I knew Ann Drummond-Grant’s voice was beautiful the first time I heard it, but it was years before I understood how beautifully she used it. She produced a full, free sound without distorting the words, which is difficult in English. (Quick primer: Good singing is based on the free, open sounds of Italian vowels. English is full of diphthongs that are tough to sing clearly unless you know what you’re doing.) Her voice was smooth from top to bottom, with no audible breaks between the high, middle, and low registers. Drummie had good instincts, but it was clear she also had an excellent teacher.

 I thought I knew who that teacher was. According to a 1936 D’Oyly Carte program note, Drummie “studied singing under Miss Lind Horsburgh, a well known Scottish contralto.” Drummie began her career as a dramatic soprano, but with time, her voice settled into its true identity in a lower register. She would have wanted to retrain her voice as it deepened, and Ms. Horsburgh would have been the ideal teacher. But I could find no trace of this “well known Scottish contralto” on the internet. Though Horsburgh was a fairly common Edinburgh name, Lind Horsburgh seemed not to exist.

Finally, quite recently, it occurred to me to search for any Scottish contralto named Horsburgh. I found one: a woman called Nina Horsburgh who was active in Edinburgh at the right time and even made a recording or two. Whoever wrote that 1936 program note must have been looking at Drummie’s handwriting. I have an image of one of her letters where she writes “New York” with a capital N that looks exactly like a capital L. Her teacher’s name was Nina.

Searching the public record further, I learned that Nina’s real name was Agnes, like a great many women in Fife. Drummie had a sister, a grandmother, and an aunt named Agnes, and those were just the ones I found. I’m told there were so many Agneses in that part of Scotland that some families varied it and called their daughter Senga, which is Agnes spelled backwards. Agnes Horsburgh was performing as Nina as early as 1906. In 1915, she had a daughter, also named Nina. The name clearly meant something to her. Agnes/Nina/Lind Horsburgh lived until 1951. Knowing how important a voice teacher is in a singer’s life, I have to assume she and Drummie stayed in touch till then.