Countermelody

It’s my birthday! And we’re heading south for a week. But never fear: I have spent the week preparing in advance a number of new episodes which will “hit the airwaves” right on schedule. And, perhaps best of all, they’re my famous potpourri episodes, that feature everything but the kitchen sink! Today’s episode is another in my “Rescue Mission” series, featuring artists who have already received full Countermelody episodes, but who are always worth revisiting. And in each case, I’m playing material that has not yet been heard on the podcast, some of it exceedingly rare! So who is up on today’s episode? First, our beloved Roberta Alexander, the first anniversary of whose death we commemorate this coming week. Also heard are a veritable torrent of other Countermelody favorites: Heather Harper, Marvis Martin, Charles Kullman, George Shirley, Donald Gramm, Betty Allen, Jennie Tourel, Lenora Lafayette, Gérard Souzay, Helen Donath (who recently make a surprise return to the stage as the Old Countess in Pique-Dame!), Inez Matthews, Elisabeth Söderström, Shirley Verrett, Andrzej Hiolski, and the recently departed Ileana Cotrubaş in an extraordinarily rare 1984 recording of one of Franz Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets. I have reached the advanced age where receiving birthday gifts has lost its thrill and lustre, but I will never tire of sharing recordings of favorite artists that I have unearthed for our mutual enjoyment! And stay tuned for next week’s episode: a preview of forthcoming attractions coming in Season Eight (and beyond!)

Countermelody is the 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.

 

Today, October 3, is probably the most significant of all German holidays, the Tage der Deutschen Einheit, the day on which we celebrate “Die Wende,” German reunification. Though the country in some ways is more divided than it has ever been (shades of my own home country!), we somehow must continue to hold on to hope and love as the forces that drive us on. It just so happens that the episode I was planning for today fits in quite nicely with today’s theme of German reunification, as it presents two significant East German musicians, the jugendlich dramatisch soprano Hanne-Lore Kuhse, and the conductor Kurt Masur. The latter figure, in fact, played a significant part in Germany’s coming back together. The two of them were collaborators from the beginning of their respective careers, as they both performed at the Mecklenburgisches Staatsoper in Schwerin in the 1950s. The trajectory of Masur’s later career is well known; after Schwerin, Kuhse herself was a leading soprano first in Leipzig and then at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, finding her greatest personal success during a surprising yet brief sojourn to the United States in 1966, where she performed in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles in particular, just missing out (thanks to the machinery of the East German bureaucracy) on a Metropolitan Opera debut as Isolde, probably her greatest role. Today’s episode presents, nearly in its entirety, a 1968 release for the East German Eterna label which brought Kuhse and Masur back together. Another in the label’s Ein Opernabend mit… series, this installment features Kuhse and Masur collaborating on arias from Don Giovanni, Fidelio, Macbeth, and several Wagner operas, including Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, and Tristan. I supplement these with additional recordings of Kuhse, both live and studio, in Turandot, Iphigenia auf Tauris, Don Carlos, Radamisto of Handel, Tiefland by Eugen d’Albert, and Der Friedensengel of Siegfried Wagner. Still remembered by aficionados of great singing, Kuhse is revealed once again (or for the first time) as one of the most important German sopranos of the mid-twentieth century.

Countermelody is the 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.

 

 

Today is the one-year anniversary of my dear mother’s death. Yesterday, in preparing for my own private commemoration, I remembered that almost exactly a year ago, just two days after she died, I recorded the narration for a memorial episode in her honor that at the time I never published. Listening to the raw material for that episode, I realized that today would be the perfect time to publish that episode. I assumed that I would be so choked up with grief that I would not even be able to organize my thoughts, but I think I did a pretty good job of commemorating her in a way that only I could. As I remark, though my mother and I had a sometimes conflicted relationship because of her religious beliefs and conservative politics, we also shared the preternatural bond that mothers sometimes share with their children when they perceive the presence of a kindred spirit. For in spite of all the mutual head-butting in which we partook over the years, we were kindred spirits. And we both had to work extremely hard to keep those channels of love and respect open when, according to all our opposing vantage points, we should have been in enmity. This episode was wrung out of me just as the wave of my grief was cresting, but it’s so much better for that. I supplement my anecdotes and memories with a lot of music, from many different performers: everyone and everything from Bach to Johnnie Ray to “I Am Jesus’ Little Lamb” to Joan Baez to Mabel Mercer to Tom Lehrer to “Danny Boy” to the Brahms Deutsches Requiem and back again. I’m not sure that, after a year as an orphan (what the Germans would call a Vollwaise, , I would have the perspective to delve into my memories in the same way. Please give this episode a listen; maybe it will help you put certain things in perspective as well.

Countermelody is the 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.

 

Here’s another edition of what has beocme one of my (and my listeners’) favorite series of episodes, one that I have entitled “Bubbles on the Nile.” The title refers to a wonderful 1985 LP of the same name which featured favorite divas in unfamiliar or unexpected repertoire. Since publishing my first Bubbles on the Nile episode last spring, I have revisited the “franchise” with an all-Handel episode, and today, I’m back with an all-Verdi edition. The format of these episodes is thus: we always begin with Beverly herself singing a role or aria not typically associated with her, in this case, “Ernani, involami” from a 1967 radio recording for German radio. From there, I bring you a series of surprising performances from some of my (and, I hope your) favorite singers: Gundula Janowitz singing Odabella in Attila, Claudio Muzio singing Giselda in Lombardi, Margaret Price singing the title role of Giovanna d’Arco, Shirley Verrett singing Cuniza in Verdi’s first opera Oberto, Fiorenza Cossotto singing Amelia in Ballo, Callas singing Eboli, Bumbry singing the Trovatore Leonora, a rare 1960 RAI recording of Anna Moffo singing Desdemona, Carol Neblett as the Violetta of one’s dreams, a hair-raising live performance of Renata Scotto singing Abigaille in Nabucco, and Margaret Tynes as a compelling, idiosyncratic Lady Macbeth. Be prepared for some thrilling singing coming at you from all over the place!

Countermelody is the 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.

Today we commemorate the quarter century since 9/11, an event that sent shockwaves throughout the world as it was transpiring (and who can forget where they were in those first awful hours?) And yet the aftermath has been so much worse than one could even imagine at the time, and with no end in sight (witness the right-wing populism and divisiveness which have become the order of the day). My heart and spirit cry out in pain every single day and the only consolation, the only balm, my soul receives these days is through art, and particularly for me, as for many of us, music. 2026 has also seen an inordinate number of deaths of people who made a different in the world. As I struggled to come up with a theme and a setlist for today’s episode, one figure kept reappearing at the door: Belgian bass-baritone José van Dam, who died last February at the age of 85. Though I was a lifelong admirer of the singer, and was deeply saddened by his death, I have not yet presented a suitable memorial tribute in his honor. His voice exuded a warmth and humanity that gave his performances and portrayals a particular glow. So I have chosen to present him today singing music appropriate to this solemn occasion: songs of Ravel, Schubert, Gounod, Schumann, Fauré, Brahms, Ibert, Wolf, Mahler, and Trenet; supplemented by arias and scenes by Verdi, Massenet, Landowski, and Messiaen. I’m keeping chatter to a bare minimum on this episode, letting the music, the texts, and van Dam’s voice and artistry, create a patina of consolation for all the complicated emotions raised by this day of mourning and meditation.

Countermelody is the 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.