Beschrijving
Biography of Kathleen Ferrier 1912-1953, with 50 Illustrations.
Kathleen Mary Ferrier (Blackburn, Lancashire, England, April 22, 1912 – London, England, October 8, 1953) was an English alto singer. In 1935, she married Bert Wilson, a banker, and settled in Carlisle. At that time, legal incapacity for married women was still a general rule. Consequently, she had to bid farewell to professional life and devoted herself even more to her piano and singing talents.
Kathleen Ferrier’s voice possessed an innate naturalness. She had not attended a conservatory, and both Hutchinson and Henderson acknowledged that her voice was already perfect and that they had merely refined and coached this “instrument.” Her voice had a distinctive timbre that has not yet been equaled by anyone and is attributed to the fact that she was a tall woman of 1.75 m with a spacious pharynx and resonance chamber: a big mouth, but literally.
In 1951, the year she lost her father, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her last performance took place in Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice at Covent Garden in 1953.
For further NOTES See also the CONTENTS of the book!
| Author: | edited by Neville Cardus, with contributions by Neville Cardus, Roy Henderson, Gerald Moore, Benjamin Britten, Sir John Barbirolli, Dr. Bruno Walter – Neville Cardus |
| ISBNr: | – – no – – |
