Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American baritone opera singer.
On the island
Eight records
It's the earliest piece of music that I remember hearing. My parents were big choral singers and uh even when I was a tiny baby they would take me to rehearsals and when I was old enough to sing soprano uh I started singing in the choruses and Messiah is just something that's been part of my life all these years.
I used to play it on the violin. I studied violin uh for a long time and it was uh a piece I loved very much to be able to play. ... In some ways it's quite faithful to uh Bach sound. I think Bach actually would have liked it.
Attila: E gettata la mia sorte
Well, I chose it uh partly because it has a high B flat at the end, but in a strange kind of way, when I'm listening to myself and there is a uh a passage of time between when I've recorded it and and listening, somehow I'm no longer really listening to me, I'm listening to a voice.
Alexander Nevsky: The Battle on the Ice
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner
I'm in the chorus of this recording. It's with the Chicago Symphony, Reiner conducting. When that chorus was formed in'58, I was in at the beginning and uh made several recordings.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner
I chose it two reasons. I love it, I love the music. Uh it's Strauss, uh the Don Juan tone poem. But another reason uh is this is one of the pieces that I conduct in in my orchestral concerts when I do uh what I call a sing conduct date.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, 'Choral': Fourth Movement (Fugue)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner
Staying home townish as it were, uh Chicago, and knowing the the the men in the Chicago Symphony and having sung with Reiner a lot those five years I was in the Symphony Corps. As a matter of fact I sang his last concert and that was the Beethoven Ninth.
Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem): Sixth Movement (Fugue)
Well, as the list may suggest, I'm uh rather a romantic and uh another favorite piece of mine is the Brahms Requiem, and this is the fugue from the sixth part.
Along with violin and piano I studied string bass uh not to play in a symphony but to play in dance bands. And uh enjoyed that and earned in college earned a lot of money most of my way through college playing in dance bands. And this is a recording of The Hilos.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:01How did you set about choosing just eight records?
Some of them I chose because I'm involved in, but it's, I suppose, mainly emotional response.
Presenter asks
2:37You grew up working on the farm? But you don't come from a real farming family.
No, not in the the typical sense. My mother was a church choir director, a minister of music, and my father was an amateur singer. And so ... when I got old enough to learn to read music and so forth, I sang in the kids' choirs, a high school choir, adult choir.
Presenter asks
3:28What was the first particularly successful audition, the first important one?
I suppose the first really meaningful career movement type audition was for Boris Goldowski.
Presenter asks
9:22Do you find it frustrating? You're a big, handsome fellow, but you're a baritone, and it's the tenor who usually gets the girl.
The keepsakes
The book
A collection of 25 years of New Yorker cartoons
The New Yorker
I think that's something that I could look at again and again and again and again and still get a kick out of because they fracture me.
That's true. Uh that part doesn't really frustrate me. It's the he has more high notes to sing. ... The tenor often has the high octave written up in the aria, and the baritone has it written down. So uh that's more frustrating than um than getting the girl.
Presenter asks
11:22You don't believe in first takes in a recording studio, I'm told.
Well, actually, I have never found that a first take gets it all together. ... Generally you haven't got the word colors and the the mood established.
Presenter asks
12:30What about recitals? Is that important in your career?
Recitals require different styles, different language abilities, and you're all on your own. There's no makeup, there's no beards, wigs, costumes. You have to do it with with personal intensity, personal uh well the force of your own personality ... I think it forces a singer to keep his voice in better shape than just one area.
“Somehow I'm no longer really listening to me, I'm listening to a voice. And if I like the voice uh fine, and I listen to it as almost as though it were somebody else, even though obviously I know it's me, it's exciting to hear a good B flat, if in fact it is.”
“Macbeth is my my favorite part. By favorite, I suppose I mean when I finish singing Macbeth, and perhaps I would add Rigoletto to that. Uh I have the greatest feeling of satisfaction.”
“I would try to escape. And I don't think that I would just do it with a couple of logs put together. I think I would take time and build something uh fairly substantial before I would chance just drifting out into the ocean.”