Gerald English’s LP of Baroque Music for Voice & Continuo (1966) was perhaps the single most influential recording for my generation of early music singers. It was the first time most of us had heard Monteverdi, Grandi and Cavalli, composers who would become part of our core repertoire, from a voice that was not that of a conventional opera singer, but was one we could aspire to.
As a member of the Swingle singers I was lucky enough to perform with him in the premiere of Berio’s Opera at the Maggio Musicale in Florence. During the run Gerald invited us to a very convivial lunch, and in that evening’s show his grand soliloquy was laced with Swingle in-jokes from earlier in the day. We all wanted to be Gerald English when we grew up.
