Word: contraltos
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Mountain Music. Outside and in a dozen nearby buildings, girls in slacks and boys in basque shirts scraped, fiddled, blew, banged and sang, and the noises elbowed each other like a musical Babel. Behind a boxed hemlock hedge a soprano and contralto sang a duet from Aida, beyond another hedge a section of cellos rehearsed the minuet from Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 in F Major. In the Music Shed on the greensward a Brazilian conductor, who spoke no English, sign-signaled a student orchestra through a too-briskly gaited Afternoon of a Faun. Koussevitzky observed: "Maybe fine conductor...
Some of the greats of yesterday and the day before are still going strong. Among them: buxom Mildred (Rockin' Chair) Bailey, the best "white gal" blues singer of her time; contralto Connee Boswell; satin-voiced Maxine Sullivan; and the unhappy queen of the 52nd Street honky tonks, Billie (Strange Fruit) Holiday. Most of them have been around long enough to see several debutante classes come...
...audience just like the public. ... If you sit 25 minutes without squirming and your eyes and ears are still in his direction, then I personally believe that artist will be a success." In a Paris concert hall he once heard a little-known American Negro contralto, offered to sign her on the spot. Today Marian Anderson is his biggest moneymaker ($175,000 a year for herself, about $50,000 for Hurok...
Then he led on stage 27-year-old Negro Contralto Carol Brice, a tall girl dressed in a simple black dress. She waited quietly while Koussevitzky scampered out front to listen. Then she sang Handel's My Father and Where Shall I Fly?; two lieder and a rhythmic Hall Johnson spiritual. Her singing brought the house down. After the concert, Koussevitzky led her to the foyer, where the ladies of the audience were drinking tea, nibbling tiny sandwiches and acclaiming her. Said Koussevitzky, who used to be a cellist: "Always I try to make the cello play like...
Koussevitzky's current ambition: to commission a symphony with a contralto obbligato part for her, so that she can tour with the orchestra...