Ilona Durigo

[1] Each year from 1930 to 1939 she performed the alto part in Bach's St Matthew Passion with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Willem Mengelberg.

[1] This included the first recording of the work in 1939,[1] alongside Karl Erb as the Evangelist and Willem Ravelli[2] as the vox Christi.

Singing also in musical centres of Austria, Germany, Belgium and Italy, she is regarded as one of the leading concert contraltos of the period.

Durigo fell in love with Schoeck, but her feelings were not returned, and in any event she was by then married to the Hungarian pianist Osman Kasics.

Her relationship with Schoeck was at times turbulent, but Durigo soon became the best-known interpreter of his work, and in later life he stated that she was the finest singer of his songs he had found.