When he was eighteen he was heard by Mrs Percy Pitt, wife of the conductor, and went to Laurence Lee for a year's training.
He took parts in college opera productions, notably The Magic Flute, and won the Curtis Gold Medal.
He sang for Landon Ronald, and was awarded the Heilbut Major scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music, where he studied with the tenor Walter Hyde.
The first of many oratorio performances, this led to an appearance in the Verdi Requiem at the Queen's Hall for the Royal Philharmonic Society under Thomas Beecham in 1935.
In the same year he made his first important radio broadcast, and first appeared in the international seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.
He was much admired as King Mark in Tristan und Isolde and created the role of the Evangelist in the première of Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Pilgrim's Progress, and sang with Sadler's Wells Opera, Jay Pomeroy's company at the Cambridge Theatre and at Glyndebourne,[2] but devoted himself increasingly to oratorio, including the major works of Bach, Handel and Elgar.