Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #585485 in Books
• Published on: 1988-04-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

sadly no photos!
When I were a lad, many years ago, (i'm 62) there used to be 2 or 3 minute breaks between TV programmes called intervals, due I imagine to most television being 'live'.(scenery moving, or carrying the one working camera to the next studio)
There was the famous'Potters Wheel', and an aquarium filled with Angel fish! One interval that always 'got' to me was of stormy waves breaking on a rocky coastline. The music played over this was Kathleen Ferrier's unaccompanied voice singing 'Blow The wind Southerly'.
Even as working class child from Manchester, I somehow appreciated the warmth and richness of her voice. Over the years I heard more of her recordings,and although I'm not a fan of her particular brand of music, there was always, That Voice, not screechy like Callas, not scratchy like Melba's, just warm and chocolatey!
Other than she originated from the Northwest of England, I knew nothing about her!
Maurice Leonard's biog' has given me all I needed to know about her short life. Her naughty sense of humour, her modesty, her dedication and towards the end of her life, her almost complete lack of self pity. She died aged 41 of cancer.
'Klever Kaff' as she called herself, had little formal vocal training, indeed she started her musical career playing piano, and accompanying singers and small ensembles around Lancashire.
Her singing career lasted little more than a decade, but in that short period,she became a massive concert hall attraction,travelling the world, and mixing with the 'greats' of the time, Barbirolli, Bruno Walter and Benjamin Britten, to name but three!
Sadly there are no illustrations in this otherwise absorbing and well researched book, and I have had to go 'on line' to see what she looked like. In photogaphs,she seems always, to be smiling or singing, and there is but one tiny bit of film of Ferrier walking across an airport tarmac.
It's easy to ask what might have been, if cancer hadn't reared its' ugly head, just as it's easy to ask the same of pop stars, like Buddy Holly, or Jimi Hendrix.
Kathleen Ferrier's career as a contralto was built on solid, hard earned talent, and one could easily have imagined her singing into her late 50 s.
Buy this book. See that real talent, real genius such as Ferrier's usually finds it's way through, and didn't need a Simon Cowell to 'discover' her!