Countermelody

• Episode 360. Ben Luxon: King of Crossover

  Benjamin Luxon, the esteemed Cornish baritone who died at the age of 87 last July, had one of the most wide-ranging repertoires of any singer of the past century, from the classical repertoire (including opera, oratorio, art song over the course of at least four centuries and in a host of languages, including work written expressly for him) through Victorian parlor song, to traditional folk. Additionally, in the early 1980s he recorded a trilogy of crossover albums for British RCA, all three of which are sampled on this episode. The first, Some Enchanted Evening, features show tunes; the second, As Time Goes By, a broad spectrum of movie-related songs; and the third, Something Else Again, highlights folk rock arrangements as well as original compositions by singer-songwriters of the period. In addition, I read from a particularly perceptive 2009 interview with Luxon in which he candidly discusses his hearing loss and how that impacted his singing career and his life as a performer. 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 or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 359. Get to Know Hugo Hasslo

  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 studio. Therefore the majority of this episode consists of live recordings, from as far back as Hasslo’s operatic debut in 1940 as Guglielmo under the baton of Fritz Busch, through to his performance as di Luna alongside Jussi Björling’s final operatic appearance in Sweden twenty years later. Along the way we hear excerpts from Rigoletto, Il tabarro, Yevgeny Onegin (or should I say Eugen Onegin), Il trovatore, and… Porgy and Bess (?!?!). I also include a sample of the singing of Hasslo’s teacher, the Scottish tenor Joseph Hislop to show that the apple did not fall far from the tree! Other singers appearing on the episode include Sena Jurinac, Einar Andersson, Sigurd Björling, Eric Sædén, Margareta Hallin, Arne Tyrén, Aase Nordmo Løvberg, Apollo Granforte, and a surprise visit from last week’s subject, the transcendent Elisabeth Söderström. 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 or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 358. Elisabeth Söderström Revisited

  There are very few singers that mean more to me than does Elisabeth Söderström. I was first made aware of her at the tender age of ten, when I became obsessed with Pelléas et Mélisande after hearing the (at the time) brand new recording of the opera conducted by Pierre Boulez which featured Söderström and George Shirley in the title roles. Further explorations yielded further delights: the complete Rachmaninov songs with Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Janáček heroines under Charles Mackerras. I began grabbing every recording of hers that I could get, and every time I encountered her unique voice, frail yet passionate, I fell further and further under her spell. And then I saw her onstage, both in recital and as the Marschallin on the Met Tour and I became an even more passionate devotee. When I was recently reminded that May 7 was her birthday, I determined that it was time to revisit her legacy and artistry. Because she was so quintessentially Swedish, I have chosen a program featuring Söderström singing primarily in Swedish, including a healthy sampling of music by Swedish composers (Blomdahl, Nordheim, Lindberg, Alfvén, Larsson, Nystroem, and Rangström). And because she sang so many of her operatic roles in Swedish translation, we also get to hear her as Charpentier’s Louise and Puccini’s Cio-Cio-San. Vocal guest stars are fellow great Swedish singers Erik Sædén and Hugo Hasslo. Also expect some delicious and delightful surprises, as this most spontaneous and inspired of singers always had something unexpected up her sleeve! 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 or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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• Episode 357. Faust auf Deutsch

  Today I offer three different recordings of excerpts, sung in German, from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, which was known in the day in Germany as Margarethe. The Germans have always regarded this work with more than a little scorn because it has so little to do with Goethe’s towering masterpiece upon which it is based. The earliest of today’s excerpts is from a complete 1908 recording on the Berlin branch of the Grammophon label (when such a thing as a complete operatic recording was virtually unheard of), featuring Emmy Destinn, Karl Jörn and Paul Knüpfer under the baton of Bruno Seidler-Winkler. Much later came two recordings of excerpts in German: the first released on Deutsche Grammophon in 1958 with stalwart recording artist Maria Stader; nonpareil Kavalierbariton Eberhard Wächter; fierce Finnish bass Kim Borg; and the late German lyric tenor Heinz Hoppe under Ferdinand Leitner. The latter was released on Philips in 1963 with Ernst Kozub (recently featured on a “rehabilitational” Countermelody episode; the extraordinary German bass Franz Crass, and Swiss mega-soprano Colette Lorand (soon to be featured in her own Countermelody episode) under Marcel Couraud. As a bonus, I also feature a very young Sylvia Sass in one of her very first recordings from 1975 singing Marguerite’s Jewel Song in Hungarian. 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 or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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  1:39:55
• Episode 356. Get to Know Irina Arkhipova

  Directly after the disastrous November election in the United States, I compiled a setlist for two episodes self-explanitorially entitled “Mezzos on the Verge” and “Mezzos in Extremis.” One of the featured singers was the great Russian mezzo-soprano Irina Arkhipova, whose 100th birthday on January 2 of this year was one of the few positive things to happen in January! I happened to have a number of LPs featuring Arkhipova, and this episode features material from a number of those records, plus a CD reissue from a few years back entitled “The Art of Irina Arkhipova,” which features the 1970 recording of Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov songs that the singer made in Moscow with my teacher John Wustman while they were judges in that year’s Tchaikovsky Competition. Arkhipova is also featured in songs by Tchaikovsky; Russian opera arias by Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky; and selections from both Carmen and Il Trovatore, which feature tenors Zurab Andzhaparidzye and Vladislav Piavko, the latter of whom was also Arkhipova’s protégé (and later husband). 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 or yearly support at whatever level you can afford.

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