Kathleen Mary Ferrier CBE (22 April 1912 – 8 October 1953)[1] was an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar.

The daughter of a Lancashire village schoolmaster, Ferrier showed early talent as a pianist, and won numerous amateur piano competitions while working as a telephonist with the General Post Office.

As her reputation grew, Ferrier formed close working relationships with major musical figures, including Britten, Sir John Barbirolli, Bruno Walter and the accompanist Gerald Moore.

In between periods of hospitalisation and convalescence she continued to perform and record; her final public appearance was as Orfeo, at the Royal Opera House in February 1953, eight months before her death.

Although untrained musically, William was an enthusiastic member of the local operatic society and of several choirs, and his wife Alice (née Murray), whom he married in 1900, was a competent singer with a strong contralto voice.

From an early age Kathleen showed promise as a pianist, and had lessons with Frances Walker, a noted North of England piano teacher who had been a pupil of Tobias Matthay.

[7] After further piano competition successes, she was invited to perform a short radio recital at the Manchester studios of the BBC, and on 3 July 1930 made her first broadcast, playing works by Brahms and Percy Grainger.

Cecil McGivern, producer of a BBC Northern radio variety show, was in the audience and was sufficiently impressed to book her for the next edition of his programme, which was broadcast from Newcastle on 23 February 1939.

[20][21] At the 1939 Carlisle Festival, Ferrier sang Richard Strauss's song All Souls' Day, a performance which particularly impressed one of the adjudicators, J. E. Hutchinson, a music teacher with a considerable reputation.

Within this organisation Ferrier began working with artists with international reputations; in December 1941, she sang with the Hallé Orchestra in a performance of Messiah together with Isobel Baillie, the distinguished soprano.

[35] Her assured performance led to other important engagements, and to broadcasting work; her increasingly frequent appearances on popular programmes such as Forces Favourites and Housewives' Choice soon gave her national recognition.

[42][43] Although she often sang individual arias, opera was not Ferrier's natural forte; she had not enjoyed singing the title role in a concert version of Bizet's Carmen at Stourbridge in March 1944, and generally avoided similar engagements.

At Glyndebourne, Ferrier's limited acting abilities caused some difficulties in her relationship with the conductor, Fritz Stiedry; nevertheless her performance on the first night, 19 June 1947, attracted warm critical praise.

[51] Ferrier's association with Glyndebourne bore further fruit when Rudolf Bing, the festival's general manager, recommended her to Bruno Walter as the contralto soloist in a performance of Mahler's symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde.

[52] Das Lied von der Erde was at that time largely unknown in Britain, and some critics found it unappealing; nevertheless, the Edinburgh Evening News thought it "simply superb".

[53] In a later biographical sketch of Ferrier, Lord Harewood described the partnership between Walter and her, which endured until the singer's final illness, as "a rare match of music, voice and temperament.

[62] Shortly after her return to Britain early in June 1949, Ferrier left for Amsterdam where, on 14 July, she sang in the world premiere of Britten's Spring Symphony, with Eduard van Beinum and the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

"[67] On Ferrier's return home the hectic pace continued, with a rapid succession of concerts in Amsterdam, London and Edinburgh followed by a tour of Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

[75] Through the summer her concert schedule was interspersed with hospital visits; however, she was well enough to sing at the Edinburgh Festival in September, where she performed two recitals with Walter and sang Chausson's Poème with Barbirolli and the Hallé.

[76] In November, she sang "Land of Hope and Glory" at the reopening of Manchester's Free Trade Hall, a climax to the evening which, wrote Barbirolli, "moved everyone, not least the conductor, to tears".

[86] In November, after a Royal Festival Hall recital, she was distressed by a review in which Neville Cardus criticised her performance for introducing "distracting extra vocal appeals" designed to please the audience at the expense of the songs.

[89] As 1953 began, Ferrier was busy rehearsing for Orpheus, an English language version of Orfeo ed Euridice to be staged in four performances at the Royal Opera House in February.

[91] During her regular hospital treatment, she discussed with doctors the advisability of an oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries), but on learning that the impact on her cancer would probably be insignificant and that her voice might be badly affected, she chose not to have the operation.

She died at University College Hospital on 8 October 1953, aged 41; the date for which, while still hopeful of recovery, she had undertaken to sing Frederick Delius's A Mass of Life at the 1953 Leeds Festival.

[106][n 6] The opera critic Rupert Christiansen, writing as the 50th anniversary of Ferrier's death approached, maintained that "no singer in this country has ever been more deeply loved, as much for the person she was as for the voice she uttered".

[36][111] Christiansen further suggests that, given the changes of style over the past 50 years, Ferrier might have been less successful in the 21st century world: "We dislike low-lying voices, for one thing—contraltos now sound freakish and headmistressy, and even the majority of mezzo-sopranos should more accurately be categorised as almost-sopranos".

[112][113] As the result of a separate appeal, augmented by the sales proceeds of a memoir edited by Neville Cardus, the Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Scholarship Fund was created to encourage young British and Commonwealth singers of either sex.

The Fund, which has operated from 1956 under the auspices of the Royal Philharmonic Society, initially provided an annual award covering the cost of a year's study to a single prizewinner.

[116] The Kathleen Ferrier Society, founded in 1993 to promote interest in all aspects of the singer's life and work, has since 1996 awarded annual bursaries to students at Britain's major music colleges.

[124] The recording of the unaccompanied Northumbrian folk song "Blow the Wind Southerly", initially made by Decca in 1949, has been reissued many times and frequently played on radio in shows such as Desert Island Discs, Housewives' Choice and Your Hundred Best Tunes.