Background
Herbert Witherspoon was born on July 21, 1873, in Buffalo, New York, the son of Orlando Witherspoon, an Episcopal clergyman, and his wife, Cora V Taylor.
(Old Bakelite 78 Record Victor record German-Bass Der Wand...)
Old Bakelite 78 Record Victor record German-Bass Der Wanderer (The Wanderer) (Schubert) Herbert Witherspoon accompaniment by Victor Orchestra 74323
https://www.amazon.com/Victor-Records-Vintage-sided-Wanderer/dp/B00CLDQ0FS?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00CLDQ0FS
(With authoritative writings pertaining to modern voice de...)
With authoritative writings pertaining to modern voice development, and the vocal art in general is all too scarce, this book by such a master of singing as Mr. Whitherspoon is of unusual importance, The work is divided into two parts. Part I contains a series of essays or articles dealing in a general and especially comprehensive manner with various subjects relationg to the singing art. In part II the author illustrates completely his method of teaching, setting forth with the utmost clarity the different facts and principles upon which his entire art are based. As an additional feature, the book concludes with a cross-reference index designed to act as a guide for finding of any desired information for special study or particular ends. We recommend this unquestionably valuable book to every student of voice as a textbook which it will pay him/her to have constantly at his elbow for ready reference.
https://www.amazon.com/Singing-Treatise-Teachers-Herbert-Witherspoon/dp/B000G5SMO0?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000G5SMO0
Herbert Witherspoon was born on July 21, 1873, in Buffalo, New York, the son of Orlando Witherspoon, an Episcopal clergyman, and his wife, Cora V Taylor.
He received his academic education at Yale University, where he was awarded the degree of A. B. with the class of 1895. He was talented in both music and drawing, and for a time a career in art was considered. With this in view he studied drawing and painting at the Yale Art School, but his association with the Yale Glee Club, as bass soloist, determined him finally toward a singing career. The year following his graduation he was with the Southford Paper Company in New York. At the same time he studied theory and composition. He then went to Europe, where he studied in London, Paris, and Berlin. The list of his teachers, at home and abroad, includes Giovanni Lamperti, Henry J. Wood, Max Treumann, Walter Henry Hall, Jacques Bouhy, Horatio Parker, and Edward MacDowell. In addition to music lessons, he studied acting with Joseph Victor Capoul and Anton Fuchs.
Upon his return to America Witherspoon made his operatic début as Ramfis in Aida with Henry W. Savage's Castle Square Opera Company, with which he appeared until 1900. In 1906 he took part as soloist in a concert version of Parsifal given by the New York Symphony Orchestra under Walter Damrosch. He also toured with the Thomas Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. When Giulio Gatti-Casazza became director of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1908, Witherspoon was one of the first American singers engaged by the new management, and he made his first appearance on November 26 as Titurel in a Thanksgiving Day performance of Parsifal. He remained with the company until 1916. While Toscanini was associated with the Metropolitan as a conductor, Witherspoon appeared as soloist in the Good Friday performance of Verdi's Manzoni Requiem (1909) and in the following season sang the rôle of Lodovico in Toscanini's revival of Verdi's Otello. He was a member of the cast of the first opera by an American to be given at the Metropolitan: Frederick S. Converse's The Pipe of Desire (March 18, 1910); and he sang the part of Arth in Horatio Parker's prize-winning opera, Mona (March 14, 1912). His Wagnerian rôles included Gurnemanz (as well as Titurel) in Parsifal; King Marke in Tristan and Isolde; King Henry in Lohengrin; one of the giants in Das Rheingold, and Pogner in Die Meistersinger. Upon leaving the Metropolitan in 1916, Witherspoon devoted himself to concerts and to teaching, with festival appearances in America and in England. He was the founder of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing, March 25, 1922, and acted as its chairman until 1926. In 1925 he became president of the Chicago College of Music, a post which he held until 1929, when he was appointed artistic director of the Chicago Civic Opera Company. After a single season (1930 - 1931) the so-called "Insull crash" of utility interests in Chicago put an end to the opera company, and Witherspoon reentered the educational field by becoming director of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. In 1933 he was chairman of music for the Century of Progress Exposition, Chicago. After this he returned to New York, where he had been appointed to the faculty of the Juilliard Summer School. On March 6, 1935, his selection as general manager of the Metropolitan Opera Company, as successor to Gatti-Casazza, was announced. As associates he had Edward Ziegler and Edward Johnson, one of the company's leading tenors. He started to work intensively on his new undertaking and conducted hundreds of auditions in a search for young American singers. These labors proved too much for him, and he dropped dead on May 10, two months after taking office, as he was completing a conference prior to sailing for Europe the next day.
(With authoritative writings pertaining to modern voice de...)
(Old Bakelite 78 Record Victor record German-Bass Der Wand...)
Herbert Witherspoon was a member of the Yale Glee Club, mixed chorus of men and women.
On September 25, 1899, Herbert Witherspoon married Greta Hughes, from whom he was divorced in 1915. On June 20, 1916, he married Florence Hinkle, soprano. On April 4, 1934, Witherspoon married Blanche Skeath. He had no children.