Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Gwendoline Fortune Praises Charles Kaufmann's Notes for Wednesday, Sept. 4 Broadcast on WHPK-FM of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto

[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a comprehensive Works List and a Bibliography by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma, www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com. We are collaborating with the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Foundation of the U.K., www.SCTF.org.uk]

Longfellow Chorus Orchestra

On September 1, 2013 AfriClassical posted: Charles Kaufmann: 'On-Air from Chicago, September 4: Orchestra of The Longfellow Chorus Plays Coleridge-Taylor'  Charles Kaufmann's program notes identified the two works of music to be aired Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2013 by Sergio A. Mims on WHPK-FM between Noon and 3 p.m.: "Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto in G-minor, Op 80, and Keep Me From Sinkin' Down, for violin and orchestra."

Gwendoline Fortune writes:

Thank you for the 9/4 article on The Longfellow Chorus. It is wonderful to read the insight of someone with more than a "current" and cursory knowledge of the music.

My principal vocal teacher, James Leo Lightner was born in 1906. He was a boy soprano who traveled with a soprano giving concerts. Like many boy sopranos his voice ended as an average baritone, sadly. He was an excellent bel canto teacher at a time when the Wagnerian voice came to prominence. In the 1970s I sang a piece he had taught, to the comment by an older woman who said, "How good it is to hear someone who knows how to sing rubato." Leo died  in 2005, at 99.

Tastes change over time, and there is value to elements of all. Sadly, this knowledge is often missing.

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