Episode 182. Dorothy Maynor

Episode 182. Dorothy Maynor

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I lead off my new episodes for Black History Month 2023 with one of the most glorious voices ever captured on recordings, Dorothy Maynor (03 September 1910 – 19 February 1996), one of the most glorious lyric soprano voices ever captured on recording. Discovered by Serge Koussevitzky in the late 1930s and championed by him and a host of other conductors (including Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy), she became renowned as a recitalist but, because of restrictions of the era placed upon Black singers, never sang on any operatic stage. Nevertheless, her studio recordings of arias by Mozart, Debussy, and Charpentier are legendary. Our appreciation of Maynor the singer is greatly enhanced by the presence of live radio recordings as well as a recently-issued live 1940 song recital from the Library of Congress. It is one of the great injustices of musical history that gifted Black singers of Maynor’s caliber from that era were outrightly denied the opportunity to perform in staged opera performances at venues like the Metropolitan Opera. Dorothy Maynor nonetheless persevered and left an incredible legacy, and not just a vocal one: in 1963, the year of her retirement from singing, she founded the Harlem School of the Arts, for which, before she stepped down as President in 1979, she raised more than $2 million dollars for the construction of a new facility for the institution. She also was the first African American singer to perform at a presidential inaugural (both for Harry S. Truman in 1949 and Dwight D. Eisenhower four years later), as well as the first African American to sit on the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Opera. This episode features Maynor in live, studio, and radio recordings of repertoire by Bach, Handel, Schubert, and Mendelssohn, as well as some of the finest recordings of spirituals ever made. Also heard are the songs of three Black composers, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Cecil Cohen, and R. Nathaniel Dett, the latter of which Maynor studied with at the Hampton Institute, whose work Maynor frequently programmed on her recitals. The episode opens with a joyous birthday tribute to next week’s subject, Martina Arroyo, whose 1974 album of spirituals was backed by the Choir of the Harlem School of the Arts conducted by Maynor herself.

RECORDINGS HEARD IN THIS EPISODE

Traditional Spiritual, arr. Leonard De Paur: On My Journey. Martina Arroyo, Dorothy Maynor, Choirs of the Harlem School of the Arts and St. James Presbyterian Church [1974]

Collectors’ Postcards of RCA recording artists, 1940s.
Pictured, Top Row, L to R: Jeanette MacDonald, Leopold Stokowski, Vladimir Horowitz, Marian Anderson. Bottom Row: Arthur Rubinstein, Dorothy Maynor, Arturo Toscanini, Arthur Fiedler

Richard Strauss: Devotion [Zueignung], Op. 10-1. Dorothy Maynor, Leopold Stokowski, NBC Symphony Orchestra [1942 radio broadcast Command Performance]

Traditional Spiritual: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Dorothy Maynor, Frank Black, NBC Symphony Orchestra [1940 Armed Forces limited edition recording]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Alleluia (Exsultate, jubilate, KV 165). Dorothy Maynor, Sylvan Levin, Victor Orchestra [1945]

David Oppenheim with Judy Holliday, to whom he was married between 1948 and 1958

Franz Schubert, Wilhelm Müller: Der Frühling will kommen (Der Hirt auf dem Felsen, D.965). Dorothy Maynor, David Oppenheim, George Schick [1947]

A very grainy photograph of the Hungarian pianist Arpad Sandor (05 June 1896 — 10 February 1972)

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Friedrich von Matthisson: Adelaide, Op. 46. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Pierre Monteux (04 April 1875 – 01 July 1964) conducting the San Francisco Symphony

Friedrich von Flotow (arr): The Last Rose of Summer (Martha). Dorothy Maynor, Pierre Monteux, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra [live Hollywood Bowl 26.11.50]

Serge Koussevitzky (26 July 1874 – 04 June 1951)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Ach, ich fühl’s (Die Zauberflöte). Dorothy Maynor, Serge Koussevitsky, Boston Symphony Orchestra [1939]

Eugene Ormandy (standing) with Sergei Rachmaninov (seated)

Claude Debussy: L’année en vain chasse l’année (L’enfant prodigue). Dorothy Maynor, Eugene Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra [1940]

Gustave Charpentier: Depuis le jour (Louise). Dorothy Maynor, Howard Barlow, Voice of Firestone Orchestra [Voice of Firestone broadcast 31.VII.1944]

Giuseppe Verdi: Pace, pace, mio Dio (La forza del destino). Dorothy Maynor, Pierre Monteux, San Francisco Symphony [live Hollywood Bowl 26.11.50]

George Frideric Handel: O Sleep, Why Dost Thou Leave Me? (Semele). Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Johann Sebastian Bach: Only Bleed and Break (St. Matthew Passion). Dorothy Maynor, Sylvan Levin, Victor Orchestra [1950s]

Traditional Spiritual, arr. R. Nathaniel Dett: I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray. Dorothy Maynor, Unaccompanied male chorus [1942]

Traditional Spiritual, arr. R. Nathaniel Dett: Gimme That Old Time Religion. Dorothy Maynor, Unaccompanied male chorus [1942]

Traditional Spiritual: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Dorothy Maynor, Frank Black, NBC Symphony Orchestra [1940 Armed Forces limited edition recording]

Richard Strauss, Richard Dehmel: Wiegenlied, Op. 41/1. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Georges Bizet, Victor Hugo: Adieux de l’hôtesse arabe. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Robert Louis Stevenson: She Rested by the Broken Brook. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor. [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Robert Nathaniel Dett (11 October 1882 – 02 October 1943)

R. Nathaniel Dett: My Day. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Cecil Cohen (1894 – 1967) with Dorothy Maynor

Cecil Cohen, Countee Cullen: Epitaph for a Poet. Dorothy Maynor, Arpád Sándor [live Library of Congress 18.XII.40]

Dorothy Maynor with a young student at the Harlem School of the Arts

Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II: You’ll Never Walk Alone (Carousel). Dorothy Maynor, introduced by Moss Hart [1951 telecast]

Felix Mendelssohn: Hear Ye, Israel! (Elijah). Dorothy Maynor, Sylvan Levin, Victor Orchestra [1950s]

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