Robert Radford (bass) - Arm, Arm Ye Brave ('Judas Maccabeus' - Handel) (1909)

Robert Radford made many recordings over a period of more than a quarter of a century - from 1903 to 1929. Here, he sings 'Arm, Arm Ye Brave,' recorded in London on 2 July 1909.

From Wikipedia: Robert Radford (13 May 1874, Nottingham – 3 March 1933, London) 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.

Even as a young man, Radford possessed a deep and resonant voice. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, mainly under the conductor Alberto Randegger, but also received lessons from Battison Haynes and Frederic King. He had natural dramatic gifts which from the outset suggested an operatic career, but his early professional life was devoted particularly to oratorio and the concert platform.

His debut was at the Norwich Music Festival in 1899. He appeared for Henry J. Wood at a Queen's Hall prom on 9 February 1900 in Arthur Sullivan's The Martyr of Antioch. He was also a soloist at Wood's Trafalgar Day Centenary Concert of 21 October 1905 (at which Wood's Fantasia on British Sea-Songs was first performed). In 1906 he became the principal bass soloist in the Handel Festival (The Crystal Palace) concerts, and remained so until the 1920s…

In 1904 he made his first appearance at Covent Garden, as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni under Hans Richter. He was again engaged for Richter's Ring cycle in 1908… In 1910 he joined the Denhof Opera Company. He was then engaged with the Grand Opera Syndicate at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and he was successively engaged by Thomas Beecham in his productions at various venues, including Covent Garden, Drury Lane and His Majesty's Theatre…

Among his best-known roles were Mephistopheles (Gounod's Faust), Osmin (Il Seraglio), Sarastro (The Magic Flute), the Father (Charpentier's Louise), Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov (title role), which he was the first to sing in English. In April 1914 he was in the first English-language performance of Wagner's Parsifal with English soloists…

Radford had an early and successful relationship with the gramophone, beginning…in June 1903...Radford continued to record from time to time during the Great War, and was a valuable asset to the promenade concerts in that period…

In 1920–22, he became a founder Director of the British National Opera Company, and also became an important member of its singing company. 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.

He continued to make recordings for HMV after the advent of the electric microphone in 1925…

Radford is said to have suffered from ill-health all his life, and it was this handicap which prevented him from developing his career on the international scene…


I transferred this title from HMV 02231.