From the archives
Andrew Mcgregor explores the recorded legacy of one of America’s great contraltos, Marian Anderson
When Martin Luther King told Americans from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that he had a dream, he was not the first to raise his voice for equality in that symbolic place. Almost a quarter of a century earlier, on Easter Day 1939, the great American contralto Marian Anderson gave a short outdoor recital there. An international star, she had a voice you might hear once in a hundred years according to Toscanini. Yet in Washington she was barred from singing at Constitution Hall because of her skin colour, sparking high-profile protests and the invitation to sing to 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial. The message as they listened to ‘America’ and three spirituals was crystal clear, and so is the extraordinary range and quality of the voice in this handsome collection of her complete RCA Victor recordings, Marian Anderson – Beyond the Music (Sony 19439836492; 15 CDS).
The power and conviction in the early 1920s acoustic recording of spirituals is profound, although the depth and richness is more easily heard in later recordings of Schubert, Sibelius and Brahms songs, including three accounts of the Alto Rhapsody.
The Baroque arias lack the period style you’d expect today, but excerpts from Bach’s Passions, Handel’s Messiah, and
Dido’s Lament are mesmerising. The collections of spirituals, arrangements of ‘Songs at Eventide’ and album of Christmas Carols attest to Anderson’s popularity, though the lack of opera is a testimony of the times. In 1955 Anderson was the first Black singer to break the Met Opera’s colour bar, but as the Verdi excerpts recorded that year show us, was already past her prime. Still, there’s poignant satisfaction hearing her 1964 farewell recital in Washington’s Constitution Hall, restored to CD in full.
Remastering is excellent, the packaging, illustrations, cover art and discography luxurious, all reinforcing the message given by the Secretary of the Interior at that Lincoln Memorial recital: ‘In this great auditorium under the sky, all of us are free.’
Andrew Mcgregor is the presenter of
Radio 3’s Record Review, broadcast each Saturday morning from 9am until 11.45am
Schumann’s life and love with the idealised ruminations of Chamisso’s verses as set by husband Robert in his Op. 42 cycle. Treating Galloway’s words almost as a commentary on the cycle, Beamish fashions a compelling skein of pertinent quotations and less literal appropriations to underpin her own flair for penetrating narrative.
Having commissioned the piece, Sandra Porter and Graeme Mcnaught have lived with Clara for a quarter of a century. It shows in their intuitively ‘settled’ rapprochement, abetted by Porter’s experience in contemporary music theatre. She soars ecstatically when the new lodger (Schumann) makes his appearance; the music then retreats into haunted soliloquy as Clara ponders the sacrifices she must make for the sake of Robert’s composing and, later, their last meeting in the asylum. The opening bars of Frauenliebe und -leben itself fall as poignant balm on Clara’s anguish as the duo negotiate a beautifully modulated account gilded by Mcnaught’s finely-judged rubato and ear for Schumann’s telling countermelodies.
Clara’s own songs are sometimes a little under-characterised here. But the real story of this recording is the collision between the Beamish and Robert’s Op. 42 – a rewarding and endlessly fascinating interaction. Paul Riley
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★