City Desk: Art-House Memories

To close the affair, Home has all that day’s 18 performers sing “At the River,” the old American hymn arranged by Aaron Copland. Of all the voices, the birthday girl’s is easy to pick out, and it is the best (frankly).

Just recently, the Decca label issued a two-CD compilation called Just for the Record: The Golden Voice. The title is not only trite, but also a little misleading, for the voice wasn’t golden (although it could be that): It was harsh, sweet, dark, bright, wide, thin, luxuriant, biting— whatever she wanted it to be. But the CDs provide an excellent sampling of all she could do, in her illimitable repertory. Also valuable is a two-CD set of pirates on the Gala label, showing the early Horne as a soprano (in Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene, for example).

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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To close the affair, Home has all that day’s 18 performers sing “At the River,” the old American hymn arranged by Aaron Copland. Of all the voices, the birthday girl’s is easy to pick out, and it is the best (frankly).

Just recently, the Decca label issued a two-CD compilation called Just for the Record: The Golden Voice. The title is not only trite, but also a little misleading, for the voice wasn’t golden (although it could be that): It was harsh, sweet, dark, bright, wide, thin, luxuriant, biting— whatever she wanted it to be. But the CDs provide an excellent sampling of all she could do, in her illimitable repertory. Also valuable is a two-CD set of pirates on the Gala label, showing the early Horne as a soprano (in Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene, for example).