From a comprehensive article by her biographer Dr Christopher Fifield [in 2013]:
Kathleen Ferrier’s life was short at 41 years, her career ridiculously so at a mere ten of them. As if sensing this brevity, the Great Scheme of Life ensured that her climb to the top of her profession was taken at breakneck speed. In her own words she went "from Carlisle to Covent Garden within five years. Lucky Kaff!"Sixty years after her death she remains an iconic figure to a generation of ‘a certain age’ which recalls both its own and its parents’ deeply felt and enduring love of her voice. Kathleen’s life is full of surprises for the researcher, two of them strikingly so. The first is that her career lasted no more than a decade from 1943 until 1953 and the other is that it was as a pianist that she started out in music rather than as a singer...
Despite leaving school at fourteen, Kathleen Ferrier was highly intelligent. She had charm and charisma, she radiated happiness and enthusiasm and was witty, very funny, clever and spoke or wrote to the point as one would expect of a Lancastrian. She loved Spoonerisms (‘pickled tink’, ‘ruddy blush’, ‘woody blunders’) or music such as ‘On cooking the first hero in spring’ by Delius or ‘Bad Mess’ by Britten, while ‘O rust in the Lard’ and ‘Land of soap and water’ speak for themselves. She had a wicked sense of humour (Britten described her as ‘noble and naughty’):
There was a young lady of Nantes
Très chic, jolie, élégante,
But her hole was so small
She was no good at all
Except for la plume de ma tante!
...The list of conductors with whom Kathleen worked is impressive: Ernest Ansermet, Sir John Barbirolli, Eduard van Beinum, Sir Adrian Boult, Warwick Braithwaite, Charles Bruck, Fritz Busch, Basil Cameron, Albert Coates, Meredith Davies, Issay Dobrowen, Georges Enesco, Walter Goehr, Reginald Goodall, Charles Groves, Julius Harrison, Reginald Jacques, Herbert von Karajan, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Clemens Krauss, Josef Krips, Rafael Kubelik, Herbert Menges, Maurice Miles, Pierre Monteux, Boyd Neel, Karl Rankl, Clarence Raybould, Fritz Reiner, Stanford Robinson, Hugo Rignold, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Carl Schuricht, Rudolf Schwarz, Fritz Stiedry, Walter Susskind, George Szell, Erik Tuxen and Bruno Walter.
Such was her meteoric rise to fame that by 1946 she was pleading with her agent to slow down bookings:
"I’m sorry but I would rather you kept July free as well as June and August. I think I would rather give Liverpool a rest as I have been so much and have run out of a change of frock (not to mention repertoire)!
"I’m very sorry but I shall have to return this contract for Twickenham. I can’t possibly do five recitals running, especially with the Third Programme at the end of the five with eight new songs I haven’t seen yet!
"Please, please ask me before booking any more dates. Having just done seven concerts in six days in six different towns, am feeling more than usually weary, not having recovered from travelling from Stoke to Bradford in five different trains, starting at 9.26am, catching all the right connections and arriving late for rehearsal with Dr Sargent and still lunch-less! It isn’t possible to sing well at this rate."
Her constant touring took a toll on her health, and it was when she went to her doctor in 1951 that she received a diagnosis of malignant breast cancer:
During the periods when she was not in hospital she managed to fulfil her engagements with positive fortitude. "Bloody backache" she’d complain. For some time she had complained of arthritic pain in her upper body and of course the word ‘cancer’ was never mentioned. "I am still rheumaticky from the neck down – makes me feel my age, ducks!!". The post-mastectomy letters referred to:
"A bump on mi busto. I haven’t had a bath for over six weeks! – I don’t arf pong! I’m very lop-sided at the top but am camouflaging with great taste and delicacy!! I hope the audience took my groans for passion!!"
She was forty-one years old when she died in 1953, but was still performing almost to the end when she became too ill to do so. In the ten years or so of fame which were granted her she achieved more than most singers achieve in a lifetime. In tribute 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.
Here is a mere soupçon of her talent:
Kathleen Ferrier CBE (22nd April 1912 – 8th October 1953)
