Sembrich’s Love of Folksongs
Portrait of Marcella Sembrich by Paul Mayerheim. From The Sembrich Collection.
In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating one of the many achievements of our namesake Madame Marcella Sembrich. Following her retirement from opera in 1909, she spent nearly a decade touring across the United States and Europe as an incomparable concert singer. Her dominance of the concert stage was unrivaled. Mme. Sembrich popularized the addition of folksongs (all in their original languages) to her concert programs, a tradition that continues to this day. Sembrich even published a vocal album titled “My Favorite Folksongs,” in which she compiled folksongs that were most beloved to her and her audience. In the preface she stated:
“Folksongs are reflections of the feelings and predilections of many peoples whose characteristic manner of musical expression they preserve and exemplify… In introducing folksongs into my recital programs I was by no means actuated solely by a desire to serve educational ends. Finding a great deal of pleasure in the songs because of their melodic loveliness and simplicity and the genuineness and warmth of their sentiment, in which I could not help recognizing phases of the emotional life of their different peoples of the world, I felt that their melodic and rhythmical beauty and naïve eloquence would win recognition in the concert-room and the songs would bear comparison with the best products of the modern masters of artistic song.”- Marcella Sembrich
Learn more: