Marian Anderson was the American contralto whose voice broke through the segregated world of classical concert music — bel canto control paired with an enormous, dark, velvet-toned range that carried her from Philadelphia's Union Baptist Church choir to a crowd of more than 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from Constitution Hall. She built her career on German lieder, Italian opera arias, and African American spirituals, delivering all three with the same unhurried, disciplined phrasing. Note: she trained under a series of local voice teachers (Mary Saunders Patterson, Agnes Reifsnyder, Giuseppe Boghetti) rather than citing a specific earlier singer as her own influence, so no further musical lineage is asserted here — this is an honest headwater, not an omission.

the sound in question

1936

Ave MariaMarian Anderson