Episode 324. Margaret Price in Trauer und Trost

These days I find myself in a pensive, troubled state, very much in need of the kind of consolation that only music can provide. A number of years ago, I published a pair of episodes featuring the sublime Margaret Price performing music of mourning and consolation. Today’s episode presents an expanded and refurbished version of the second of those episodes, in a program composed entirely of art song, moving through a sequence of emotions surrounding loss. Composers include Johannes Brahms, Giuseppe Verdi, Robert Schumann, Enrique Granados, Franz Schubert, Grace Williams, Sergei Rachmaninov, Felix Mendelssohn, Philip Cannon, Hugo Wolf, Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, Franz Liszt, Peter Cornelius, and Richard Strauss, and collaborating pianists and conductors include Claudio Abbado, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Cyprien Katsaris, Geoffrey Parsons, and Neville Marriner, as well as frequent collaborators James Lockhart and Thomas Dewey. A thorough traversal of the song repertoire by one of the supreme recitalists of the late 20th Century. 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.