Episodes

The 1950s recorded collaboration between two iconic artists: African American musical star Muriel Smith and Angela Morley: composer, conductor, arranger, and trans pioneer.

The earliest selection on last week’s Elisabeth Söderström episode featured the soprano at 24 singing the title role of Madama Butterfly. In that live recording, we also heard as Sharpless her compatriot the baritone Hugo Hasslo, to whom I introduced my listeners last fall. Today I dive a little bit deeper into Hasslo’s extant recordings. Considering what a great singer he was, and how his reputation has merely grown with the passage of time, it’s shocking how rarely Hasslo recorded in the studi...

Today would have been the 91st birthday of our beloved Renata Scotto. On an episode last year celebrating the 100th birthday of Maria Callas, I remarked that Renatina possessed in profusion two qualities that Maria lacked: cuteness and charm. Both of those qualities are heard in these performances of Rossini songs, which range from 1964 to 1984 and include Scotto in both live and studio recordings. For the last forty years of his life, Gioachino Rossini, who had written scores of operas by the t...

I’ve been wanting to revisit the legacy of the great African American soprano Gloria Davy (born in Brooklyn on 29 March 1931 and died in Genève on 28 November 2012) for some time now. In the first year of the podcast, I devoted one of my very first Black History Month episodes to exploring her career, recordings, and legacy. At that time, however, I had not yet acquired a commercial recording central to her recorded output: a 1957 LP on London Records entitled, simply, Concert Recital, which fea...

On February 10th, our beloved diva Leontyne Price celebrated her 98th birthday. Of course she is recognized for her performances of the operas of Verdi, but in my opinion, she was even more suited, uniquely so, to the music of Richard Strauss. Sadly, she only sang one operatic role by Strauss, but we can be grateful that she consistently programmed his Lieder over the course of her long career. I offer you as complete a selection of Leontyne Price (assisted by her able collaborative pianist Davi...

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...

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 f...