Tag Archives: James Joyce

Episode 217. Patricia Neway Revisited

October 4, 2023Art Song, Bel canto, Broadway, Crossover, Full-Figured Baroque, Giuseppe Verdi, Great Baritones, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, NYCO Divas, Twentieth Century MusicAndrea Maffei, Arnold Black, Dieterich Buxtehude, Donald Homuth, Ezio Cappelli, Frederick Dvonch, Giuseppe Verdi, Herman Chessid, Ippolito Pindemonte, Jacopo Vittorelli, James Joyce, Jerome Kern, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Gruen, Lehman Engel, Lorenzi Stecchetti, Luigi Balestra, Mary Martin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Patricia Neway, Pietro Mascagni, Pietro Metastasio, Renata Scotto, Richard Rodgers, Robert Colston, Rocco Emanuele Pagliara, Stephen Douglass, The Sound of Music, Thomas Mayer, Vincenzo Bellini, Walter Baracchicountermelody

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Today I revisit the artistry of the great Patricia Neway (1919-2012), a singer of extraordinary versatility, dramatic power, and musical sensibility. She is no doubt most famous for two of her Broadway creations: the role of the beleaguered Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s tragic opera The Consul, first produced on Broadway in 1950, and of the Mother Abbess in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final musical, 1959’s The Sound of Music. But the genesis for this episode was my recent discovery of her rare 1953 album of Italian art songs. Her voice was an unusual one, dusky yet capable of extraordinary colors, chiaroscuro, leggerezza, and agility, all of which are foregrounded in the aforementioned album of songs by Bellini, Verdi, and Mascagni. I also include a few brief excerpts of Neway singing material ranging from a sacred cantata by Buxtehude to settings of texts by James Joyce to a refined yet playful rendition of “My Favorite Things.” Of which she is definitely one!

The episode opens with a tribute to James Jorden, who died on October 3.

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.

Episode 204. Roberta Alexander Sings America

July 4, 2023African American Singers, Art Song, Broadway, Comic Relief, Crossover, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Singers of Color, Twentieth Century Music, Twentieth Century OperaAaron Copland, Alec Wilder, Alfred Heller, Brian Masuda, Charles Ives, David Triestram, Du Bose Heyward, Edo de Waart, Emily Dickinson, Eric Stern, Florence Price, Gary Miller, George Gershwin, George Meredith, Girl Crazy, Harry T. Burleigh, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, James Agee, James Joyce, Jerry Bock, Jerry Hadley, John Avery Lomax, John Greenleaf Whittier, John Jacob Niles, Kees Bakels, Larry Moore, Leonard Bernstein, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Old American Songs, Porgy and Bess, Reinbert de Leeuw, Roberta Alexander, Roger VIgnoles, Samuel Barber, Sheldon Harnick, Spirituals, Stephen Sondheim, Tan Crone, Thomas Hampson, Tom Lehrercountermelody

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Posting a few days early in celebration of the Fourth of July and in further recognition of the beloved American soprano Roberta Alexander, whose birthday we celebrated on Countermelody last March. Ms. Alexander has made a number of exquisite recordings over the years, many of them for the small Dutch label Etcetera. Many of these releases feature songs by the greatest American composers: Charles Ives, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, and Samuel Barber, as well as two releases featuring light classical and Broadway songs. The recordings range in date from 1976 (a live performance of Ives at the Holland Festival, in honor of the American Bicentennial) through 2009 (a live performance of Roberta as Maria in Porgy and Bess conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt). We also hear material by Berlin, Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Alec Wilder, Bock and Harnick, John Jacob Niles, and Tom Lehrer, accompanied by pianists Reinbert de Leeuw, Roger Vignoles, Alfred Heller, Brian Masuda, Tan Crone, and David Triestram and conductors Kees Bakels and Edo de Waart. Throughout, Roberta Alexander’s approach to this material is perfectly on target, revealing both pathos and a crackling sense of (often sardonic) humor, all grounded in a love of the music of her native country and wrapped in a red, white, and blue bow.

Episode 152. Patricia Neway

July 8, 2022Art Song, Broadway, French Opera, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Baritones, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Pop Icons, Protest Songs, Twentieth Century Music, VerismoA Hand of Bridge (Barber), Arnold Black, Arnold Voketaitis, Carlisle Floyd, Carlo Maria Giulini, Carousel (Rodgers & Hammerstein), Christoph Willibald Gluck, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Dietrich Buxtehude, Franca Duval, Francis Poulenc, Frederick Dvonch, Genia Las, George Bernanos, Gian Carlo Menotti, Iphigénie en Tauride, Israel Citkowitz, Jack Elliott, James Joyce, Jerome Kern, John Gruen, Joseph Machlis, Julius Rudel, Lehman Engel, Maria Golovin (Menotti), Norman Treigle, Oscar Hammerstein II, Otto Harbach, Patricia Neway, Peter Herman Adler, Regina Sarfaty, Richard Cross, Richard Rodgers, Robert Colston, Rosemary Kuhlmann, Ruth Kobald, Samuel Barber, The Consul (Menotti), The Sound of Music (Rodgers & Hammerstein), Thomas de Hartmann, Vladimir Golschmanncountermelody

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Today begins a new summer series on Countermelody, celebrating mid-century music-making in New York City between the years 1950 and 1975. We begin with a celebration of Patricia Neway (1919-2012), one of the towering figures of the operatic – and Broadway – stages. Two of her greatest assumptions, in fact, took place on the Broadway stage: Magda Sorel in Gian Carlo Menotti’s opera The Consul, which premiered on Broadway in 1950, and the Mother Abbess in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final stage music, The Sound of Music, for which Neway was awarded the 1960 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Neway combined an unusual voice of startling, sometimes raw, power, with an acting ability rarely seen, especially on the operatic stage. Neway’s range easily encompassed contralto roles as well as dramatic soprano parts. This episode features audio excerpts from rare kinescopes of her performances of Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites as Menotti’s Maria Golovin, as well as her galvanizing portrayal of Magda Sorel from a 1960 film. She also displays her stunning musical versatility in music by Buxtehude, Barber, Gluck, and the late Carlisle Floyd, as well as settings by Israel Citkowitz, John Gruen, and Thomas de Hartmann of texts by James Joyce from a rare 1959 recording. In addition, I dispel forever the fake news, all pervasive claims to the contrary, that Patricia Neway and someone named Frances Breeze, an exact contemporary of Neway’s, are one and the same person.

Episode 120. Bethany Beardslee

December 17, 2021Art Song, Happy Birthday, Holiday Music, Lieder, Needle Drop, Twentieth Century MusicAaron Copland, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg, August Strindberg, Basil Reeve, Bethany Beardslee, Charles Baudelaire, Cheryl Seltzer, Claude Debussy, Das buch der hängenden gärten, David Epstein, e.e. cummings, Ernest Guiraud, Fred Lerdahl, Friedrich Rückert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Godfrey Winham, Hermann Weigert, James Joyce, James Purdy, Joel Sachs, Johannes Brahms, John Hollander, Joseph von Eichendorff, Lois Shapiro, Lotte Lehmann, Mel Powell, Milton Babbitt, Murray Panitz, Otto Erich Hartleben, Paul Verlaine, Peter Altenberg, Philomel (Babbitt), Pierrot lunaire, Richard Goode, Robert Craft, Robert Helps, Robert Schumann, Theodor Storm, William Shakespearecountermelody

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Today’s episode celebrates a pioneer in the performance of twentieth century vocal music in anticipation of her 96th birthday on Christmas Day. Bethany Beardslee was a titan who set standards in the performance of the music of Arnold Schoenberg and Milton Babbitt in particular, but who also acted as muse to a host of mid-twentieth century avant garde composers whose work she premiered and often recorded. But she was also a member of the pioneering early music ensemble New York Pro Musica in the late 1950s and was an innovator in programming daring and diverse recital repertoire which combined Lieder and melodies with the contemporary music for which she was best known. This episode samples her recordings over the course of more than thirty years, and includes composers such as John Dowland, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, and Johannes Brahms alongside such twentieth century giants as Anton Webern, Ernst Krenek, Igor Stravinsky, Ben Weber, Mel Powell, Robert Helps, Fred Lerdahl, and Godfrey Winham, her second husband. Throughout the course of a career devoted to, to paraphrase the title of her autobiography, “singing the unsingable,” Bethany Beardslee combined rock solid-technique and silvery tone with peerless musicianship and interpretive acuity to set standards that have yet to be surpassed. Please join me in celebrating this great artist.

Episode 84. Cathy Berberian, Part I: MagnifiCathy

April 11, 2021Art Song, Broadway, Comic Relief, Crossover, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Operetta, Twentieth Century MusicArnold Schoenberg, Bruno Canino, Cathy Berberian, Claude Debussy, crossover, Edith Sitwell, Erik Satie, Fernando Obradors, folk music, Harold Lester, Henri Pousseur, Henry Purcell, humor in music, Igor Stravinsky, Italo Calvino, Jacques Offenbach, James Joyce, John Cage, Komitas Vardapet, Kurt Weill, Liza Lehmann, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Marius Constant, Pierre Boulez, Pierrot lunaire, Reynaldo Hahn, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Steely Dan, Steuart Bedford, Sylvano Bussotti, The Beatles, Umberto Eco, Victor Herbert, W.H. Auden, William Waltoncountermelody

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This episode is the first part of a tribute I have been wanting to create for quite some time. It honors the extraordinary artist and musician Cathy Berberian (1925-1983), the cosmopolitan Armenian-American vocalist who made an indelible mark on contemporary classical music and the public recital. Possessed of an extraordinarily flexible intelligence and sensibility, she influenced an entire generation of composers, including John Cage, Sylvano Bussotti, Henri Pousseur, and, in particular, her one-time husband Luciano Berio. Each of these composers wrote music with Berberian specifically in mind, and Berberian’s input strongly influenced the shape and form that these works assumed. Divorcing Berio in 1964 freed her to pursue her own musical interests, which included her own compositions, a musical friendship with Igor Stravinsky, a burgeoning interest in folk music, and the music of the Beatles. Her 1967 recording of so-called Beatles Arias (titled Revolution in its US release) is a unique document, which both explores the hidden depths of this material, at the same time poking fun at the entire crossover genre. Her daring theatricality and vibrant personality continue to exert an indelible influence that extends far beyond the avant garde. In two weeks I will explore the directions that she pursued in her later career.

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.” Occasional guests from the “business” (singers, conductors, composers, coaches, and teachers) lend their distinctive insights. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. Please visit the Countermelody website (www.countermelodypodcast.com) for additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. And please head to my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/countermelody to pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available only to Patreon supporters are currently available.

Cathy Berberian resources:

Music is the Air I Breathe, a 1994 documentary on Cathy Berberian by the late filmmaker Carrie de Swaan:

Links to audio interviews and performances on CathyBerberian.com.

Episode 80. Sad Songs (with a twist)

March 14, 2021Art Song, Comic Relief, Full-Figured Baroque, Great Baritones, Gustav Mahler, In Memoriam, Mezzo Madness, Music for a World in Crisis Series, Needle Drop, Schubert, Twentieth Century Music, Voiceless WondersAlexander Young, Alfredo Simonetto, Andréa Guiot, Ariettes oubliées, Banalités (Poulenc), Bernard Kruysen, Bethany Beardslee, Brigitte Fassbaender, Castor et Pollux (Rameau), Cathy Berberian, Charles Griffes, Charles Panzéra, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Claude Debussy, Claudio Monteverdi, Das Lied von der Erde, Dido and Aeneas, Die schöne Müllerin, Dylan Thomas, Eduard Mörike: Mörike-Lieder (Wolf). Irmgard Seefried, Felix de Nobel, Fiona MacLeod, Francis Poulenc, Franz Schubert, Gabriel Faure, George Szell, Georges Pretre, Gérard Souzay; Dalton Baldwin, Giacomo Puccini, Giovanni Francesco Busenello, Guillaume Apollinaire, Gustav Mahler, Heinrich Heine, Henry Purcell, Hugo Wolf, Igor Stravinsky, Irwin Gage, Jacques Leguerney, James Joyce, Janet Baker, Jayme Ovalle, Jean Fournet, Jean-Baptiste Rameau, Jean-Paul-Égide Martini, Jeanette Scovotti, Johannes Brahms, John Dowland, Jorma Hynninen, Julian Bream, Kurt Ollmann, L’incoronazione di Poppea, Les dialogues des Carmélites, Lois Marshall, Madeleine Panzéra-Baillot, Magda Olivero, Manuel Bandeira, Maria Callas, Mary Dibbern, Nan Merriman, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Noël Lee, Orphée et Eurydice, Paul Verlaine, Peter Pears, Phyllis Bryn-Julson, Pierre Bernac, Ralf Gothoni, Renée Doria, Reynaldo Hahn, Robert Helps, Robert Schumann, Seiji Ozawa, Suor Angelica, Victor Graef, Vier ernste Gesänge, Wilhelm Müller, William Sharp (Fiona MacLeod)countermelody

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It’s been a year since the pandemic sent us all into various degrees of lockdown, panic, and depression. In certain parts of the world there is no end in sight, while in other parts, medical expertise is being blatantly defied as lockdown measures are carelessly lifted. I did a survey of my friends and listeners this week regarding their favorite sad songs, and I got hit with an avalanche of a wide range of not-happy music. In this episode I am limiting myself to so-called “classical” music. Because the music itself is so heavy, I impersonate (at the top of the episode) a radio announcer for WOKE-FM, a fictional Milwaukee “Top 40 Classical Radio Station,” who is taking calls from all over the world from listeners requesting their favorite sad music. These spurious callers have invariably good taste, and request some glorious music, albeit very sad indeed, by some transcendent performers, including Irmgard Seefried, Maria Callas, Janet Baker, Pierre Bernac, Nan Merriman, Lois Marshall, Peter Pears, and two beautiful French sopranos, Renée Doria and Andréa Guiot, who, at extremely advanced ages, each recently departed this earth. Composers from Dowland, Rameau, and Monteverdi are represented, alongside Poulenc, Schubert, Mahler, Debussy, and Stravinsky. The episode also includes guest vocal appearances by singers, including Cathy Berberian, Magda Olivero, Charles Panzéra, Jorma Hynninen, and Bethany Beardslee, who will receive full-episode treatment in the near future. Ultimately, we return to the atmosphere of a normal Countermelody episode, and are deeply moved by the singers, composers, and music represented.

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.” Occasional guests from the “business” (singers, conductors, composers, coaches, and teachers) lend their distinctive insights. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. At Countermelody’s core is the interaction between singers of all stripes, their instruments, and the connection they make to the words they sing. Please visit the Countermelody website (www.countermelodypodcast.com) for additional content including artist photos and episode setlists. And please head to my Patreon page at www.patreon.com/countermelody to pledge your monthly support at whatever level you can afford. Bonus episodes available only to Patreon supporters are currently available.