Perelsztejn’s film Walter describes the first time he heard Ferrier: “She came and sang Brahms for me, and I engaged her. From the same venue and period, Jacques and the Cantata Singers offer a bewitching encore in the sublime Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. In the film the contralto Nathalie Stutzmann says that Ferrier “had the deepest voice imaginable for a woman,” combining “the color of a chest voice, usually found in male voices, with the clarity of a female voice.

Testament releases previously unpublished and deleted recordings from their archives, using their original master tapes and 78rpm metal parts for CD remastering. For items that are dispatched using our standard service, we ask that you wait 14 days from the date of dispatch before reporting any items as undelivered. Testament LP's are cut onto lacquer from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios using full analogue techniques throughout production an pressed onto 180g virgin vinyl.Ferrier’s accompanists on this CD are three of her friends and valued collaborators –Bruno Walter, Gerald Moore and Frederick Stone. In superb recorded sound, this discovery is a real treasure and completes the recordings available of the three works in which Ferrier sang at the 1950 Vienna Bach Festival. This features recordings made for Decca and the BBC between 1946 and 1953 and includes a previously unpublished recording of Ferrier’s passionate performance of Lennox Berkeley’s Four Poems of St Teresa of Ávila. One of the most beloved singers of the mid-twentieth century, Kathleen Ferrier was born in Lancashire in 1912 and worked as a telephonist for the GPO whilst performing regularly as an amateur pianist at local music festivals and competitions.

Her honours and awards included a CBE and Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society; the Kathleen Ferrier Award (which first took place in 1956, and grew out of the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship Fund, set up to support young singers) remains one of the most prestigious annual singing-competitions in the classical world. So it seems amazing that, after so long, a treasury of previously unpublished and little-circulated BBC broadcasts is now being released. The Very Best of Kathleen Ferrier Composer Hubert Hughes, Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Felix Mendelssohn, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Roger Quilter, Gustav Mahler, Christoph Willibald Gluck Format:CD. It includes the first appearance on disc of Ferrier singing Magnificat, with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Volkmar Andreae in the Grosser Musikvereinssaal, from the legendary 1950 International Bach Festival.

SOMM RECORDINGS is proud to announce the release of Kathleen Ferrier: In Celebration of Bach, a collection of historic performances with Britain’s favourite classical singer of the 20th century very much the star attraction. SOMM Recordings’ acclaimed series of re-mastered recitals by the fondly remembered singer continues with Kathleen Ferrier: 20th Century British Treasures. SOMM’s previous Ferrier releases include Bach’s Mass in B minor ( Ariadne 5000-2), songs by Brahms, Chausson and Mahler ( SOMMCD 075) and Kathleen Ferrier Remembered, a first release of BBC Radio recordings of Lieder and British songs ( SOMMCD 264). Recorded live on Ferrier’s only appearances in Carnegie Hall in January 1948, four months after her acclaimed performance at the inaugural Edinburgh International Festival, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde reunited her with the conductor Bruno Walter and saw her making first appearances with tenor Set Svanholm and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.