Voice of a Century

From the New York Times’s former chief classical music critic, a tribute to one of the great singers of modern times and a national treasure who broke racial barriers

The night before Marian Anderson performed her historic concert at the Lincoln Memorial, she called her manager with doubts. A crowd of 75,000 had flocked there to see her—many times more than the whites-only concert hall which rejected her weeks before—and she would be singing in front of the monument of freedom itself. This was a major triumph for racial justice, but Anderson worried it would overshadow the rest of her inimitable career. 

In this rich new portrait, Anthony Tommasini brings his decades of musical expertise to bear upon Anderson’s artistry, the journey of her life, and conversations about her legacy. After her breakout early performances in Europe, she gripped international audiences with her masterful renditions of Russian folk songs, German lieder, and Negro spirituals: a combination that would stretch even today’s cosmopolitan repertoires. 

But recognition was harder to achieve at home. Though celebrated for her concerts, Anderson could not book hotel rooms across the country. She sat uneasily on Pullman trains. These tribulations brought forth memorable shows of goodwill—Eleanor Roosevelt fought the DAR in her honor; Einstein housed her in Princeton—but were representative of the fierce racism Anderson faced. 

As Arturo Toscanini famously said of Anderson’s voice: one is privileged to hear it only “once in a hundred years.” Now, we get to enjoy it again, in the context of Anderson’s dignified leadership, authenticity, and majestic presence.