Vox Hunt: Overdubbed

Audio: If you could sing like anyone, living or dead, who would you choose to sound like?  Share a song of theirs.
Submitted by aa.

 

 I think it's a toss up between the divine miss Sarah Vaughan, soprano Gundula Janowitz or contralto Kathleen Ferrier.

 

 These two tracks show how Vaughan could both soar in the ballads and swing hard in the up-tempos. (For some reason, the title in the first vid says "Ella Fitzgerald", but obviously they are on crack.) 

Ferrier was a true prodigy, with very little formal training. She was best known for her interpretations of Mahler and British folk songs.

 

 

Gundula Janowitz had a voice like a cool stream of pure water. She could pull out a phrase endlessly--it's like she never need to breathe. A senior gentleman I know who sang with her in 60s and 70s said that in rehearsals, she would sing while sitting cross-legged on the floor in her socks, and could still fill an entire opera house with that incredible sound. Here she is as Pamina in a production of The Magic Flute.