Povla Frijsh

Povla Frijsh (Aerø, Denmark, 3 August 1881 – Blue Hill, Maine, 10 July 1960) was a Danish soprano who excelled above all in recital and art song.

She trained in Denmark with Ove Christensen, but her career was consolidated in Paris, where she arrived at the age of seventeen to work with the baritone Jean Périer.

Three years later she made her recital debut in that city and joined the tours of the Cortot-Thibaud-Casals trio, from whose work she said she learnt a great deal about phrasing. Mahler chose her to sing in his Second Symphony in Cologne in 1910. She made her New York debut in 1915, and in that city she gave annual recitals until 1947.

Her voice, with its singular timbre, was highly expressive. She performed in opera on only two occasions, yet her dramatic sense was remarkable: she turned Schubert's Gruppe aus dem Tartarus into a truly spine-chilling experience.

She was an interpreter attentive to new music, performing works by Virgil Thomson, Randall Thompson, Samuel Barber and Rebecca Clarke, and she was the first to sing a good part of Poulenc's songs in New York. In her final years she devoted herself to teaching, and her complete recordings have been issued on CD.