Allan Rogers Lindquest (1891-1984) went to Sweden in 1937 and studied with Haldis Ingebjart Isene (1891-1978), a student of Gillis Waldemar Bratt (1870-1925), the teacher of Kirsten Flagstad (1895-1962).

And who was Allan Rogers Lindquest? A lyric tenor who recorded for Edison at the young age of twenty-four, Lindquest experienced success on the vaudeville circuit and in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in New York City; and appeared with the Marx Brothers.

Lindquest returned to America in 1938 and settled in Pasadena, California: where he opened a very successful voice studio and became influential as a member of the American Academy of Voice Teachers.

What did Lindquest teach?

You can find out by reading Mary Ogburn Forrest’s engrossing 1984 doctoral dissertation, An Analysis of the Voice Teaching Techniques of Allan Rogers Lindquest.

You will also find quotes from Lindquest himself. Here are three.

You must do lots of translating. You must do lots of reading and feel this poetry. You never sing anything well until you are just a little disappointed in love.

Singing is work. W-O-R-K. There is no substitute for it. And yet it is alway with a joyous feeling of accomplishment. There will be discouraging times, but just ask the Lord to lead you and He will. That’s the only thing that helps me.

The voice follows the mind, the soul. The muscles must not precede the mind. The muscles act in response to what happens up there. Read some beautiful poetry to exercise your emotions. Read the Psalms and get the meaning of the words. The voice is merely the instrument to express these things. You must have beautiful musicianship and all that, yes, but the artist who has something to say must have fed on elevating thoughts, on beauty, on seeing beauty and loving it. The development of an artist is not merely scales and exercises, but we must have God, too. We need tremendous imagination. In your teaching of your students, remember eventually when they get the elementary things, you must stir up their minds so their motives become active. So that the well spring from which they are working is the development of themselves as an artist. An artist is a person who reflects life in one way or another, in painting, in literature, in music.

Look for Forrest’s dissertation on the download page.

Then listen to Lindquest sing “Farewell Margeurite” and “Macushla” on YouTube. However, remember that these recordings were made before his studies in Sweden.

Photo Credit: Gillis Waldemar Bratt at Genie.com