PODCAST

Countermelody

DANIEL GUNDLACH

Countermelody devoted to the glories of the human voice raised in song.

music music commentary

All Episodes

1:30:34

Episode 151. Cole Porter [Pride 2022]

Countermelody ·

2022/06/28

Because I’m still on the road, I’m posting an old bonus episode in place of a new one this week, and I’m posting it early. This was originally published about two years ago, in tandem with an episode that did on Cesare Siepi, which highlighted Easy to Love, his 1958 album of Cole Porter songs. Among my listeners, most of whom adored that episode, there were a few naysayers, including my own not-boyfriend, who felt that Siepi did not do justice to Porter’s insouciant wordplay. So I decided, as one of

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1:23:47

Episode 150. Francis Poulenc and Pierre Bernac [Pride...

Countermelody ·

2022/06/24

Something about this week’s episode has really gotten to me. I guess I’m just madly in love with the melodies of Francis Poulenc, and as a result, increasingly in love with the artistry of Pierre Bernac. These two formed an artistic partnership similar in intensity to that shared by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, except that in the case of the Gallic couple, this alliance did not include a romantic element. In spite of that, the pair achieved an artistic intimacy that is sometimes almost

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1:14:14

Episode 149. Music Black and Queer

Countermelody ·

2022/06/17

Over the course of history, for Persons of Color who also happen to be queer, the interface between these two populations is sometimes an enormously challenging one, but one which also frequently produces path-breaking musical artists of enormous courage and originality. In celebration of Juneteenth this coming weekend, and as a follow-up to my Queer Blues episode published last year, I once again pay tribute to an extraordinary array of Black and Queer musical artists across a wide spectrum of

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1:14:58

Episode 148. Judy Garland @ 100

Countermelody ·

2022/06/09

On Friday 10 June 2022, Judy Garland celebrates her 100th birthday. My Pride 2022 series kicks off with a close examination of Judy’s status as gay icon, as well as my claim that Garland was, is, and remains the world’s greatest entertainer of all time. As always with Countermelody, the proof is in the performances, and I share a generous sampling of recordings, primarily from the final years of Judy’s life, that bolster that claim. Included are performances of songs by Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg,

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1:07:27

Episode 147. The Young Gabriel Bacquier

Countermelody ·

2022/06/03

Two years ago last month, the great French (bass-)baritone Gabriel Bacquier died just four days short of his 96th birthday. At that time I offered a brief memorial tribute which opened my eyes to aspects of his artistry and voice with which I had been previously unfamiliar. Like his near-contemporary, the Italian baritone Tito Gobbi, Bacquier was one of the supreme actors of the operatic stage, whose voice coarsened somewhat over the course of his long career, even as his mastery as an actor and

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1:06:01

Episode 146. Women of Color Sing Mahler

Countermelody ·

2022/05/26

Say their names: In Uvalde: Nevaeh Bravo, Jackie Cazares, Makenna Lee Elrod, Jose Flores, Eliana Garcia, Irma Garcia, Uziyah Garcia, Amerie Jo Garza, Xavier Lopez, Jayce Luevanos, Tess Marie Mata, Miranda Mathis, Eva Mireles, Alithia Ramirez, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, Maite Rodriguez, Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, Layla Salazar, Jailah Nicole Silguero, Eliahana Cruz Torres, Rojelio Torres. In Buffalo: Celestine Chaney, Roberta A. Drury, Andre Mackniel, Katherine Massey, Margus D. Morrison, Heyward

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1:05:25

Episode 145. Teresa Berganza In Memoriam

Countermelody ·

2022/05/20

A week ago today the beloved and revered Spanish mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, died at the age of 89. This episode pays tribute to her artistry through the exploration of her operatic roles, from Neris in Medea opposite Maria Callas, through her matchless Mozart and Rossini portrayals, through her fascinating and highly individualized portrait of the title heroine of Bizet’s Carmen. Special emphasis is given to her performance of Spanish music, from the zarzuelas of Ruperto Chapí and Federico

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1:30:53

Episode 144. Mad about Mesplé

Countermelody ·

2022/05/13

Two years ago this month, the world lost the great French soprano Mady Mesplé at the age of 89. Celebrated as the finest French coloratura of her era (and one of the best examples ever of that dying breed), Mesplé was officially diagnosed in 1996 with Parkinson’s, which had already gravely affected her health for years. For me there is a personal connection here, as next week it is eleven years since my own father died of the same disease. The focus this week, however, is on not on Mesplé’s disease,

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1:46:38

Episode 143. Pelléas Part Deux

Countermelody ·

2022/05/06

Today I conclude my examination of my favorite opera, Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande, with an expanded roster of singers which includes return visits from some of last week’s interpreters (Camille Maurane, Gabriel Bacquier, Gérard Souzay, Françoise Ogéas, Jacques Jansen, and Michèle Command) alongside other, equally magnificent singers (George Shirley, Janine Micheau, George London, Elisabeth Söderström, Henri-Bertrand Etcheverry, Irène Joachim, André Vessières, and

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1:33:03

Episode 142. The Thrill of Pelléas

Countermelody ·

2022/04/29

In (relative) relief over the recent French election result, I kick off my miniseries devoted to French singers and French music. Today’s episode will be the first of two devoted to my favorite opera, Claude Debussy and Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande, which has enchanted, fascinated, and, yes, thrilled me since I was ten years old. If, like me, you adore this opera, then this episode is obviously for you. If you are among the many naysayers out there who find Pelléas to be boring, this

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1:39:39

Episode 141. Chansons d’avril

Countermelody ·

2022/04/21

This week’s episode is a musical celebration of all things spring. As in all episodes of this sort, it features a wide range of singers in performances recorded over the course of many decades, all singing about the delights (and sometimes the heartbreak) of spring. Artists include Carmen McRae, Beniamino Gigli, Elisabeth Söderström, Helen Morgan, Leontyne Price, Judy Collins, Eartha Kitt, Emma Calvé, Eileen Farrell, Kaye Ballard, Gérard Souzay, Patricia Neway, and Edith Piaf, among many others,

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2:00:38

Episode 140. Universal Passion

Countermelody ·

2022/04/14

For Christians, this week is probably the most central to the theology of their faith, focusing as it does on the story of the Passion of the Christ. My dear friend, the choral conductor and singer Kristina Boerger posted a fascinating meditation this week about her “complicated” relationship with this theology, and how the performance of music for Holy Week over the years has given her insight into some universal tenets about human nature and behavior. She very kindly agreed to read her essay for

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1:53:47

Episode 139. Swiss Misses and Misters

Countermelody ·

2022/04/08

A few months ago, David and I paid a visit to Zurich. The weather was glorious, we ate well, saw interesting theater, and I found a great used record store that was probably the one inexpensive place in the entire city. I had been thinking of doing an episode on Swiss singers ever since I started the podcast nearly three years ago and this experience provided the needed impetus to put this together. It helps that, to paraphrase the bigot, “Some of my favorite singers are Swiss.” Because of the

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2:03:15

Episode 138. Cabaret Risqué: Broadway Edition

Countermelody ·

2022/04/01

At Countermelody, this April Fool’s Day begins with a dirty musical joke, and a great one! The episode continues with nearly a century’s worth of performances of risqué songs, most but not all of them from musicals. Among the composers and lyricists, the great Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Brecht and Weill, Comden and Green, Carolyn Leigh, Alec Wilder, Stephen Sondheim, Bolcom and Weinstein, Fred Barton, the late Francesca Blumenthal, my friends Richard Pearson Thomas and Lawrence Rush, and the

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1:48:19

Episode 137. Ukrainian Singers and Composers

Countermelody ·

2022/03/26

Here finally is my long-promised and long-overdue episode on great Ukrainian singers. Because I am so historically oriented, I begin the episode at the dawn of recorded sound and present singers from the early twentieth century all the way through to the present day. The first voice heard is the Ukrainian-Jewish bass Alexander Kipnis, still after all these years the noblest voice that I have ever encountered. There follow Teresa Arkel, Salomea Krushelnytska, Elena Ruszkowska, Lydia Lipovska and the

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1:59:48

Episode 136. Puccini en Français

Countermelody ·

2022/03/18

This week’s episode is a counterpart to my ongoing exploration of the practice of performing opera in translation which includes the “Verdi auf Deutsch” [www.countermelodypodcast.com/index.php/2021/10/17/episode-111-verdi-auf-deutsch] and “Polyglot Wagner” [www.countermelodypodcast.com/index.php/2020/11/29/episode-63-polyglot-wagner] episodes. With its soaring cantilena lines, Puccini’s music lends itself quite naturally to performance in French. The characteristics of the so-called “French school”

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1:52:05

Episode 135. A Woman’s Winterreise

Countermelody ·

2022/03/11

Today in honor of Women’s History Month and the people of Ukraine, I present a compendium of eight different Liedersängerinnen singing Franz Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, set to poems by Wilhelm Müller. When I am in despair, I turn to Schubert, who, even in such a bleak piece as Winterreise, offers incomparable insight and empathy into our shared humanity. Though it is often held that this is a cycle that should sung exclusively by men, these eight women put the lie to that faulty premise

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1:49:50

Episode 134. Legacy (Black History Month 2022 Postlude)

Countermelody ·

2022/03/04

This is the second part of my final episode of Black History Month 2022, continuing the exploration of the legacies of more than two dozen mostly underrecorded African American artists. Each piece of this aural mosaic fills in gaps in the recorded history of these artists. After opening memorial tributes to Josephine Veasey, Antonietta Stella, and Betty Davis, the episode is broken into several sections: first, recordings of Baroque music by Aubrey Pankey, Carmen Balthrop, Adele Addison, Betty

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1:29:33

Episode 133. Never Forget (Black History Month 2022)

Countermelody ·

2022/02/26

I bid a lingering farewell to Black History Month 2022 with the first of a two-part episode featuring singers, each of whom left a relatively small but invaluable recorded legacy. I begin with soloists from the Leonard de Paur Chorus, and continue with earliest recorded examples, more than a century old, of African American singers. I follow with a series of singers, each of whom made a mark in varied productions of Porgy and Bess, but all of them singing other material: by Mozart, Arlen, Bernstein,

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1:37:35

Episode 132. Brock Peters (Black History Month 2022)

Countermelody ·

2022/02/23

How often it happens that, even when an artist produces an august and varied body of work, that they are remembered only for a tiny fragment of their output? Such is the case with Brock Peters (1927 – 2005). Universally recognized and justly celebrated for his portrayal of Tom Robinson in the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, Peters, born George Fisher, was also a superb singer who made his mark in a number of film musicals, as well as appearances in Broadway musicals and a series of folk

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