include George Shirley, Heather Harper, Lawrence Winters, Elisabeth Söderström, Camilla Williams, Julia Migenes, John Raitt, Gloria Davy, Rosanna Carteri, Mirella Freni, Robert McFerrin, Margaret Marshall, Yi-Kwei Sze, Eileen Farrell, Shirley Verrett, Cathy Berberian, and many, many others in recordings, most from my personal collection, which you may not have heard before. This is a gift of love and gratitude from me to my listeners and supporters, a backward glance at all of the great singers who have been heard on the podcast over the past two and a half years, a theme which will continue next week. I look forward to continuing with new topics and new singers as we move into 2022.