Talk:Paul Robeson

Voice type

I believe I brought this up some time back but there was no satisfactory response. This article does not cite any sources for the claim that Robeson is a bass-baritone. He described himself as a bass, and sounds perfectly like a bass. In his hearing with HUAC he says "I am a bass singer, so for me it was Chaliapin, the great Russian bass, not Caruso the tenor."

A "bass-baritone" is supposed to possess qualities of both a bass and a baritone, His voice is completely lacking any baritonal quality. He is dark and thick sounding all the way up to his highest notes. e.g in his Carnegie performance of Old Man River his highest note is d4 (2 minutes in), and he still clearly has the timbre of a bass even at the top of his range. He doesn't sound like a baritone at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7oAn4Pydpo

Is there some reliable source that categorizes classical singers that can be used for Robeson? Might his own words from the HUAC hearing be used? — Preceding unsigned comment added by XBiophagex (talk • contribs) 11:26, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I notice, now, that I'm taking up this topic after a four year gap. Recently Pincrete corrected me when I changed the description of Robeson's singing voice in the first sentence of the lead from "bass-baritone" to "bass". Pincrete was technically correct by Wikipedia standards because Robeson's voice is described as bass-baritone in the body of the article according to reliable sources (something I should have noticed in the first place). No doubt, one could also find reliable sources that describe him as a bass rather than as a bass-baritone. As a practical matter, though, one would be hard pressed to find any voice teacher circa 2023 that would describe his voice as ay kind of baritone. He was definitely a bass. Howard Keel was a bass-baritone, Paul Robeson was a bass. He was also, of course, a "concert singer", and that is what I suggest we now call him in the lead. Otherwise we're misleading the reader. We can worry about the voice description in the body of the article later. Goodtablemanners (talk) 23:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

I would personally also have thought of him as a bass, but Brittanica says "Robeson had a superb bass-baritone singing voice". An old discussion in the NY Times says he himself claimed to be baritone - though I can only read about 5 seconds of that ($$). Most other musical sources seem to say bass-baritone as well. Concert artist may well have been the contemporary term to describe him, but it perhaps sounds 'dated' now. Pincrete (talk) 00:52, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd prefer "concert singer" to "concert artist", both may be dated, but I don't think there's anything wrong with using the terms that were common at the time. Actually, his description as a bass-baritone may have something to do with the conventions of his day. Basses in opera tended to have unheroic roles so the description of Robeson as a bass-baritone might have been partly to soften this image. As I said, however, he was definitely a true bass. None of this is worth getting into a heated argument about. Cheers. Goodtablemanners (talk) 01:26, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Relationship with Albert Einstein

Is this a topic of general interest to be included? References in this article: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-celebrity-scientist-albert-einstein-used-fame-denounce-american-racism-180962356/

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Relay to Grand Pavilion, Porthcawl

Can a more authoritative figure be sourced as a reference for those present for the Miners' Eisteddfod at the Grand Pavilion, Porthcawl, on 5 October 1957? The Jeff Sparrow article states only that it was "filled with perhaps 5,000 people". As the current capacity of the Main Hall is stated to be 643, the figure of 5,000 seems inflated, and inherently implausible, even if the broadcast was simultaneously broadcast to those assembled in the lesser hall in the basement.Ntmr (talk) 11:22, 3 April 2024 (UTC)