Kathleen Ferrier (contralto)
20th-Century British Treasures
rec. 1946-1953
SOMM ARIADNE 5010 [79:15]
This is the sixth release by Somm in their Kathleen Ferrier edition. Like its forebears, it focuses on live performances. The only previous volume I’ve encountered is the one entitled ‘Kathleen Ferrier Remembered’, archive broadcasts of British and German song, deriving from BBC broadcasts made between 1947 and 1952. It was released back in 2017. This recent offering concentrates on 20th century British composers, with live BBC radio broadcasts taped between 1946 and 1953. In addition, there are three songs by Roger Quilter, commercial inscriptions by Decca, set down in December 1951. The BBC broadcast of 7 April 1952 of Four Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila by Lennox Berkeley is previously unpublished.
It was my father’s Decca LP ‘The World of Kathleen Ferrier’ that first introduced me to the great contralto. My interest was further heightened by the fact that she was born not that far from where I was, in the Lancashire village of Higher Walton, on the outskirts of Preston, a house I’ve visited on several occasions. She started off on piano, and in 1937 entered the Carlisle Festival, but a bet of a shilling by her then husband that she would also enter as a singer resulted in a win in both categories. On that occasion she sang Roger Quilter’s To Daisies, and from then on it was onwards and upwards to became one of the best-loved and most admired singers in the world. Sadly, her early death in October 1953 robbed us of so much.
Parry’s Love is a bable features both on this release and Somm’s ‘Kathleen Ferrier Remembered’ disc. How very different they are. I prefer the latter, recorded in August 1948 at the Freemasons’ Hall, Edinburgh with Bruno Walter on piano. It has a marvelous sense of presence, though there’s slightly less bloom to the voice. The three Roger Quilter songs, the only commercial recordings here, I was already familiar with. Comparing them with the transfers in my Centenary Edition box, the Somm restorations confer marginally more depth and perspective, but the Decca transfers sounded more clean. The atmospheric Silent Noon by Vaughan Williams is nicely paced and evocative. Ferrier’s phrasing is so natural, and the sustained E flat on the word ‘song’ is exquisitely controlled. A great favourite of mine is Frank Bridge’s Go not, happy day, where the bubbly accompaniment comes courtesy of Frederick Stone. It’s a song, similar to Warlock’s Pretty ring time, where her radiant personality and charisma shine through.
Near the end of her life on January 12 1953 she set down her interpretation of Three Psalms, Op. 61 by Edmund Rubbra with Ernest Lush on piano. Here we experience the sheer beauty of her sound and her great gift for communication. There’s a wealth of emotion and expression in the yearning quality of her voice, bonded with a profound emotional depth. In Britten’s The Flower Song from The Rape of Lucretia, I admire her clarity of diction and close attention to every detail. Reginald Goodall and the EOG Orchestra are with her all the way.
Lennox Berkeley composed his Four Poems of Teresa of Ávila in 1947 for contralto and string orchestra for Ferrier, and she was consulted throughout the gestation. The performance here is a BBC broadcast and dates from April 7, 1952. The orchestra is the London Symphony Orchestra under the inspirational baton of Hugo Rignold. This is its first appearance on CD. It’s a fine work, one I’m encountering for the first time. The third song Let mine eyes see Thee is sung with ardent intensity, and perfectly supported by Rignold. Surprisingly, she never recorded this work commercially, but there’s a performance from 23 November, 1949 with Sir John Barbirolli at the helm of the Hallé Orchestra on a Barbirolli Society CD, which has been reviewed by my colleague John Quinn, which sadly I haven’t heard to offer any comparisons.
The restorative work by Norman White is second to none, with Ferrier’s voice emerging glowing, burnished and radiant. There’s some very slight surface hiss on the BBC recital of January 12 1952, affecting the Rubbra, Wordsworth and Ferguson tracts, but other than that the audio quality is surprisingly very good. It’s gratifying to read the insightful analysis of Ferrier’s interpretations from a singer’s perspective in the booklet contribution by Sir Thomas Allen. Also, I’m immensely grateful that song texts are included.
This is certainly a disc to treasure.
Stephen Greenbank
Contents
Berkeley, Lennox
Poems (4) of St Teresa of Ávila, op.27(h)
Bridge, Frank
Go not, happy day, H34(a)
Britten, Benjamin
The Rape of Lucretia, op.37
» The Flower Song (g)
Ferguson, Howard
Discovery, op.13(f)
Jacobson, Maurice
The Song of Songs(e)
Parry, Charles Hubert Hastings
English Lyrics Set 6
» 3. Love is a bable (a)
Quilter, Roger
Songs (3), op.3
» no.2 Now sleeps the Crimson Petal (b)
The Fair House of Joy(c)
To Julia, op.8
» no.3 To Daisies (b)
Rubbra, Edmund
Psalms (3), op.61(f)
Stanford, Charles Villiers
An Irish idyll in six miniatures, op.77
» II The Fairy Lough (a)
A soft day, op.140 no.3(a)
La belle dame sans merci(d)
Vaughan Williams, Ralph
The House of Life
» no.2 Silent Noon (a)
Warlock, Peter
Pretty Ring Time(a)
Sleep(a)
Wordsworth, William Brocklesby
Songs (3) (f)
Participating artists:
Frederick Stone (piano)
Phyllis Spurr (piano)
Ernest Lush (piano)
Anna Pollak (mezzo-soprano)
English Opera Group Orchestra / Reginald Goodall
London Symphony Orchestra / Hugo Rignold
BBC recital, June 5, 1952 (a)
Recorded by Decca, December 1951. Issued M680 (September 1952) (b)
Recorded by Decca, December 1951. Issued LX 3098 (November 1952) (c)
BBC recital, February 16, 1948 (d)
BBC recital, November 3, 1947 (e)
BBC recital, January 12, 1953 (f)
BBC broadcast, October 11, 1946 (g)
BBC broadcast, April 7, 1952. Previously unpublished recording (h)
