Robert Radford (13 May 1874, Nottingham – 3 March 1933, London)[1] was a British bass singer who made his career entirely in the United Kingdom, participating in concerts and becoming one of the foremost performers of oratorios and other sacred music.

He had equally great success in a broad spectrum of operatic roles, ranging from Wagner to Gilbert and Sullivan, due to the strength and burnished beauty of his well-trained voice.

He was also in the Leeds Chorus performance of the Mass in B minor, with Carrie Tubb, John Coates and others, in the 'Three B's' Festival' of April 1915, again at Queen's Hall, under Henri Verbrugghen with the London Symphony Orchestra.

[7] As early as November 1900, Henry Wood had engaged Radford for his uncut performance at Nottingham of the first two acts of Tannhäuser (introducing the Paris version of the Venusberg scene for the first time in England), along with Robert Watkin-Mills and others.

[9] He was again engaged for Richter's Ring cycle in 1908, taking the roles of Fasolt in Das Rheingold, Hunding in Die Walküre,[10] and (according to another source) Hagen in Götterdämmerung.

In Beecham's production of Wagner's Ring cycle he again played Fasolt, opposite the Fafnir of the younger Norman Allin, who succeeded him as Britain's foremost bass.

[11] In April 1914 he was in the first English-language performance of Wagner's Parsifal with English soloists (with the London Choral Society, Carrie Tubb, John Coates, Thorpe Bates and Dawson Freer).

[20] He sang in two Philharmonic Society performances of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, first under Felix Weingartner in March 1924 with Florence Austral, Margaret Balfour and Frank Titterton, and again in October 1925 with Dorothy Silk, Muriel Brunskill and Walter Widdop, under Albert Coates.