Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Storytelling

Singer Nora Fischer celebrates the huge variety of sounds the human larynx can produce in three diverse and fascinating playlists.

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 Beyoncé.

In the final episode of her series, Nora Fischer finds out how a vocalist can tell a tale - not just in the words they’re singing, but in the very character of their voice. She showcases the unique styles of Lotte Lenya, Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra - artists who seem to embody the very meaning of each song they perform. And she finds composers like Gesualdo, Handel and Schoenberg creating emotion and tension through their manipulation of vocal lines as stories unfold before our ears.

A Tandem Production for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 3

59 minutes

Last on

Sun 19 Sep 2021 23:00

More episodes

Previous

Next

You are at the last episode

See all episodes from Extraordinary Voices with Nora Fischer

Music Played

  • Pierre Passereau

    Il est bel est bon

    Ensemble: Amarcord.
  • Kurt Weill

    Pirate Jenny

    Performer: Lotte Lenya.
  • Kurt Weill

    Pirate Jenny

    Performer: Nina Simone.
  • Claudio Monteverdi

    Possente spirto from L'Orfeo

    Singer: Anthony Rolfe Johnson. Ensemble: English Baroque Soloists. Conductor: Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
  • Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson

    Oceania

    Performer: Björk.
  • George Frideric Handel

    Curio, Caesar has come from Julius Caesar (Act I)

    Singer: Janet Baker. Singer: Sarah Walker. Orchestra: The English National Opera Orchestra.
  • Arnold Schoenberg

    Gemeinheit from Pierrot Lunaire (Part 3)

    Singer: Christine Schäfer. Ensemble: Ensemble intercontemporain. Conductor: Pierre Boulez.
  • Lene Lovich

    Wir leben immer...noch (We are still living)

    Performer: Nina Hagen.
  • Jule Styne

    Rose's Turn from Gypsy

    Performer: Ethel Merman. Ensemble: Original Broadcast Cast.
  • Carlo Gesualdo

    Moro lasso

    Ensemble: Concerto Italiano. Director: Rinaldo Alessandrini.
  • Modest Mussorgsky

    The Field Marshall - No. 4 of Songs and Dances of Death

    Orchestrator: Dmitry Shostakovich. Singer: Ferruccio Furlanetto. Orchestra: Mariinsky Orchestra. Conductor: Valery Gergiev.
  • Sam Cooke

    A Change is Gonna Come

    Performer: Otis Redding.
  • Béla Bartók

    Szenagyujteskor (dedinska Sceny BB 87a)

    Performer: Nora Fischer. Performer: Daniël Kool.
  • Anton Bruckner

    Tota Pulchra Es Maria (Antiphon)

    Choir: The Sixteen. Conductor: Harry Christophers.
  • Camille

    Tout dit

    Performer: Camille.

Broadcasts

  • Sun 20 Dec 2020 23:00
  • Sun 19 Sep 2021 23:00