Barry McDaniel
Encyclopedia
Barry McDaniel is an American opera
tic baritone
who spent his career almost exclusively in Germany. He was also a celebrated concert singer and recitalist.
soloist in churches and private concerts. When his voice changed from soprano to baritone, he studied voice first at the University of Kansas, and from 1950 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York as a student of the famous baritone and voice teacher Mack Harrell
. After graduating from Juilliard with honors, he was among the first young singers to go to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship
in 1953. He studied with Alfred Paulus and Hermann Reutter at the Stuttgart
Music Conservatory, working on his already extensive repertoire of German and French art song and making his first professional appearances as a recitalist. Hermann Reutter – a renowned composer in his own right – was to become one of his favorite accompanists throughout his career. After a first contract with the opera of Mainz
(1954 – 1955), he had to put his budding operatic career on hold for two years to serve his military service in the U.S. Army; from 1957 to 1958 he was under contract with the Stuttgart State Opera, and from 1959 at the opera of Karlsruhe
. It was there that in autumn 1961 Egon Seefehlner
, the deputy director and talent scout of the newly reopened Deutsche Oper Berlin
, heard him in a performance and recruited him for his opera.
McDaniel remained under contract with the Deutsche Oper from 1962 till 1999, appearing in productions of some of Germany's most distinguished stage directors such as Gustav Sellner, Götz Friedrich
or Günther Rennert
, in an ensemble that included names like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
, Elisabeth Grümmer
, Josef Greindl
, Ernst Haefliger
, James King
, Pilar Lorengar
and Edith Mathis
. His stage repertoire of 98 roles encompassed Gluck
and Mozart
, Italian Bel canto
and Richard Strauss
as well as contemporary opera (many of these parts he performed for the first time on stage).
He displayed remarkable versatility as an oratorio singer and recitalist, with compositions running the gamut from Baroque to Contemporary. His focus in sacred music was on Johann Sebastian Bach
(cantatas, Christ in both the St Matthew Passion and the St John Passion) and Georg Philipp Telemann
, with art song it was on Franz Schubert
's great song cycles, Robert Schumann
, Johannes Brahms
and Hugo Wolf
. But he was also a frequent performer of French Mélodie
s, e.g. by Claude Debussy
, Maurice Ravel
or Francis Poulenc
, and something of a specialist of contemporary scores by composers such as Aribert Reimann
– his other long-standing musical partner, Hermann Reutter, Anton Webern
, Günter Bialas
, Luigi Dallapiccola
, Carl Orff
, and many others.
In addition to his more than 2,100 stage and concert performances in Berlin, he gave frequent guest performances and recitals e.g. in Vienna, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich (he appeared regularly at the Munich Opera Festival
for 11 years), Geneva, Amsterdam, Mexico and Japan. In 1964 he sang Wolfram in Tannhäuser
at the Bayreuth Festival
, and in 1971 the male lead in the world premiere of Aribert Reimann's opera Melusine
at the Schwetzingen Festival
, in 1972 he made his debut as Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande
at the New York Metropolitan Opera
. In addition to these live appearances (3400 in total), McDaniel made between 1954 and 1984 hundreds of recordings of art songs, sacred music and opera repertoire for various radio stations, and starred in TV productions of operas and operettas in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1970 he was awarded the title of ”Berliner Kammersänger”
by the Senate of Berlin
.
In the late 1980s, McDaniel began to cut back on his opera and concert performances and finally retired in 1999, after a series of solo concerts dedicated to the popular songs of his native country. He lives in Berlin.
in the opening phrase of the Kreuzstabkantate BWV 56 in one breath), and a striking beauty of tone. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians praises his "mellifluous voice" as well as "a fine sense of line and an acute understanding and projection of the text".Alan Blyth
in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition, 2001 The renowned weekly paper Die Zeit
commented on his part in Melusine in 1971: "Such poetic vocal expression, such lucid operatic lyricism is unequalled today, and who could give it a more beguiling voice than Barry McDaniel."Wolfram Schwinger in Die Zeit
, May 7, 1971 Over the years the voice gained in nuances and depth of expression but never lost its youthful, lyrical character, and McDaniel always avoided straying beyond the limits of his Fach
, e.g. to heavy Wagner or Italian Verismo
parts.
McDaniel's recordings span his entire repertoire and all phases of his career. Some of them are commercially available: cantatas and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach, operas by Mozart, Strauss, Weill
and Henze and works of contemporary church music (many of which he was the first and only to commit to record). Although his commercial recording career as a song performer was hampered by the overwhelming competition, on a limited market, from his two great German contemporaries Hermann Prey
and particularly Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
, he recorded the Winterreise
twice (1972 and 1985) for commercial labels and sang a vast number of art songs for nearly all West German public radio stations, the Swiss radio and the BBC
. There exists also a 1972 live recording from the Metropolitan Opera which documents his Pelléas – one of his greatest operatic roles, and hailed by the distinguished critic Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
in 1963 as "a performance of perfection".Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, March 4, 1963
(1970)
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
who spent his career almost exclusively in Germany. He was also a celebrated concert singer and recitalist.
Biography and development
McDaniel was born to musical parents (a vaudeville tenor-turned-storekeeper and a music teacher) who soon became aware of his talent; from the age of nine he took systematic lessons in singing, piano and percussion and enjoyed considerable local popularity as a boy sopranoBoy soprano
A boy soprano is a young male singer with an unchanged voice in the soprano range. Although a treble, or choirboy, may also be considered to be a boy soprano, the more colloquial term boy soprano is generally only used for boys who sing, perform, or record as soloists, and who may not necessarily...
soloist in churches and private concerts. When his voice changed from soprano to baritone, he studied voice first at the University of Kansas, and from 1950 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York as a student of the famous baritone and voice teacher Mack Harrell
Mack Harrell
Mack Harrell was an American baritone who was regarded as one of the greatest concert singers of his generation....
. After graduating from Juilliard with honors, he was among the first young singers to go to Germany on a Fulbright scholarship
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
in 1953. He studied with Alfred Paulus and Hermann Reutter at the Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
Music Conservatory, working on his already extensive repertoire of German and French art song and making his first professional appearances as a recitalist. Hermann Reutter – a renowned composer in his own right – was to become one of his favorite accompanists throughout his career. After a first contract with the opera of Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
(1954 – 1955), he had to put his budding operatic career on hold for two years to serve his military service in the U.S. Army; from 1957 to 1958 he was under contract with the Stuttgart State Opera, and from 1959 at the opera of Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
. It was there that in autumn 1961 Egon Seefehlner
Egon Seefehlner
Egon Seefehlner was an Austrian jurist, editor and opera intendant.Seefehlner was born in Vienna Austria where he studied law at the Konsularakademie Wien. From 1938 to 1943 it was active in the politico-economic department of AEG, Berlin. From 1945 to 1961 he returned to Vienna where he worked as...
, the deputy director and talent scout of the newly reopened Deutsche Oper Berlin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
, heard him in a performance and recruited him for his opera.
McDaniel remained under contract with the Deutsche Oper from 1962 till 1999, appearing in productions of some of Germany's most distinguished stage directors such as Gustav Sellner, Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich
Götz Friedrich was a German opera and theatre director.He was a student and assistant of Walter Felsenstein at the Komische Oper Berlin in Berlin, where he went on to direct his early productions...
or Günther Rennert
Günther Rennert
Günther Rennert was a German opera director and administrator.Rennert was born in Essen, Rhine Province. Starting as a film director in 1933, he then became involved in the operatic theatre, becoming an assistant to Walter Felsenstein at the Oper Frankfurt...
, in an ensemble that included names like Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
, Elisabeth Grümmer
Elisabeth Grümmer
Elisabeth Schilz Grümmer was a German operatic lyric soprano.She was born at Niederjeutz, near Diedenhofen, Alsace-Lorraine to German parents...
, Josef Greindl
Josef Greindl
Josef Greindl was a German operatic bass.Josef Greindl was born in Munich and studied at the Munich Music Academy with Paul Bender. His opera debut was in 1936, as Hunding in Wagner's Die Walküre in the State Theatre in Krefeld. He is remembered mainly for his performances in Wagner at Bayreuth,...
, Ernst Haefliger
Ernst Haefliger
Ernst Haefliger was a Swiss tenor.Haefliger was born in Davos, Switzerland and studied at the Zürich Conservatory. He studied with Fernando Capri in Geneva and Julius Patzak in Vienna....
, James King
James King (tenor)
James King was widely regarded as the finest American heldentenor of the post-war period.-Biography:Born in Dodge City, Kansas, King studied music at Louisiana State University and earned a master's degree in 1952 from Kansas City University. He started singing as a baritone, but noticed in 1955...
, Pilar Lorengar
Pilar Lorengar
Lorenza Pilar García Seta was a Spanish soprano who used the professional name Pilar Lorengar. She was best known for her interpretations of opera and the Spanish genre Zarzuela, and as a soprano she was known for her full register, a youthful timbre as well as a distinctive vibrato.Pilar was...
and Edith Mathis
Edith Mathis
Edith Mathis is a renowned Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Mozart. She studied in Lucerne and debuted there in 1956 in The Magic Flute...
. His stage repertoire of 98 roles encompassed Gluck
Christoph Willibald Gluck
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years...
and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Italian Bel canto
Bel canto
Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
as well as contemporary opera (many of these parts he performed for the first time on stage).
He displayed remarkable versatility as an oratorio singer and recitalist, with compositions running the gamut from Baroque to Contemporary. His focus in sacred music was on Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
(cantatas, Christ in both the St Matthew Passion and the St John Passion) and Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
, with art song it was on Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
's great song cycles, Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
and Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf
Hugo Wolf was an Austrian composer of Slovene origin, particularly noted for his art songs, or lieder. He brought to this form a concentrated expressive intensity which was unique in late Romantic music, somewhat related to that of the Second Viennese School in concision but utterly unrelated in...
. But he was also a frequent performer of French Mélodie
Mélodie
Mélodie refers to French art songs of the mid-19th century to the present; it is the French equivalent of the German Lied. It is distinguished from a chanson, which is a folk or popular song.-Nature of the mélodie:...
s, e.g. by Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
or Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
, and something of a specialist of contemporary scores by composers such as Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann
Aribert Reimann is a German opera composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of King Lear was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who sang the title role....
– his other long-standing musical partner, Hermann Reutter, Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
, Günter Bialas
Günter Bialas
-Life:Bialas was born in Bielschowitz in Prussian Silesia. The adolescent Bialas received lessons in piano and music theory from Fritz Lubrich, a former student of Max Reger, in Kattowitz between 1922 and 1925...
, Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....
, Carl Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...
, and many others.
In addition to his more than 2,100 stage and concert performances in Berlin, he gave frequent guest performances and recitals e.g. in Vienna, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich (he appeared regularly at the Munich Opera Festival
Munich Opera Festival
The Munich Opera Festival, , is an opera festival located in Munich, Germany and presented annually at the National Theatre by the Bavarian State Opera...
for 11 years), Geneva, Amsterdam, Mexico and Japan. In 1964 he sang Wolfram in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
at the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
, and in 1971 the male lead in the world premiere of Aribert Reimann's opera Melusine
Melusine
Melusine is a figure of European legends and folklore, a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.She is usually depicted as a woman who is a serpent or fish from the waist down...
at the Schwetzingen Festival
Schwetzingen Festival
The Schwetzingen Festival is an early summer festival of opera and other classical music presented each year from May to early June in Schwetzingen, Germany....
, in 1972 he made his debut as Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
at the New York Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
. In addition to these live appearances (3400 in total), McDaniel made between 1954 and 1984 hundreds of recordings of art songs, sacred music and opera repertoire for various radio stations, and starred in TV productions of operas and operettas in the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1970 he was awarded the title of ”Berliner Kammersänger”
Kammersänger
Kammersänger , abbreviation: "Ks.", literally means "Chamber singer." It is a German honorific title for distinguished singers...
by the Senate of Berlin
Senate of Berlin
The Senate of Berlin is the executive body governing the city of Berlin, which at the same time is a state of Germany. According to the Constitution of Berlin the Senate consists of the Governing Mayor of Berlin and up to eight Senators appointed by the Governing Mayor, two of whom are appointed ...
.
In the late 1980s, McDaniel began to cut back on his opera and concert performances and finally retired in 1999, after a series of solo concerts dedicated to the popular songs of his native country. He lives in Berlin.
Operatic roles (selection)
| C.W. Gluck | Orest in Iphigenie auf Tauris |
| W.A. Mozart | Papageno in The Magic Flute, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Nardo in La finta giardiniera, Allazim in Zaide |
| L.v.Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of... |
First Prisoner in Fidelio |
| G. Donizetti Gaetano Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment... |
Malatesta in Don Pasquale |
| D. Cimarosa Domenico Cimarosa Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school... |
Count Robinson in Il matrimonio secreto |
| G. Rossini | Figaro in Il barbiere di Sevilla, Selim and Poet in Il Turco in Italia, Dandini in La Cenerentola |
| A. Lortzing Albert Lortzing Gustav Albert Lortzing was a German composer, actor and singer. He is considered to be the main representative of the German Spieloper, a form similar to the French opéra comique, which grew out of the Singspiel.-Biography:Lortzing was born in Berlin to Johann Gottlieb Lortzing and Charlotte Sophie... |
Count Eberbach in Der Wildschütz, Tsar in Zar und Zimmermann |
| R. Leoncavallo Ruggero Leoncavallo Ruggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:... |
Silvio in Pagliacci |
| R. Wagner Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas... |
Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Melot in Tristan und Isolde |
| G. Puccini Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire... |
Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Ping in Turandot |
| R. Strauss | Olivier in Capriccio, Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos, Barber in Die schweigsame Frau |
| C. Debussy Claude Debussy Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions... |
Pelléas in Pelléas et Mélisande |
| F. Poulenc Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music... |
Husband in Les mamelles de Tirésias |
| R. Sessions Roger Sessions Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of... |
Cuauhtemoc in Montezuma (world premiere in Berlin 1964) |
| H.W. Henze Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"... |
Secretary in Der junge Lord (world premiere in Berlin 1965) |
| I. Yun Isang Yun Isang Yun was a Korean-German composer originally from Korea. According to his official publisher's Boosey & Hawkes biography of him, he was granted political asylum by West Germany, eventually becoming a naturalised German citizen, following his abduction and torture in 1967 by the South Korean... |
Title role in The Dream of Liu-Tung (world premiere at the Akademie der Künste Berlin 1965) |
| A. Reimann Aribert Reimann Aribert Reimann is a German opera composer, pianist and accompanist, known especially for his literary operas. His version of King Lear was written at the suggestion of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who sang the title role.... |
Count Lusignan in Melusine (world premiere at the Schwetzingen Festival 1971) |
Voice and recordings
McDaniel's voice was a lyric baritone with a range of 2½ octaves (from a low F in the St John Passion to a high A in Pelléas et Mélisande), a remarkable vocal technique and breath control (he was able to sing the 9-bar melismaMelisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
in the opening phrase of the Kreuzstabkantate BWV 56 in one breath), and a striking beauty of tone. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians praises his "mellifluous voice" as well as "a fine sense of line and an acute understanding and projection of the text".Alan Blyth
Alan Blyth
Geoffrey Alan Blyth was an English music critic, author, and musicologist who was particularly known for his writings within the field of opera. He graduated from the Rugby School before attending the University of Oxford where he studied with Jack Westrup...
in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition, 2001 The renowned weekly paper Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
commented on his part in Melusine in 1971: "Such poetic vocal expression, such lucid operatic lyricism is unequalled today, and who could give it a more beguiling voice than Barry McDaniel."Wolfram Schwinger in Die Zeit
Die Zeit
Die Zeit is a German nationwide weekly newspaper that is highly respected for its quality journalism.With a circulation of 488,036 and an estimated readership of slightly above 2 million, it is the most widely read German weekly newspaper...
, May 7, 1971 Over the years the voice gained in nuances and depth of expression but never lost its youthful, lyrical character, and McDaniel always avoided straying beyond the limits of his Fach
Fach
The German Fach system is a method of classifying singers, primarily opera singers, according to the range, weight, and color of their voices...
, e.g. to heavy Wagner or Italian Verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
parts.
McDaniel's recordings span his entire repertoire and all phases of his career. Some of them are commercially available: cantatas and oratorios by Johann Sebastian Bach, operas by Mozart, Strauss, Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Henze and works of contemporary church music (many of which he was the first and only to commit to record). Although his commercial recording career as a song performer was hampered by the overwhelming competition, on a limited market, from his two great German contemporaries Hermann Prey
Hermann Prey
Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone. He is most famous for lieder and for light comic baritone roles in opera.-Biography:...
and particularly Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is a retired German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous lieder performers of the post-war period and "one of the supreme vocal artists of the 20th century"...
, he recorded the Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
twice (1972 and 1985) for commercial labels and sang a vast number of art songs for nearly all West German public radio stations, the Swiss radio and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. There exists also a 1972 live recording from the Metropolitan Opera which documents his Pelléas – one of his greatest operatic roles, and hailed by the distinguished critic Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt was a German composer, musicologist, and historian and critic of music.- Life :...
in 1963 as "a performance of perfection".Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt
Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt was a German composer, musicologist, and historian and critic of music.- Life :...
in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...
, March 4, 1963
External links
with tenor Alfredo KrausAlfredo Kraus
Alfredo Kraus Trujillo was a distinguished Spanish tenor of partly Austrian descent, particularly known for the artistry he brought to opera's bel canto roles...
(1970)