Kathleen Ferrier.LAND OF HOPE AND GLORY. LIVE PERFORMANCE.1951.Manchester Free Trade Hall.England.

This is the only time Kathleen Ferrier sang Land of Hope and Glory.
She sang it as a special favour for her friend,the conductor Sir John Barbirolli,at the Gala re-opening of the Manchester Free Trade Hall,England on the 16th of November 1951.
It had been badly damaged by wartime bombing.

The Manchester Free Trade Hall was the home of the Halle Orchestra and Choir.

She was feeling very weak following months of radiotherapy and radical surgery earlier in the year,and Sir John asked if she was strong enough for this one closing item from the Gala re-opening.. She readily agreed, and here we have Ferrier singing the piece as Elgar wrote it.
No jingoism------pure Elgar----just as it should be.

Ferrier deliberately didn't have Land of Hope and Glory in her repertoire as she didn't wish to be compared with big voiced contraltos from earlier in the 20th Century who sang it with gusto during and after World War 1.

She was extremely tired at the time but did write to a friend:-
"I am just back from the frozen north, where I sang in Manchester-at the opening of the new hall which was bombed in the war. The Queen [wife of King George VI] was there to open it--looking delicious--and it was all very exciting.

To Sir John Barbirolli on the same day she drafted an unfinished letter including:- "...It has been a memorable and very moving one for me, and I have never been so proud to take a small part in your concert and triumph ..."

The Manchester Guardian wrote:-"...........................It was fine and it was right, but lovers of the tune will fear that never again can they hope to hear it in such glory. 'There were few dry eyes as notices of such events used to say' ".

Kathleen Ferrier continued singing between bouts of illness and radiotherapy up to January 1953 in her final public performance as Orfeo in Orfeo and Euridice at the Royal Opera House,Covent Garden,London conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.

One of her hips fractured,caused by secondary deposits during the second night's performance and Kathleen Ferrier did not sing in public or in the recording studio ever again-----she died in hospital in London later the same year on the 8th October 1953 age 41 years.

PHOTOS:-
1.Singing in the Usher Hall at the Edinburgh International Festival.

2.Seated in window of her flat in The Frognal,Hampstead,London
with Sir John Barbirolli.

3.Manchester Free Trade Hall 1950.

4.Kathleen Ferrier with the tenor Peter Pears overlooking Princes Street,Edinburgh during one of the Edinburgh Festivals.

5.Kathleen Ferrier Commemorative Stamp.

6 & 7.In Princes Street Gardens,Edinburgh.

Letter extracts from the book:- 'Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier' edited by Christopher Fifield.

This unique recording is a piece of history,originally made available through the enterprise of The Barbirolli Society.

Re-mastered from rare shellac disc.

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