September 5th: Celebrating the birth of four composers

Johann Christian Bach & John Cage

September 5th must be a great day to be born if you want to be a composer. On this day Giacomo Meyebeer, Johann Christian Bach, John Cage and Amy Beach were all born. You certainly couldn't find four different composers, so we're going to present a selection from each. 

Amy Beach & Giacomo Meyerbeer

The 19th century composer Giacomo Meyerbeer is best remembered for his grand operas, but wrote some beautiful choral works for male voices, two songs with solo instrumental obbligato and a number of beautiful songs. Thomas Hampson has wonderful recording of many of these and here he is singing  Meyerbeer's "Menschenfeindlich":



Johann Christian Bach was the youngest surviving son of the master Johann Sebastian Bach. Having abandoned his father's Lutheran faith for Catholicism, he is best remembered for his sacred works. Here is Victoria de los Angeles & Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing "Ah, lamenta oh bella Irene" by Johann Christian Bach with Gerald Moore at the piano:



Here is John Cage's "Litany for the Whale" from 1980. This beautiful piece is scored for two male voices, and has a call and response structure to it. The two singers, recorded in a resonant chamber, are given five pitches to sing, one assigned to each letter in the word "whale." It has a calm, meditative quality that harkens back to medieval chants. The singers are Alan Bennett and Paul Elliott.



Amy Beach was the first truly successful American female composer. Among her works are a mass, piano concerto, symphony and 150 songs. We had a difficult time finding a suitable recording by a baritone singing an Amy Beach song, so we're going to break a few rules of this site and present the immortal tenor Jussi Bjoerling performing "Ah, love, But a Day" with words by Robert Browning.

For the next two weeks we will be accepting submissions for our first Barihunks charity calendar, which will benefit young artist programs. Send High Res photos and a brief bio to Barihunks@gmail.com

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Happy Birthday, Robert Merrill

The great Robert Merrill was born on June 4, 1917 and died on October 23, 2004. This is unquestionably one of his greatest recordings. We can't think of a better way to honor him.



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Baritone-Tenor Duets

Barihunks Ettore Bastianini & Thomas Hampson

We asked Barihunks readers who their favorite post-war tenors were and here are the results in order of preference:

1. Placido Domingo
2. Jussi Bjoerling
3. Luciano Pavarotti
4. Franco Corelli
5. Fritz Wunderlich

We thought it would be fun to pair them up with some baritones of note.

There couldn't be a better way to begin than with this riveting performance from Verdi's Otello with Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes:




Here is Jussi Bjorling with Robert Merrill singing the famous duet from Bizet's Pearl Fishers:




Here is Luciano Pavarotti joining Thomas Hampson in the Act IV duet from Puccini's La Boheme:



Here are Franco Corelli and Ettore Bastianini singing an amazing rendition of "Solenne in quest'ora" from Verdi's La Forza del Destino:



Here is Fritz Wunderlich with Herman Prey singing the duet from Rossini's Barber of Seville: