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Amazing Sounds

Singer Nora Fischer celebrates the huge variety of sounds the human larynx can produce in a diverse and fascinating playlist from around the world and across the centuries.

In a series of three shows, Nora celebrates what the voice can do with a fabulously diverse playlist of tracks from around the world and across the centuries.

She listens to raw and passionate Bulgarian and Scandinavian singing alongside the profound warmth of Russian basses. She compares the ethereal angst of the voice of the last castrato to the effect of the longest high tenor C in classical music. And she sets the twisting ornamental lines of an 18th-century Handel opera aria next to the runs perfected by Whitney Houston and BeyoncΓ©.

The growls and fluty noises of Tuvan throat singing, the acrobatics necessary to perform Rossini’s opera arias, and the purity of the countertenor voice are all celebrated in this second episode of Nora Fischer’s series. There are stratospheric sounds created by Jeff Buckley and Cleo Laine as well as the rumbling of a deep Rachmaninov bass line. Nora also finds how the voice box can imitate instruments like the Indian tabla and how a group of singers can even recreate the complexities of a Charlie Parker jazz classic.

A Tandem Production for ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 3

59 minutes

Last on

Sun 12 Sep 2021 23:00

Music Played

  • Bobby McFerrin

    Thinkin' about your body (live)

    Performer: Bobby McFerrin.
  • Gioachino Rossini

    La Donna del Lago Act 2 - Fra il padre e fra l'amante

    Singer: Montserrat CaballΓ©. Orchestra: Orchestra della RCA Italiana. Choir: Coro della RCA Italiana. Conductor: Carlo Felice Cillario.
  • Sainkho Namtchylak

    From Me to You

    Performer: Sainkho Namtchylak.
  • Sheila Chandra

    Speaking in Tongues I (1992)

    Performer: Sheila Chandra.
  • Steve Reich

    Tehillim Part 2 (excerpt)

    Ensemble: SchΓΆnberg Ensemble. Ensemble: Slagwerk Den Haag. Conductor: Reinbert de Leeuw.
  • Claudio Monteverdi

    O come sei gentile, SV 120 (Oh how kind you are)

    Ensemble: Les Arts Florissants. Director: William Christie.
  • Charlie Parker

    Scrapple from the Apple

    Ensemble: Charlie Parker Quintet.
  • Charlie Parker

    Scrapple from the Apple

    Ensemble: Les Double Six.
  • Iva BittovΓ‘

    Ne Nehledej (Stop Searching)

    Performer: Iva BittovΓ‘.
  • Charles Gounod

    Salut demeure from Faust

    Singer: Giuseppe Di Stefano.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Ave Maria

    Performer: Alessandro Moreschi.
  • Antonio Vivaldi

    Vedro con mio diletto from 'Giustino'

    Singer: Philippe Jaroussky. Ensemble: Ensemble Matheus. Conductor: Jean‐Christophe Spinosi.
  • Benjamin Britten

    Corpus Christi Carol

    Performer: Jeff Buckley.
  • Carole King

    Music

    Performer: Cleo Laine.
  • Cy Coleman

    The Best is Yet to Come

    Lyricist: Carolyn Leigh. Performer: Frank Sinatra. Music Arranger: Quincy Jones. Ensemble: The Count Basie Orchestra.
  • Victor Schertzinger

    I Remember You

    Performer: BjΓΆrk.
  • Sergey Rachmaninov

    Nunc Dimitis from All Night Vigil, Op. 37 (5th mvmt)

    Choir: USSR Academic Russian Choir. Conductor: Alexander Sveshnikov.
  • Trad.

    Tsintskaro

    Performer: Hamlet Gonashvili.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 13 Dec 2020 23:00
  • Sun 12 Sep 2021 23:00