Episode 26. Calling You (Music for a World in Crisis I)

Episode 26. Calling You (Music for a World in Crisis)

The world is in chaos. We don’t know from one day to the next, or one hour to the next, what will happen. I am currently halfway around the world from home and wondering what the coming weeks will bring. This week I have decided to feature music that addresses reaching out to loved ones across enormous gaps of time and space, the yearning for a home lost and the ambivalence with which we face the changing seasons. But all is not hopelessness: at the end of the episode, I offer pop stylings by several of my favorite singers that address the promise of healing and reunion, no matter how difficult the process. In this episode, marking the six-month anniversary of Countermelody, I’m featuring some of my favorite singers, including Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Hina Spani, Rosa Ponselle, Meta Seinemeyer, Anne Roselle, Claudia Muzio, Eidé Noréna, Eileen Farrell, Kathleen Ferrier, Martha Flowers, Janis Ian, Chi Coltrane, and Dusty Springfield. I also offer a tribute to the late, great dramatic soprano Elinor Ross, as well as (in a rare moment of self-satisfaction) a recording I made in 2006 of “Danny Boy.”

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

Bob Telson: Calling You (Bagdad Café). Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Peter Serkin, piano [Ravinia, 05 August 2004]

Giuseppe Verdi: Ma dall’arido stelo divulsa (Un ballo in maschera). Elinor Ross, Anton Guadagno, conductor [Hartford, CT 26 November 1969]

Alfredo Catalani: Ebben? ne andrò lontana (La Wally). Hina Spani, Carlo Sabajno, conductor [rec. 1928]

Giuseppe Verdi: D’amor sull’ali rosee (Il trovatore). Rosa Ponselle, Romano Romani, conductor [rec. 1923]

Giuseppe Verdi: Noch hegt mich der geliebte Ort [Me pellegrina ed orfana] (Die Macht des Schicksals [La forza del destino]). Meta Seinemeyer, Frieder Weissmann, conductor [rec. 1926]

Giuseppe Verdi: O patria mia (Aida). Anne Roselle [rec. Berlin 1928?]

Licinio Refice: Ombra di nube. Claudia Muzio, Licinio Refice, conductor [rec. 1935]

Edvard Grieg: Våren. Eidé Noréna, Piero Coppola, conductor [rec. 1932]

Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart: Spring Is Here (I Married an Angel). Eileen Farrell, André Previn, arranger and conductor [rec. 1962]

English Folk Song from Northumberland: Blow the Wind Southerly. Kathleen Ferrier [rec. 1949]

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Linden Lea. Janet Baker, Gerald Moore, piano [rec. 1967]

Irish Folk Song, arr. Frederick Weatherly: Danny Boy. Daniel Gundlach, Daniel Beckwith, piano [rec. 2006]

Victor Young, Ned Washington, Lee Wiley: Anytime, Any Day, Anywhere Martha Flowers, Don Shirley, piano [from Don Shirley Presents Martha Flowers, 1962]

Janis Ian: He’s a Rainbow [from Present Company, 1971]

Chi Coltrane: It’s Not Easy [from Let It Ride, 1973]

Clive Westlake: I Will Come to You Dusty Springfield, Keith Mansfield, conductor [single, rec. 1968]