The Beauty of Kathleen Ferrier

Every once in a while I'm reminded that Kathleen Ferrier is dead, and I fall into a state of misery, ignoring the fact that I never knew her, never saw her in a video clip, and only shared the planet with her for a little more than two years. More than the voice which has been within arm's reach for most of my life, and the fragrant personality that every piece of memorabilia radiates, I also, in my pathetic male way, mourn the loss of her wonderful face.

When I was a kid, I could never understand the adult preoccupation with dimples. I knew some kids with deep dimples, who were almost literally a pain in the butt. But now that I am come to man's estate, I can see a little of what the fuss is about. Let me put it this way: if I were to be a girl (which I am not), that's whom I would like to look like.

There are several vocal pieces I love that I can almost only bear to hear sung by Kathleen Ferrier; most of them are on the album Kathleen Ferrier sings Bach and Handel Arias. One in particular, one of the most joyful arias ever written, is from the Handel Messiah : "O Thou that tellest glad tidings to Zion" heard here in a Google video. This particular recording uses an enriched version of Handel's scoring, very possibly that by Ebenezer Prout. On that same recording with Sir Adrian Boult is the gorgeous Bach aria: Qui sedes ad dextram Patris, from the mass in B minor.

It is interesting how protestants such as Bach addressed these ancient Latin prayers composed by clergy a thousand years ago; clearly, to at least some of the leaders of the early church, the day of judgment was very close indeed. The prayer says --and some of the fear in it still remains after millennia of comforting familiarity: O Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us! I am not a believer; nevertheless the appeal can be very poignant, depending on who makes it. To the first century clerics who first wrote the prayers of the Mass, the confidence that Jesus had promised to intercede for mankind must have warred with belief in the fearful end of the world, and the accompanying judgment. To Bach, for whom the goodness of Jesus was, with the consolation of music, the only relief from the misery of his life and the cruelty of his world, the prayer was at once an opportunity to practice his compositional art, as well as an opportunity to praise god. To me, it seems as if the beautiful aria is not a personal plea, but an offering of beauty, where the rhetorical aspects of the melody are an offering to god, carefully wrought, and sincere in the context of religious drama. To Kathleen Ferrier, I doubt that the feelings of Bach and the author of the prayer meant too much. She probably allowed the emotions in the notes to suffuse her, determined to persuade her audience of the beauty of the aria, and to give her fellow performers of her best, so that the whole work, the recording, could be as good as she could personally make it, and sincerely, from her heart. Listening to it, it seems effortless, but in the footnotes we read that she had already been diagnosed with cancer. We can never know, but it is possible that the illness did not color the performance except as a hindrance to doing even better. I have never seen so many photographs of a woman who smiled more readily with her eyes. There is a youthful photograph of her, as young as nineteen, possibly, with the marks of braces still on her teeth, with the same smile on her face with which she graced photographs all her life.

Janet Baker recounts hearing of the death of Kathleen Ferrier, and her feelings at the realization that she could never get to know her. I can only guess how universal that feeling was, but it is certainly how I have felt every once in a while, especially when I see that wonderful smile.

[Added later:
It is said that, even if everyone she knew was not exactly in love with Kathleen Ferrier, at least the horror of hearing the news of her death was a serious shock to everyone.  The recordings in the album Kathleen Ferrier Sings Bach and Handel Arias, in Mono, were literally the last recordings she ever made, for she died very shortly afterwards.  Adrian Boult, the conductor on the record, was so grief-stricken that he had not made a stereophonic recording for the album that he placed a large speaker on the middle of the stage, conducted the orchestral accompaniment all over again, and recorded it in stereo, with Ms Ferrier's voice coming out in Monophonic sound in the middle.  This was considered sacrilege at the time, and for years to come; of course purists would consider practically anything sacrilegious.  I for one would love to get my hands on this fake stereo version.]

Archimedes