Marian Anderson is not a name much remembered today, even in her native America: among contraltos, the legend of her British contemporary Kathleen Ferrier is more fondly rehearsed. But Anderson merits a place in the chronicles, not only as a superb interpreter of the classic art song repertory – Schubert and Brahms especially – but also as a reluctant poster girl for the civil rights movement that gathered momentum in the 1950s.

Anthony Tommasini, for many years the chief classical music critic of the New York Times, has written a generous and affectionate biography of this gentle and dignified black woman, including sensitively detailed commentary on her recordings. But he is unable to draw much excitement, let alone scandal, out of her tale, and gives a disappointingly hazy picture of the broader context in which black people could make a career in classical music. It’s odd, for instance, that Tommasini never mentions Sissieretta Jones, the African American soprano born a generation before Anderson, who sang for royalty and at the White House as well as touring the world to great acclaim. Some points of comparison with the treatment afforded to jazz performers of the time would also have been illuminating. Did they navigate the obstacle course of Jim Crow more easily?

Born to parents on the cusp of poverty and respectability in South Philadelphia in 1897, Marian Anderson moved through life cautiously. The potential of her rich, supple and plangent voice was first noticed in the Baptist church choir, from which she made her way via high school, singing teachers, charity