English Singers

"English singers" redirects here. For singers in or from England, see Category:English singers. For singers in English, see Category:English-language singers.

The English Singers, co-founded in 1920 by the singers Cuthbert Kelly and Steuart Wilson, was a vocal group which specialized in early English music. The group made dozens of recordings of English madrigals between 1921 and 1955.[1]

Background and development

In 1917 the bass singer Cuthbert Kelly founded a quartet of singers following wartime concerts he had staged at the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.[2] In 1920 the group was augmented to six singers, the members being Flora Mann, Winifred Whelen, Lillian Berger, Steuart Wilson, Clive Carey and Cuthbert Kelly.[3] The ensemble gave its first concert on 28 February,[4] then toured the United States in its inaugural year.[2] In January 1922 they visited Prague, accompanied by Adrian Boult and Arthur Bliss, performing in the second half of a concert in the Smetana Hall, the first half being the Czech Philharmonic performing contemporary British music conducted by Boult and Bliss: according to Michael Kennedy, the singers enjoyed "the biggest success".[5] That April the English Singers toured Berlin, Prague and Vienna,[4] again with Boult and Bliss.[6] Another tour in April 1929 took the group to Czechoslovakia, Germany and Holland.[4]

For William Byrd's tercentenary in 1923 the group recorded five discs, singing one voice to a part.[7] The early English music scholar, E.H. Fellowes, recalled that the English Singers' recording of Byrd's Short Service Magnificat, made on 29 January 1923, "was a revelation in its beauty when rightly performed; it exerted a widespread influence in church-music circles."[3] On the other hand, reviewing The English Singers' earliest discs, Harry Haskell notes the "lack of rhythmic definition" in the performances, though he allows that this may have been due, as Steuart Wilson recalled, to the acoustic process where they had to record with "six noses crowded into a single horn".[1] There was, says Haskell, an improvement with the group's electric recordings, though their singing still suffered from "flaccid rhythms and unfocused tone".[7]

In October 1924, Whelen, Wilson and Carey were replaced by Nellie Carson, Norman Stone and Norman Notley. This group toured America in 1925, the first of many such tours.[4]

The New English Singers

In October 1932 Kelly formed a new group, the New English Singers,[8] whose repertoire was again Elizabethan madrigals but also including contemporary works by Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams.[9] The members were Dorothy Silk and Nellie Carson (sopranos), Mary Morris (contralto), David Brynely and Norman Notley (tenors) and Kelly himself. The group toured in the United States, appearing at New York's Town Hall.[9] Both tenors were replaced by 1936, the new tenors being Eric Greene and Peter Pears who joined the group in time for its tour that year in the United States and Canada.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 Haskell, p. 115.
  2. 1 2 3 Pears, p. 1.
  3. 1 2 "E.H. Fellowes, the scholar and performer who "found" the English composer, John Dowland, and rediscovered the lute song. Part 2 of 4". Semibrevity blog. October 7, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Thomson, Oscar and Slonimsky, Nicolas (eds) (1942). The International Cyclopedia of Music & Musicians. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. p. 505
  5. ↑ Kennedy, Adrian Boult, p. 85
  6. ↑ Kennedy, Adrian Boult, p. 86
  7. 1 2 Haskell, p. 116.
  8. ↑ Britten, p. 306.
  9. 1 2 B.H. Haggin (December 10, 1934). "New English Singers in First Christmas Program at the Town Hall" (PDF). Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle. Retrieved December 17, 2011.
Sources
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