Karajan artists: Kathleen Ferrier – the alto voice from heaven

Karajan’s and Kathleen Ferrier’s collaboration took place in the context of the 1950 “Bachfest”, an event that settled Karajan’s status as an important conductor in Vienna and produced sensational reviews for the recordings made at that time. The two Bach masterworks in which Ferrier sang the alto part were the St Matthew Passion and the B minor Mass. Karajan had been preparing them for months. The choir, the “Singverein der Musikfreunde”, and the Vienna Symphony were very fond of Karajan and realized his vision in 50 – some say 70 – rehearsals. Ferrier wrote to a friend: “All these Viennese singers work themselves to a standstill. I just dawdle by comparison.” In 1989, Karajan said about Ferrier: “It would be impossible for anyone who was there to forget her singing, particularly of the Agnus Dei.” Two weeks after the “Bachfest”, the B minor Mass was also performed twice in Milan.

Kathleen Ferrier was one of the most refined but tragically unfulfilled singers of the 20^th century. Like Fritz Wunderlich, Dinu Lipatti, Ginette Neveu and Dennis Brain her early death of cancer in 1953 and her small but precious recording legacy settled her status as a legend and caused speculations about what else she might have recorded. Ferrier only started taking professional singing lessons at the age of 30 but managed to realize an international career within a few years after World War II. Together with Bruno Walter she was a pioneer in drawing attention to the work of Gustav Mahler, but her interpretations of Gluck, Brahms and Britten were equally riveting.

“Bruno Walter said that the greatest privileges in his life were to have known and worked with Kathleen Ferrier and Gustav Mahler – in that order.”

—  P.R. Jenkins