A Kathleen
Ferrier feature by Christopher Fifield
Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)
The Complete
EMI Recordings
CD 1 [60.56]
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK
(1714-1787)
What is life to me
without thee (Orpheus and Euridice) [4.34]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Liebestreu (Constancy)
Op.3 No.1 [2.14]
Feinsliebchen (Sweetheart)
Deutsche Volkslieder Vol. II No.12 [2.35]
Edward ELGAR (1857-1934)
My work is done …
It is because (Dream of Gerontius) [3.17]
Gerald Moore (piano)
Date of recording 30 June
1944, Studio 3, Abbey Road, London
Maurice
GREENE (1696-1755)
I will lay me down
in peace [3.45]
O praise the Lord [1.48]
Gerald Moore (piano)
Date of recording 30 September
1944, Studio 3, Abbey Road, London
George
Frideric HANDEL
(1685-1759)
Spring is coming (Ottone)
[3.52]
Come to me soothing sleep
(Ottone) [4.17]
Gerald Moore (piano)
Date of recording 20 April
1945, Studio 3, Abbey Road, London
Henry
PURCELL (1659-1695)
Sound the trumpet
(Birthday Ode for Queen Mary) [2.01]
Let us wander, not unseen
(The Indian Queen) arr. Moffat [1.46]
Shepherd, shepherd cease
decoying (King Arthur) [1.20]
Felix
MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
I would that my love
Op.63 No.1 [2.46]
Greeting Op.63 No.3 [2.31]
Isobel Baillie (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Gerald Moore (piano)
Date of recording 21 September
1945, Studio 3, Abbey Road, London
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Kindertotenlieder
Nun will die Sonn’ so
hell aufgeh’n [4.51]
Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum
so dunkle Flammen [4.39]
Wenn dein Mütterlein tritt
zur Tür herein [4.30]
Oft denk’ ich, sie sind
nur ausgegangen! [2.55]
In diesem Wetter, in diesem
Braus [6.24]
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno
Walter
Date of recording 4 October
1949, Kingsway Hall, London
CD
2 [60.34]
Johannes
Sebastian BACH
(1685-1750)
Mass in B minor (BWV232)
Christe eleison * [3.36]
Qui sedes [3.36]
Et in unum Dominum* [4.15]
Agnus Dei [5.30]
Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
(soprano)* Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
Vienna Symphony Orchestra/Herbert
von Karajan
Recorded at rehearsal
on 15 June 1950, Musikvereinsaal, Vienna, Austria
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK
(1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice
Act One; Act Two,
Scene One
Greet Koeman (Euridice),
Nel Duval (Amor), Kathleen Ferrier (Orfeo)
Netherlands Opera Chorus
and Orchestra/Charles Bruck
Live recording on 10 July
1951 from the Municipal Theatre, Amsterdam, Holland
CD
3 [68.06]
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK (1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice
Act Two, Scene Two;
Act Three
Greet
Koeman (Euridice), Nel Duval (Amor), Kathleen Ferrier (Orfeo)
Netherlands Opera Chorus and
Orchestra/Charles Bruck
Live recording on 10 July
1951 from the Municipal Theatre, Amsterdam, Holland
Gustav
MAHLER (1860-1911)
Kindertotenlieder
(alternative takes previously unissued)
Nun will die Sonn’ so
hell aufgeh’n [5.18]
In diesem Wetter, in diesem
Braus [6.36]
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno
Walter
Date of recording 4 October
1949, Kingsway Hall, London
EMI
CLASSICS 50999 9 56284 2 4 [3CD
s: 60.56 + 60.34 + 68.06]
alternatively
CD: MDT
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
In
this year of the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee we
also celebrate the centenary of the birth on 22 April 1912 of
Britain’s greatest lyric contralto, Kathleen Ferrier. Despite
her tragically early death at 41 - which coincidentally threatened
to overshadow the Queen’s coronation year of 1953 - Kathleen
has never really left us. After brief introductory remarks,
I start my talk Kathleen Ferrier: Her Life and Voice
(now given over 150 times) by asking whether among the audience
there are some who heard her live in recital, concert, oratorio
or opera. Without exception there are always up to half a dozen
or so, among them even choristers with whom she sang as soloist.
I then play her recording of ‘What is life?’ to remind ourselves
of the contralto voice. Why do we need such a reminder? Because
today it is an unfashionable vocal Fach and very hard
to find except as a section of a choir, or as a character in
a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Everywhere I speak throughout
the land, as the sound of Kathleen Ferrier’s voice fills the
hall, the faces of my audiences react immediately with closed
eyes and faint smiles to the serenity and nobility of that unmistakeable
sound. They immediately drift off into a reverie. It may be
nostalgia for a bygone age, or evoked memories of parents recalled
who loved a voice which frequently resounded about the house
from wherever the wireless - how wonderfully old-fashioned that
word reads - was located. Whether it was Housewives’ Choice,
Family Favourites or the evergreen Desert Island Discs,
whether it was a live broadcast of Messiah from the Royal
Albert Hall on the Third Programme, a folksong in a recital
on the Home Service, or a talk on Woman’s Hour on the
Light Programme, what we heard then we can conjure up now. Thanks
to EMI’s three-disc set of all her recordings for that label,
we can also follow her recorded legacy from its very start for
the Columbia label on 30 June 1944. It only lasted with EMI
for just over a year thanks to her poor relationship with its
senior producer Walter Legge, whose definition of an overture
exceeded far beyond the musical term, especially when alone
with Kathleen in the back of a taxi. Instead Kathleen tore up
her contract and went to Decca at the suggestion of her teacher,
the baritone Roy Henderson. In 1949 and in response to intense
pressure from Kathleen, Decca temporarily released her back
to EMI for Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder conducted by one
of her mentors, Bruno Walter (CD 1). In return he conducted
her recording of that composer’s Das Lied von der Erde
in 1952, such was the stupidity of contractual ties and obligations
in those days.
There’s
not much EMI material compared to the Decca catalogue she subsequently
built up after she joined them in 1946 but nevertheless what
there is will be a must for Ferrier collectors. All but two
of the tracks have been released on APR5544 by Bryan Crimp.
Such information can be found in Paul Campion’s fine discography
Ferrier – A career recorded, Thames Publishing 2005,
a ‘must have’ to bring clarity to her complex recorded legacy.
The two exceptions are reserved and slightly slower takes from
Kindertotenlieder, back-ups which have been long forgotten.
Then (CD 2) there are four chunks of Bach’s B minor Mass from
15 June 1950, which were recorded at the afternoon
rehearsal for the concert (the complete live performance is
on Verona 300006/7 or Guild GHCD 2260/2) so that technicians
could test the microphones and recording machinery for another
unconnected project. Two of the four excerpts are duets with
Schwarzkopf (Legge’s wife). Coughs and thumps apart, this is
a miracle of a recording which could easily have been jettisoned
but mercifully was not. Kathleen is occasionally distant especially
when the quieter range is under test, indeed what appears to
be a fade-out suddenly returns plena voce. Rehearsal
it may be but both singers and instrumentalists play faultlessly.
Karajan’s interpretation is steeped in the 19th rather than
the 20th century. His tempo for the Agnus Dei is desperately
slow, at times threatening to stop altogether, but Kathleen
copes admirably and is known to have made the conductor weep
in the performance of this movement. Also taken from a live
broadcast is a staged Orfeo from Holland on 10 July 1951
(CD 2) about three weeks after her reappearance in public following
her mastectomy as part of the ultimately vain attempt to cure
her final illness. The finest gem is the test pressing of two
piano-accompanied extracts from the end of Elgar’s Dream
of Gerontius, all we have of Kathleen’s renowned singing
of the role of the Angel and which lay forgotten until 1978.
All such non-orchestral items are accompanied by Gerald Moore,
one of the finest accompanists Kathleen could have wished for
and a great friend to her throughout the brief number of years
which lay ahead. Kathleen’s diary records the mundane life she
was leading in Carlisle during 1942 (more detail later in the
review of ‘An ordinary diva’) and it is striking, indeed amazing,
that these, her first recordings, were made in 1944, barely
18 months later. In that short time the voice became confident,
full in sound and vivid in colour, the famed Ferrier echo producing
a pianissimo of magical intensity as well as joyous praise
in jollier music by Handel, Greene and (in duet with soprano
Isobel Baillie) Purcell and Mendelssohn (CD 1). She had become
a consummate professional.
Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)
The Complete
Decca Recordings - Centenary Edition
CD 1 [54.01]
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK
(1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice
(abridged)
Ann Ayars, Zoë Vlachopoulos
(sopranos), Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
Glyndebourne Festival
Chorus
Southern Philharmonic
Orchestra/Fritz Stiedry
Date of recording 22,
23, 29 June 1947, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
CD 2 [62.08]
Johann
Sebastian Bach
(1685-1750)
St Matthew Passion
BWV244 (arias and choruses)
No.1 Come, ye daughters
(chorus) [10.05]
No.9 My Master and my
Lord (alto recitative)
No.10 Grief for sin (alto
aria) [4.49]
No.33 Behold, my Saviour
(soprano and alto duet and chorus) [5.02]
No.36 Ah! Now is my Saviour
gone (alto aria and chorus)[5.12]
No.47 Have mercy, Lord,
on me (alto aria)
No.48 Lamb of God, I fall
before Thee (chorale) [8.38]
No.60 O gracious God!
(alto recitative)
No.61 If my tears be unavailing
(alto aria) [9.31]
No.63 O sacred head surrounded
(chorale) [1.16]
No.69 Ah, Golgotha! (alto
recitative)
No.70 See ye! (alto aria
and chorus) [5.44]
No.72 Be near me, Lord
(chorale) [1.54]
No.77 And now the Lord
to rest is laid (recitative for soloists and chorus)
No.78 In tears of grief
(chorus) [9.32]
Elsie Suddaby (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Eric Greene (tenor),
William Parsons (bass)
The Bach Choir
The Jacques Orchestra/Reginald
Jacques
Date of recording Kingsway
Hall, London 1947-1948
CD
3 [67.50]
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK
(1714-1787)
What is life to me
without thee (Orpheus and Euridice) [4.27]
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
Art thou troubled?
(Rodelinda) [4.39]
London Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm
Sargent
Date of recording 27 February
1946, Kingsway Hall, London
Johann Sebastian
Bach (1685-1750)
St Matthew Passion BWV244
Have mercy, Lord, on me [8.09]
David McCallum (violin)
National Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm Sargent
Date of recording 6 February
1946, Kingsway Hall, London
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
Frondi tenere … Ombra
mai fu (Serse) [4.38]
London Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm
Sargent
Date of recording 7 October
1948, Kingsway Hall, London
Felix MENDELSSOHN
(1809-1847)
Woe unto them (Elijah)
[4.38]
O rest in the Lord (Elijah)
[3.09]
The Boyd Neel Orchestra/Boyd
Neel
Date of recording 2 September1946,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Giovanni
PERGOLESI (1710-1736)
Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater dolorosa [4.29]
Cujus animam gementem
[2.17]
O quam tristis [2.07]
Quae moerabat [2.54]
Quis est homo [2.41]
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
[3.39]
Eja Mater, fons amoris
[2.15]
Fac ut ardeat [2.10]
Sancta Mater [5.44]
Fac ut portem [2.55]
Inflammatus [2.51]
Quando corpus [4.15]
Joan Taylor (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
Nottingham Oriana Choir
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra/Roy
Henderson
Date of recording 8 and
28 May 1946, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
CD 4 [59.37]
Robert SCHUMANN
(1810-1856)
Frauenliebe und
Leben Op.42 [21.59]
Volksliedchen Op.51 No.2 [1.17]
Widmung Op.25 No.1 [2.25]
John Newmark (piano)
Date of recording 12 and
14 July 1950, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Sapphische Ode Op.94
No.4 [2.46]
Botschaft Op.47 No.1 [2.07]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 19 December
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Franz SCHUBERT
(1797-1828)
Gretchen am Spinnrade
D118 [3.09]
Die junge Nonne D828 [4.43]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 14 March
1947, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
An die Musik D.547 [3.05]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 14 February
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Der Musensohn D.764 [2.15]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 19 December
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Ganymed D.544 [4.17]
Du liebst mich nicht D.756
[2.50] (the recording fades with the last 12 bars missing)
Lachen und Weinen D777
[1.57]
Benjamin Britten (piano)
Private recording from
a BBC broadcast on 4 February 1952
Silent night, holy night
[3.24]
O come, all ye faithful
[3.18]
The Boyd Neel Orchestra/Boyd
Neel
Date of recording 6 August
1948, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
CD
5 [72.01]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Four Serious Songs
Op.121 orch. Sargent [18.27]
BBC Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm
Sargent
BBC broadcast on 12 January
1949
Ernest CHAUSSON (1855-1899)
Poème de l’amour et
de la mer Op.19 [27.27]
Hallé Orchestra/John Barbirolli
BBC broadcast on 9 March
1951
Howard FERGUSON
(1908-1999)
Discovery Op.13 [7.36]
William WORDSWORTH
(1908-1988)
Three songs Op.5 [6.17]
Edmund RUBBRA (1901-1986)
Three psalms Op.61
[10.26]
Ernest Lush (piano)
BBC broadcast on 12 January
1953
CD 6 [73.41]
Songs and arias
Charles Villiers
STANFORD (1852-1924)
The fairy lough Op.77
No.2 [3.39]
A soft day Op.140 No.3 [2.53]
Charles Hubert
Hastings PARRY (1848-1918)
Love is a bable Op.152
No.3 [1.39]
Ralph Vaughan
WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
Silent noon [4.53]
Frank BRIDGE (1879-1941)
Go not, happy day
[1.33]
Peter WARLOCK (1894-1930)
Sleep [2.46]
Pretty ring-time [1.16]
O Waly, Waly Trad. arr. Britten [4.13]
Come you not from Newcastle? Trad. arr. Britten [1.32]
Kitty, my love Trad. arr. Hughes[1.21]
Frederick Stone (piano)
BBC broadcast on 5 June 1952
Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
Mad Bess of Bedlam
arr. Britten [7.04]
Hark the echoing air (The
Fairy Queen) [3.12]
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
Like as the lovelorn
turtle (Atalanta) [7.12]
How changed the vision
(Admeto) [3.58]
Hugo WOLF (1860-1903)
Vier Mörike LiederVerborgenheit
[3.46]
Der Gärtner [1.47]
Auf ein altes Bild [3.19]
Auf einer Wanderung [3.41]
Paul Ludvig
Irgens JENSEN (1894-1969)
Altar [4.10]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Broadcast from Norway
on 16 October 1949
Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
Vergiss mein nicht
BWV505 No.71 [2.20]
Ach, dass nicht die letzte
Stunde BWV439 No.1 [1.58]
Millicent Silver (harpsichord)
Private recording from
a BBC broadcast on 26 December 1949
Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
Bist du bei mir BWV
508 [3.31]
John Newmark (piano)
Broadcast from Town Hall,
New York 8 January 1950
CD
7 [48.05]
Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
Qui sedes (Mass in
B minor) BWV232 [5.48]
Grief for sin (St Matthew
Passion) BWV244 [6.04]
All is fulfilled (St
John Passion) BWV245 [5.20]
Agnus Dei (Mass in B minor)
BWV232 [5.44]
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
Return, O God of hosts!
(Samson) [4.28]
O Thou that tellest (Messiah)
[5.39]
Father of Heaven (Judas
Maccabeus) [7.53]
He was despised (Messiah)
[6.43]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Adrian Boult
Date of recording 7 and
8 October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
CD
8 [53.28]
Traditional Folksongs
Ma bonny lad arr.
Whittaker [1.51]
The keel row arr. Whittaker [1.44]
Blow the wind southerly arr. Whittaker [2.22]
Date of recording 10 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
I have a bonnet trimmed with blue arr. Hughes [1.12]
My boy Willie arr. Sharp [1.44]
Date of recording 10 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
I know where I’m goin’ arr. Hughes [2.22]
Date of recording 11 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
The fidgety bairn arr. Roberton [2.48]
Date of recording 17 July1950 Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens,
London
I will walk with my love arr. Hughes [1.59]
Date of recording 10 December1951,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Ca’ the yowes arr. Jacobson
[3.26]
Date of recording 17 July
1950, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
O Waly, Waly arr. Britten
[3.34]
Date of recording 10 December1951,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Willow, willow arr. Warlock
[3.31]
Date of recording 11 February
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
The stuttering lovers
arr. Hughes [1.43]
Date of recording 10 December1951,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Roger QUILTER (1877-1953)
Now sleeps the crimson petal Op.3 No.2 [2.30]
Date of recording 10 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Fair house of joy Op.12 No.7 [2.38]
To daisies Op.8 No.3 [2.13]
Over the mountains arr.
Quilter [2.15]
Date of recording 11 December1951,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Have you seen but a white
lily grow? arr. Grew [2.25]
Date of recording 10 February
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Ye banks and braes arr.
Quilter [3.10]
Drink to me only arr.
Quilter [3.03]
Date of recording 11 December1951,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Down by the sally gardens
arr. Hughes [3.07]
The lover’s curse arr.
Hughes [3.05]
Date of recording 11 February1949,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Phyllis Spurr (piano),
John Newmark (piano)
CD
9 [63.07]
What
the Edinburgh Festival has meant to me [2.52]
BBC Scottish Home Service
broadcast 11 September 1949
Franz SCHUBERT
(1797-1828)
Die junge Nonne D828
[4.32]
Romance D797 No.3b [3.54]
Du liebst mich nicht D756
[3.43]
Der Tod und das Mädchen
D531 [2.39]
Suleika 1 D720 [4.49]
Du bist die Ruh D776 [4.44]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Immer leise wird mein
Schlummer Op.105 No.2 [4.04]
Der Tod, das ist die kühle
Nacht Op.96 No.1 [3.27]
Botschaft Op.47 No.1 [2.14]
Von ewiger Liebe Op.43
No.1 [5.17]
Robert SCHUMANN
(1810-1856)
Frauenliebe und
Leben Op.42 [20.43]
Bruno Walter (piano)
BBC broadcast on 7 September
1949 from an Edinburgh Festival recital, Usher Hall.
CD
10 [67.20]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Rhapsody for alto,
male chorus and orchestra Op.53
London Philharmonic Men’s Choir/Orchestra/Clemens Krauss
Date of recording 18 and 19 December 1947, Kingsway Hall, London
Gestillte Sehnsucht Op.91 No.1 [5.11]
Geistliches Wiegenlied Op.91 No.2 [5.09]
Phyllis Spurr (piano) Max Gilbert (viola]
Date of recording 15 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Vier ernste Gesänge Op.121 [18.26]
John Newmark (piano)
Date of recording 17 July1950, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens,
London
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Kindertotenlieder [22.30]
Nun will die Sonn’ so
hell aufgeh’n [4.56]
Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum
so dunkle Flammen [3.53]
Wenn dein Mütterlein tritt
zur Tür herein [4.04]
Oft denk’ ich, sie sind
nur ausgegangen! [3.03]
In diesem Wetter, in diesem
Braus [6.34]
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Otto
Klemperer
Live broadcast recording
12 July 1951, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Holland
CD
11 [69.28]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Liebeslieder Walzer
Op.52 Nos.1-18 [23.29]
Zum Schluss (Neue Liebeslieder
Walzer) Op.65 No.15 [2.25]
Irmgard Seefried (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Julius Patzak (tenor),
Horst Günter (bass baritone),
Clifford Curzon, Hans Gál (piano duet)
BBC broadcast on 2 September
1952 from an Edinburgh Festival recital, Usher Hall
Benjamin
BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Spring Symphony Op.44 [43.06]
Jo Vincent (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), Peter Pears (tenor)
Boys’ Choir of St Willibrorduskerk,
Rotterdam/Netherlands Radio Choir
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Eduard
van Beinum
Private recording of the
first performance on 14 July 1949, Amsterdam
CD
12 [71.38]
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Symphony No.2 Resurrection
[71.38]
Jo Vincent (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir/Concertgebouw
Orchestra/Otto Klemperer
Live recording July 1951,
Grote Zaal, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
CD
13 [76.02]
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Das Lied von der
Erde [61.16]
Three Rückert Lieder [14.46]
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto),
Julius Patzak (tenor)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno
Walter
Date of recording 15,
16, 20 May1952, Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria
CD
14 [42.11]
Johann Sebastian
Bach (1685-1750)
Praise our God Cantata
BWV11 (Ascension Oratorio)
Date of recording 6 October
and 1 November 1949, Kingsway Hall, London
Hold in affection Jesus
Christ Cantata BWV67
Date of recording 3 November
1949, Kingsway Hall, London
Ena Mitchell (soprano),
Kathleen Ferrier (contralto), William Herbert (tenor),
William Parsons (bass)
The Cantata Singers/The
Jacques Orchestra/Reginald Jacques
Bonus
DVD [58.00]
Kathleen Ferrier – An Ordinary Diva
1. Kathleen Ferrier – an ordinary diva [7.35]
2. Mrs Wilson [4.29]
3. Carlisle to Covent Garden in five years [13.44]
4. Yours till hell freezes over [4.02]
5. Whoopee! [11.38]
6. Aren’t I lucky [3.25]
7. Hell! Hell! Hell! [13.45]
Picture gallery
Decca discography
Original Decca record covers
Original Decca recording cards
Director: Suzanne Phillips
Menu screens: English
Video aspect ratio: 16:9 Anamorphic
Region Code: NTSC 123456
Disc format DVD 5
DECCA 478
3589 [14
CD s: 54.01 + 62.08 + 67.50 + 59.37 + 72.01 + 73.41 + 48.05
+ 53.28 + 63.07 + 67.20 + 69.28 + 71.38 + 76.02 + 42.11; DVD: 58.00]
MDT
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Decca’s collection picks up Kathleen Ferrier’s
recording career where the EMI set stops in the autumn of 1945,
apart from her return to them for her collaboration with Bruno
Walter in Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder in London four years
later in October 1949. She had clearly felt uncomfortable recording
for EMI, in particular with Walter Legge in charge but this
is no longer the case when she is working with her artistic
colleagues in Decca’s stable whether they be producers, fellow
singers, conductors or accompanists. At EMI she worked with
Isobel Baillie, with whom she had a cordial but not deep friendship.
A more serious loss was the end of her recording work with Gerald
Moore, although her friendship with him and his wife remained
constant and the pair went on to give many recitals throughout
Britain and Europe. At Decca she was now working with friends
such as Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Phyllis Spurr, Roy Henderson,
Reginald Jacques and John Newmark, a group of artists described
by the record company as ‘various accompanists, orchestras and
conductors’ in this collection of 14-CD s. Her first recording
for them was of Bach’s aria ‘Have mercy, Lord, on me’ from St
Matthew Passion in February 1946 conducted by Sargent (CD
3), who played a prominent role in her career by arranging for
the agent John Tillett to audition her at the Wigmore Hall (9
July 1942) and take her on the books of Ibbs and Tillett. Until
the end of 1942 she kept the domestic diary of a housewife (‘Washed’.
‘Shopped’. ‘Pipes froze’. ‘Hair’. ‘Knitting bee’. ‘Made a housecoat
from two rugs’). On 28 December that same year and having moved
down to London on Christmas Eve, she could write ‘National Gallery.
Went off very well. Crowds there’. Her career as a fully professional
singer was further underway. Her last recording for Decca was
made in October 1952 (CD 7), again of music by Bach but also
Handel and with another British knight, Sir Adrian Boult. Her
final recording was a BBC broadcast in January 1953 in which
she sang contemporary British music (CD 5). The wealth of material
here is a true reflection of her packed ten-year career. Her’s
is a remarkable story worth the telling. Because the family
income dropped alarmingly when her schoolteacher father retired,
Kathleen left school at fourteen and spent nine years working
for the Post Office, She attended neither University nor Music
College, learnt no foreign languages nor studied harmony and
counterpoint. Her failed marriage and the Second World War gave
her the freedom to exchange her teaching/accompanying/coaching
activities as a pianist for that of singing. She started her
professional life aged thirty, a good five years behind the
average for a singer and was therefore forced into playing catch-up
in terms of both experience and filling her portfolio with repertoire.
The best way to follow her career path is by listening to Decca’s
14 CD s, not forgetting that there are other works or performances
to be had on other labels, including Music and Arts, Naxos,
Guild, Somm, Gem, Gala, Appian and BBC Legends, to complete
the picture. Back in 2003, to mark the 50th anniversary of her
death, Decca put together a 10-CD set (Decca 475 6060).
Now we have a further four and they are all familiar fare in
terms of being re-issues or re-masterings of earlier single
discs but where EMI offer us two unused takes from a recording
we already have, Decca give us (CD 14) two Bach Cantatas complete
on CD for the first time (I still have my vinyl 10-inch LP of
one of them, Cantata No.11). The big gaps in her recorded legacy
remain. The most missed are Elgar’s music, in particular Dream
of Gerontius, a complete Messiah and Britten’s Canticle
Abraham and Isaac.
For those who do not wish to spend nearly
£50 on the 14 CD box, Decca has issued a 2-CD set called ‘Kathleen
Ferrier Centenary Edition – A Tribute’ and please note that
the titles are inevitably very similar to those issued nine
years ago for the anniversary of her death (475 078-2),
the difference being that these more recent issues include the
words ‘Centenary Edition’ in the title. When it comes to comparing
the content of the 2003 and 2012 2-CD sets, it’s a case of having
‘all the right tracks but not necessarily in the right order’.
Here is what you get in a good selection of typical Ferrier
fare in the 2012 compilation of 38 arias and songs taken from
the 14-CD box.
Kathleen Ferrier - Centenary Edition – A
Tribute
CD 1
Traditional Folksongs
Blow the wind southerly
arr. Whittaker [2.22]
Date of recording 10 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Down by the sally gardens arr. Hughes [3.07]
Date of recording 11 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London.
The keel row arr. Whittaker [1.44]
Date of recording 10 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Ye banks and braes arr. Quilter [3.10]
Date of recording 11 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
St Matthew Passion BWV244
Have mercy, Lord, on me [8.09]
David McCallum (violin)
National Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm Sargent
Date of recording 6 February 1946, Kingsway Hall, London
St Matthew Passion BWV244
Grief for sin BWV244 [6.04]
St John Passion
BWV245 [5.20]
All is fulfilled
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult
Date of recording 7 and 8 October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
Bist du bei mir BWV 508
[3.31]
John Newmark (piano)
Broadcast from Town Hall,
New York 8 January 1950
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Geistliches Wiegenlied
Op.91 No.2 [5.09]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Max Gilbert (viola]
Date of recording 15 February1949,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Kindertotenlieder [22.30]
Nun will die Sonn’ so
hell aufgeh’n [4.56]
Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum
so dunkle Flammen [3.53]
Oft denk’ ich, sie sind
nur ausgegangen! [3.03]
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Otto
Klemperer
Live broadcast recording
12 July 1951, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Holland
George Frideric
HANDEL (1685-1759)
Return, O God of hosts!
(Samson) [4.28]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Adrian Boult
Date of recording 7 and
8 October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
Like as the lovelorn turtle
(Atalanta) [7.12]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Broadcast from Norway
on 16 October 1949
O Thou that tellest (Messiah)
[5.39]
He was despised (Messiah)
[6.43]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Adrian Boult
Date of recording 7 and
8 October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
Ombra mai fu (Serse)
[4.38]
London Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm
Sargent
Date of recording 7 October
1948, Kingsway Hall, London
CD 2
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK (1714-1787)
What is life to me
without thee (Orpheus and Euridice) [4.27]
London Symphony Orchestra/Malcolm Sargent
Date of recording 27 February 1946, Kingsway Hall, London
Traditional Folksongs
Drink to me only arr.
Quilter [3.03]
Date of recording 11 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Ma bonny lad arr. Whittaker [1.51]
Date of recording 10 February1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Come you not from Newcastle? Trad. arr. Britten [1.32]
Kitty, my love Trad. arr. Hughes[1.21]
Frederick Stone (piano)
BBC broadcast on 5 June 1952
I know where I’m goin’ arr. Hughes [2.22]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 11 December1951, Decca Studios, Broadhurst
Gardens, London
Felix MENDELSSOHN
(1809-1847)
O rest in the Lord
(Elijah) [3.09]
The Boyd Neel Orchestra/Boyd
Neel
Date of recording 2 September1946,
Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
Hark the echoing air
(The Fairy Queen) [3.12]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Broadcast from Norway
on 16 October 1949
Franz SCHUBERT
(1797-1828)
An die Musik D.547
[3.05]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 14 February
1949, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Gretchen am Spinnrade
D118 [3.09]
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Date of recording 14 March
1947, Decca Studios, Broadhurst Gardens, London
Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685-1750)
Qui sedes (Mass in
B minor) BWV232 [5.48]
Agnus Dei (Mass in B minor)
BWV232 [5.44]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir
Adrian Boult
Date of recording 7 and
8 October 1952, Kingsway Hall, London
Gustav MAHLER (1860-1911)
Two Rückert Lieder
Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen [5.35]
Um Mitternacht [6.24]
Das Lied von der Erde
Der Abschied [28.22]
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno
Walter
Date of recording 15,
16, 20 May1952, Grosser Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria
DECCA
480 6151 [2 CDs]
MDT
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
There is only so much one can hear and see of
Kathleen Ferrier’s all too brief career. The bonus DVD ‘An ordinary
Diva’ contained in the 14-CD box was first issued in 2004 (DECCA
074 3067 DVD + CD ) and aired on all four BBC channels within
a year or two. A declaration of interest is made by this reviewer who
participated in the film as the editor of Letters and Diaries of Kathleen
Ferrier (Boydell Press 2003/enlarged paperback
revision 2011). Dame Janet Baker, Ian Jack, Sir George Christie,
Veronica Dunne and the late Alan Blyth, John Steane, Adele Leigh
and Lady Barbirolli were among those interviewed. There is a
film within a film, which includes valuable, fascinating footage
from the BBC’s 1968 Omnibus programme with characters
long departed life’s stage, Britten, Barbirolli, her singing
teachers John Hutchinson and Roy Henderson, sister Winifred,
friends from her native Northern roots and singing colleagues
such as Isobel Baillie. Going forward into the material made
especially for the DVD, the narrator is Robert Lindsay, Ferrier's
words are spoken by Vivien Parry and her letters read by Patricia
Routledge. This is the only miscalculation because her voice
is too old for a woman in her late 30s. It also brings home
the difficulty of pin-pointing Kathleen’s accent. The ‘r’ in
the word ‘work’ is a give-away – listen to the Edinburgh Festival
talk for the BBC which begins CD 9. Referring to Dr Bruno Walter
she says ‘My greatest good fortune has been working with Dr
Bruno Walter. To work and learn with him …’. Hers was soft Blackburn,
a distinctive accent within a Lancastrian one belonging to a
middle-class girl who later had elocution lessons. By the time
she came to London she had ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP). The
result was a deep posh voice just like Margaret Thatcher’s heard
in the 1970s, when it was still necessary to conceal origins
(in this case a Grantham family of grocers) in order to get
on. Word stress is carefully judged, the word ‘very’ often emphasised
in her favoured expression ‘my cup is very full’ – which
it was – and the ‘r’ a clipped single roll. Kathleen’s accent
was far subtler than any Lancastrian version of ‘ee-by-gum’
from over the nearby Yorkshire border. Even when out of the
public eye and ear and when making fun of the contralto voice
at a post-performance party in New York when she recites monologues,
spoofs the stereotypical oratorio contralto ‘hoot’ and introduces
items in that infectiously giggling voice – it’s not pure Blackburn
we hear. Like a chameleon, she takes on the accent of her surroundings
(one hears traces of American in this case and even Scottish,
as well as ‘posh’). Probably the nearest we will ever get to
the genuine Kathleen speaking voice is by listening to her sister
Winifred, leave it at that and concentrate on her singing voice.
This issue, however, continues to irk in the new DVD Decca are
distributing.
Kathleen Ferrier - A film
by Diane Perelsztejn
Available in two versions
DVD + CD bonus (Scanavo DVD box) 00440 0743471 0 AmazonUK
AmazonUS
DVD + CD bonus (Brilliant CD box) 00440 0743479 6 AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Narrator (English) Charlotte Rampling
Narrator (French) Marthe Keller
Picture format: 16:9
Colour mode: Colour
Region Code: 0 worldwide
DVD Format: NTSC
DVD [67.51]
Chapters:
1. A Lancashire lass [6.41]
2. War breaks out [4.17]
3. ‘I took my things to London and started my career
there’ [3.31]
4. An oratorio singer? [4.30]
5. ‘My first opera’ – Glyndebourne 1946 [3.22]
6. Bruno Walter [5.50]
7. ‘Making musical history’ [6.07]
8. North America [6.01]
9. Kathleen off the stage [5.37]
10. Rick Davies [6.47]
11. Das Lied von der Erde [7.01]
12. Orpheus and Euridice, Covent Garden [5.11]
13. Credits
Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)
CD [51.23]
Johann Sebastian
Bach (1685-1750)
Three arias [8.16]
Vergiss mein nicht BWV505
No.71 [2.39]
Ach, dass nicht die letzte
Stunde BWV439 No.1 [2.01]
Bist du bei mir BWV 508
[3.36]
Johannes
BRAHMS (1833-1897
Four Serious Songs
Op.121 [18.57]
John Newmark (piano)
Broadcast on WABF from
Town Hall, New York 8 January 1950
Christoph
Willibald von GLUCK
(1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice (excerpts) [24.17]
Ann Ayars (Euridice),
Louisa Kinlock (Amor), Kathleen Ferrier (Orfeo)
The Westminster Choir/Little
Orchestra Society/Thomas Scherman
Private recording made
at Town Hall, New York, 17 March 1950
DECCA 074 3471 DVD + CD
With two important anniversaries so relatively near (2003
and 2012) and another to come next year (2013, the 60th of her
death) one might be forgiven for concerns about overkill. How
much more can one expect to find? Between the two editions of
Letters and Diaries of Kathleen
Ferrier I managed, in those intervening nine
years, to find another 90 letters and added a chapter on her
relationship with the BBC. Since publication of the revised
edition in October 2011 I have discovered just two more letters.
One can only hope for more of them and for more recordings.
Nevertheless the Belgian, Melbourne-residing Diane Perelsztejn
has made a further film on the life of Kathleen Ferrier, coupled
here with a CD of three works which have lain out of public
hearing in New York for 62 years.
First to the DVD and let’s get some irritating pronunciations
and dubious conclusions out of the way. It may have been a coup
to secure the services of Charlotte Rampling to narrate this
English version (Marthe Keller does the French one) but she
is an accomplished actress who for many years has made France
her domicile and it shows. Her delivery is very soothing but
eventually monochrome, while her English is too frequently laced
with an attractive but utterly inappropriate French accent.
Even more to the point, it is hard to understand why she was
not corrected in some basic pronunciations of names and the
technical terms of music, or, at the very least, asked to be
consistent. Regrettably the worst example is the very surname
of the subject of this film. Ferrier does not rhyme with
Perrier as in the French carbonated water, while Mahler’s Das
Lied von der Erde requires careful and accurate pronunciation
(Das Lied von die Erd simply won’t do). Similarly the
surname of the composer Hugo Wolf is not sounded as the animal
but always with the initial letter pronounced as a V not a W.
The ‘o’ in the third syllable of Barbirolli should be as in
‘wrong’ and not as in ‘roly poly’. In ‘Kindertotenlieder’ the
stress comes on the third syllable (‘tot’) rather than on the
fifth (‘Lieder’). With ‘Bruno Walter’ why do we suddenly hear
the strange aberration ‘Waltaire’ as in Voltaire where elsewhere
in the film it has been largely correct? If a letter is put
up on the screen and says ‘and it rolled’ why change it to ‘but
it fell’ or from ‘legs burnt’ to ‘legs burned’ for all to see?
Why does ‘busto’ suddenly go into a Yorkshire accent in caricature?
There is no shortage of expertise among Kathleen Ferrier fans
and someone from among them should have been on board to monitor
these inconsistencies and errors.
There are also some statements with which one could take
issue. One is that ‘she often sang arias for male parts’, which
is wide open to misinterpretation. Another is that ‘performances
of Mahler were not so widespread in the UK in 1947’, the year
Kathleen first sang Das Lied von der Erde at the Edinburgh
Festival. In fact 1947 was the very year that the BBC first broadcast a cycle of all Mahler’s numbered
symphonies including the first UK broadcast performance on 29
November that year of the third under Sir Adrian Boult in which
Kathleen took the solo contralto part. Barbirolli himself first
conducted Mahler when he did Das Lied von der Erde in
the Albert Hall, Manchester in April 1946 with Parry Jones and
Catherine Lawson as soloists. Performances of Mahler’s music
were certainly rare but it is important to put the Walter/Ferrier
collaboration, hugely significant as it is, into some sort of
context. Elizabeth Dunlop makes some interesting observations
about Kathleen’s friendship with the Edinburgh-based couple
Alec and Rosalind Maitland but there is a danger here of blurring
the borders between fact and fiction. How do we know that Rosalind
coached Kathleen in German after two visits she made to their
home at No.6 Heriot Row in December 1942 and again in January
1943? (see footnote) The extant letters don’t tell us. A telling
caveat ‘family legend, whether it’s true or not’ precedes
the story that Kathleen taught herself Brahms’ Four Serious
Songs from a copy originally given by the composer to Rosalind’s
mother. None of this, nor the graphic description by Ms Dunlop
of Kathleen’s gauche stage manner at the start of her evening
recital (12 January 1943) at the Maitlands’ home, is mentioned
in either Winifred’s biography or the later (1988) one by Maurice
Leonard, though both confirm that she stayed there. More importantly
Kathleen makes no mention of any of this in her diary beyond
the fact that she was in Edinburgh and stayed with the Maitlands.
Surely she would have described even touching Brahms’ own score
let alone studying it? It would be good to read the evidence
and equally so to know the sources.
Nowhere does the Director Diane Perelsztejn explain the
questionable decision to accompany Kathleen’s re-mastered voice
in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with a 13-piece ensemble
(string quintet, wind quintet, piano and percussion) replacing
a full orchestra such as the Vienna Philharmonic. It may appear
clever to place a picture of the singing Kathleen to one side
of the screen to give the impression of a ‘live’ collaboration
but in terms of sound, the result is predictably thin textured
and visually very off-putting. It may show the process by which
this was achieved but with the musicians casually dressed and
desultorily conducted, the quasi-karaoke performance which ensues
naturally focuses entirely on staying with Kathleen’s voice.
This approach only serves to emphasise how impossible it is
to achieve any sense of spontaneous interpretation. It as not
as if the film eschews any playing of recordings of Kathleen
singing with orchestra, far from it – so why just this work?
It seems almost perverse that we must be glad that Kathleen’s
12-year marriage to Bert Wilson failed, else she would have
remained in the north-west with 2.4 children as the wife of
a bank manager playing and teaching the piano, possibly also
as a singer but as an amateur one and probably with no more
status than as a big fish in a small pond. This personal aspect
becomes the film’s driven obsession with Kathleen’s relationship
with antiques dealer Rick Davies and makes the presumption that
when he appears in her life (actually she appeared in his) in
1943 ‘she had finally found a man with whom she could enjoy
the kind of relationship of which she had dreamed’ but this
is not borne out by events let alone evidence. Seven years later
(in June 1950) he bores her after two days alone together in
Switzerland while she acknowledges that her career has no room
for domesticity. ‘Fickle that’s me’ she concludes in her usual
self-deprecating way. Rick wanted marriage but she didn’t. He
found a bride and it wasn’t Kathleen, so in her distress it
is alleged that she burnt their letters.
Clips of Benjamin Britten, Bernie Hammond, Roy Henderson and Winifred Ferrier will
be familiar to those who own ‘An ordinary diva’ for Perelsztejn
dips into the John Drummond film put out by the BBC in 1968.
This dvd is a must for Ferrier aficionados despite its flaws
and irritations which get no easier to endure at repeated viewings.
Nevertheless there are many interesting hitherto unpublished
photographs, in particular of Kathleen and Rick together in
happier times, clever use of wartime newsreel and subtle added
sound effects to enhance the atmosphere of the what we are watching.
There is much to commend this dvd and Ferrier-watchers will
want it but I can imagine the BBC turning its nose up at transmitting
it because of so many basic errors and they have ‘An ordinary
diva’, which has just been on BBC4 twice for the centenary on
22 April 2012 and it gets another two airings on 18 and 19 May.
In all the welter of Ferrier material re-released at
this time, the CD which accompanies this dvd is probably of
the greatest interest as it consists of hitherto unreleased
live recordings, albeit of music already in Kathleen’s discography.
They were recorded at the Town Hall in New York in January and
March 1950 during the last of her three annual tours to North
America. There are three arias by Bach, or at least attributed
to him as well as Brahms’ Four Serious Songs. All were recorded
at a concert given by the New Friends of Music. It was a miscellaneous
programme of Mozart, Bach, Brahms and Schoenberg with other
performers including the Berkshire [String] Quartet, an extra
violist and two French horn players. Kathleen’s contributions
were accompanied by John Newmark, a much-favoured musical colleague
as well as fast becoming a close and valued friend. For some
reason Kathleen had become very nervous in the days leading
up to the first Town Hall concert as she told her agent Emmie
Tillett:
