Growing reputation Ferrier gave her first London recital on 28 December 1942 at the
National Gallery, in a lunch-time concert organised by
Dame Myra Hess. Although she wrote "went off very well" in her diary, Ferrier was disappointed with her performance, and concluded that she needed further voice training. She approached the distinguished baritone
Roy Henderson with whom, a week previously, she had sung in Mendelssohn's
Elijah. However, this natural physical advantage was not in itself enough to ensure the quality of her voice; this was due, Henderson says, to "her hard work, artistry, sincerity, personality and above all her character". in the mid-1960s On 17 May 1943, Ferrier sang in Handel's
Messiah at
Westminster Abbey, alongside
Isobel Baillie and
Peter Pears, with
Reginald Jacques conducting. According to the critic
Neville Cardus, it was through the quality of her singing here that Ferrier "made her first serious appeal to musicians". Her assured performance led to other important engagements, and to broadcasting work; her increasingly frequent appearances on popular programmes such as
Forces Favourites and ''
Housewives' Choice'' soon gave her national recognition. In May 1944, at
EMI's Abbey Road Studios with
Gerald Moore as her accompanist, she made test recordings of music by Brahms,
Gluck and Elgar. Her first published record, made in September 1944, was issued under the
Columbia label; it consisted of two songs by
Maurice Greene, again with Moore accompanying. Her time as a Columbia recording artist was brief and unhappy; she had poor relations with her producer,
Walter Legge, and after a few months she transferred to
Decca. In the remaining wartime months, Ferrier continued to travel throughout the country, to fulfil the growing demands for her services from concert promoters. At Leeds in November 1944, she sang the part of the Angel in Elgar's choral work
The Dream of Gerontius, her first performance in what became one of her best-known roles. In December she met
John Barbirolli while working on another Elgar piece,
Sea Pictures; the conductor later became one of her closest friends and strongest advocates. On 15 September 1945, Ferrier made her debut at the London
Proms, when she sang ''L'Air des Adieux'' from
Tchaikovsky's opera
The Maid of Orleans. Although she often sang individual
arias, opera was not Ferrier's natural forte; she had not enjoyed singing the title role in a concert version of
Bizet's
Carmen at
Stourbridge in March 1944, and generally avoided similar engagements. Nevertheless,
Benjamin Britten, who had heard her Westminster Abbey
Messiah performance, persuaded her to create the role of Lucretia in his new opera
The Rape of Lucretia, which was to open the first postwar
Glyndebourne Festival in 1946. She would share the part with
Nancy Evans. Despite her initial misgivings, by early July Ferrier was writing to her agent that she was "enjoying [the rehearsals] tremendously and I should think it's the best part one could possibly have". , the German-born conductor with whom Ferrier worked closely from 1947 until her death Ferrier's performances in the Glyndebourne run, which began on 12 July 1946, earned her favourable reviews, although the opera itself was less well received. On the provincial tour which followed the festival it failed to attract the public and incurred heavy financial losses. By contrast, when the opera reached Amsterdam it was greeted warmly by the Dutch audiences who showed particular enthusiasm for Ferrier's performance. This was Ferrier's first trip abroad, and she wrote an excited letter to her family: "The cleanest houses and windows you ever did see, and flowers in the fields all the way!" Following her success as Lucretia she agreed to return to Glyndebourne in 1947, to sing Orfeo in Gluck's opera
Orfeo ed Euridice. She had often sung Orfeo's aria
Che farò ("What is life") as a concert piece, and had recently recorded it with Decca. At Glyndebourne, Ferrier's limited acting abilities caused some difficulties in her relationship with the conductor,
Fritz Stiedry; nevertheless her performance on the first night, 19 June 1947, attracted warm critical praise. Ferrier's association with Glyndebourne bore further fruit when
Rudolf Bing, the festival's general manager, recommended her to
Bruno Walter as the contralto soloist in a performance of Mahler's symphonic song cycle
Das Lied von der Erde. This was planned for the 1947
Edinburgh International Festival. Walter was initially wary of working with a relatively new singer, but after her audition his fears were allayed; "I recognised with delight that here potentially was one of the greatest singers of our time", he later wrote.
Das Lied von der Erde was at that time largely unknown in Britain, and some critics found it unappealing; nevertheless, the
Edinburgh Evening News thought it "simply superb". In a later biographical sketch of Ferrier,
Lord Harewood described the partnership between Walter and her, which endured until the singer's final illness, as "a rare match of music, voice and temperament".
Career apex, 1948–51 '' (1949) On 1 January 1948, Ferrier left for a four-week tour of North America, the first of three transatlantic trips she would make during the next three years. In New York City, she sang two performances of
Das Lied von der Erde, with
Bruno Walter and the
New York Philharmonic.
Alma Mahler, the composer's widow, was present at the first of these, on 15 January. In a letter written the following day, Ferrier told her sister: "Some of the critics are enthusiastic, others unimpressed". After the second performance, which was broadcast from coast to coast, Ferrier gave recitals in
Ottawa and
Chicago before returning to New York and embarking for home on 4 February. During 1948, amid many engagements, Ferrier performed Brahms's
Alto Rhapsody at the Proms in August, and sang in Bach's
Mass in B minor at that year's Edinburgh Festival. On 13 October 1948, she joined Barbirolli and the Hallé Orchestra in a broadcast performance of Mahler's song cycle
Kindertotenlieder. She returned to the Netherlands in January 1949 for a series of recitals, then left
Southampton on 18 February 1949 to begin her second American tour. This opened in New York with a concert performance of
Orfeo ed Euridice that won uniform critical praise from the New York critics. On the tour which followed, her accompanist was (1896–1972), who was suffering from a depressive illness that badly affected his playing. Unaware of his problem, in letters home, Ferrier berated "this abominable accompanist" who deserved "a kick in the pants". When she found out that he had been ill for months, she turned her fury on the tour's promoters: "What a blinking nerve to palm him on to me". Eventually, when Sándor was too ill to appear, Ferrier was able to recruit a Canadian pianist,
John Newmark, with whom she formed a warm and lasting working relationship. , who said of Ferrier: "What a voice—and what a face!" Shortly after her return to Britain early in June 1949, Ferrier left for Amsterdam where, on 14 July, she sang in the world premiere of Britten's
Spring Symphony, with
Eduard van Beinum and the
Concertgebouw Orchestra. Britten had written this work specifically for her. At the Edinburgh Festival in September she gave two recitals in which Bruno Walter acted as her piano accompanist. Ferrier felt that these recitals represented "a peak to which I had been groping for the last three years". A broadcast of one of the recitals was issued on record many years later; of this, the critic
Alan Blyth wrote: "Walter's very personal and positive support obviously pushes Ferrier to give of her very best". The following 18 months saw almost uninterrupted activity, encompassing a number of visits to continental Europe and a third American tour between December 1949 and April 1950. This American trip broke new ground for Ferrier—the
West Coast—and included three performances in San Francisco of
Orfeo ed Euridice, with
Pierre Monteux conducting. At the rehearsals Ferrier met the renowned American contralto
Marian Anderson, who reportedly said of her English counterpart: "My God, what a voice—and what a face!" On Ferrier's return home the hectic pace continued, with a rapid succession of concerts in Amsterdam, London and Edinburgh followed by a tour of Austria, Switzerland and Italy. In Vienna, the soprano
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was Ferrier's co-soloist in a recorded performance of Bach's Mass in B minor, with the
Vienna Symphony under
Herbert von Karajan. Schwarzkopf later recalled Ferrier's singing of the
Agnus Dei from the
Mass as her highlight of the year. Early in 1951, while on tour in Rome, Ferrier learned of her father's death at the age of 83. Although she was upset by this news, she decided to continue with the tour; her diary entry for 30 January reads: "My Pappy died peacefully after flu and a slight stroke". She returned to London on 19 February, and was immediately busy rehearsing with Barbirolli and the Hallé a work that was new to her:
Ernest Chausson's ''
Poème de l'amour et de la mer. This was performed at Manchester on 28 February, to critical acclaim. Two weeks later Ferrier discovered a lump on her breast. She nevertheless fulfilled several engagements in Germany, the Netherlands and at Glyndebourne before seeing her doctor on 24 March. After tests at University College Hospital, cancer of the breast was diagnosed, and a mastectomy was performed on 10 April. All immediate engagements were cancelled; among these was a planned series of performances of The Rape of Lucretia'' by the
English Opera Group, scheduled as part of the 1951
Festival of Britain. ==Later career==