Though she lacked the low notes of a true contralto, she sang with lovely tone, fine expressivity and good diction in her middle and upper registers.
Through an array of interpretive choices — fine gradations of dynamics; pungent diction; telling contrasts of ethereal and earthy timbres; tempos that are more lusty than languid; a way of propelling a phrase toward a goal — the music takes on narrative momentum, its moods dovetailing with the theme of the text.
Anderson received enthusiastic notices throughout the nineteen-twenties her first Times review, inineteen-twenties hervoice ofirstsual compass, color, and dramaTimesapacity"—but she needed time to mastereviewfiner points of style and diction in foreign-language songs.
Mr. Duesing, a fine singing actor, sets the tone for diction that is unusually fine for opera, almost across the board.
So let's hear it for the playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose imagination, comic timing, sense of pace and diction have given us many fine plays, including his latest, the Pulitzer Prize winning Between Riverside and Crazy.
(Evasive diction is one of the finer arts of public relations and is often indifferently done, but this phrase I approve).
His waspish putdowns, love of fine drawing, knowledge of art history and his genteel diction made him one of the UK's best-known critics.
When, only a few months later, my father--who's never read my poems, whose fine but mostly functional knowledge of English makes the diction and syntax of my work difficult to follow, who doesn't know anything of the themes or subjects of my poetry--tells me to use another name, he's encouraging also.
A review in The Gramophone of one of his 1957 albums containing recordings of his old "concert party" songs commented, "what a fine voice he has and how well he can use it – diction, phrasing, range and the interpretative insight of the artist".
On stage, the finest performance came from Kate Valentine, whose vibrant soprano, crisp diction and ardent presence lent several of the drabber pieces a degree of glamour they did not merit.
