Latin American Songs with Phyllis Curtin

This post is a remembrance of the American soprano Phyllis Curtin, who died earlier this month at age 95.

Music lovers of my generation will be familiar with her work - she was for many years associated with the New York City Opera and then the Met, and she recorded with such conductors as Reiner, Ormandy, Munch and Bernstein. She was closely associated with Carlyle Floyd, introducing the title character in his opera Susannah, among other roles.

Phyllis Curtin

This present 10-inch LP is possibly her first album, made for the Cambridge label in 1953, at about the time when she was moving from Boris Goldovsky's New England Opera Theater to the New York City Opera. It contains a enjoyable collection of Latin American and Afro-Cuban songs from four 20th century composers, and is strikingly well performed by Curtin and accompanist Gregory Tucker, a composer-pianist who taught at the Longy School.

These songs were among the soprano's regular repertoire. She included some of them in her recitals and many of them in a later LP for the Vanguard label.

The cover does not provide any information about the composers, so a few words may be helpful:

The best known of the four is Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), an Argentine who was using folk materials during the period he composed these songs.

O. Lorenzo Fernández (1897-1948) was a Brazilian of Spanish descent. His works draw on Brazilian and Afro-Brazilian sources.

Blas Galindo (1910-1993) was a Mexican composer who used indigenous music in his works.

Alejandro Garcia Caturla (1906-1940) was a Cuban composer of Spanish descent who utilized Afro-Cuban materials. A lawyer who became a judge, he was killed by a gambler who had appeared before him in court.

For the recording, Cambridge set its microphone well away from Curtin and Tucker, which allows the voice to bloom but makes the piano sound indistinct.