Edward Lloyd (tenor) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Edward Lloyd (7 March 1845 - 1927) was a British tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

singer who excelled in concert and oratorio

Oratorio

An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...

performance, and was recognised as a legitimate successor of John Sims Reeves as the foremost tenor exponent of that genre during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Early training in choral tradition

Edward Lloyd was born in London, into a musical family. His father had, by invitation, assisted as a counter-tenor on 'Show Sundays' at Worthing

Worthing

Worthing is a large seaside town with borough status in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, forming part of the Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton conurbation. It is situated at the foot of the South Downs, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester...

when choral concerts were directed the fourteen-year-old Sims Reeves. Young Lloyd began singing as a chorister at Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...

, and in 1866 became a member of both Trinity College

Trinity College, Cambridge

Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...

and King's College

King's College, Cambridge

King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....

chapels in the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

. In 1869 he joined the choir of St Andrew's, Wells Street (under Barnby) and was engaged for the Chapel Royal

Chapel Royal

A Chapel Royal is a body of priests and singers who serve the spiritual needs of their sovereign wherever they are called upon to do so.-Austria:...

in 1869-1871. In 1871 he sang in the St Matthew Passion at the Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

Festival, and came prominently to public attention. He never sang in the theatre, possibly because he was short of stature (Charles Santley

Charles Santley

Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...

described him as 'a nice, plump little gentleman.'). In 1873 he made his first appearance at St James' Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Society

Royal Philharmonic Society

The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...

. In the year of his retirement in 1900, he became the Gold Medallist of that Society.

Vocal characteristics

Herman Klein

Herman Klein was an English music critic, author and teacher of singing. Klein's famous brothers included Charles and Manuel Klein...

, who heard Lloyd early in his career, was surpassingly impressed by his voice and delivery. He called its quality 'most exquisite', with an amazingly smooth legato, comparable to the great tenor Antonio Giuglini

Antonio Giuglini

Antonio Giuglini was an Italian operatic tenor. During the last eight years of his life, before he developed signs of mental instability, he earned renown as one of the leading stars of the operatic scene in London...

. His performance of 'Love in her eyes sits playing' (Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

, Acis and Galatea) he called 'absolutely unsurpassable', and greater than any Handelian singing heard thereafter. This extremely high praise came from a most discerning critic. David Bispham

David Bispham

David Scull Bispham was the first American–born operatic baritone to win an international reputation.- Early life and family:...

considered him the foremost tenor of the concert platform.

Handel Festivals and the mantle of Reeves

In 1877, when Sims Reeves

Sims Reeves

John Sims Reeves , usually called simply Sims Reeves, was the foremost English operatic, oratorio and ballad tenor vocalist of the mid-Victorian era....

withdrew from his engagement for the Handel Triennial Festival at the Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace

The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace's of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in...

over the controversy concerning Concert pitch

Concert pitch

Concert pitch refers to the pitch reference to which a group of musical instruments are tuned for a performance. Concert pitch may vary from ensemble to ensemble, and has varied widely over musical history...

, Lloyd was engaged instead. He had performed there in Acis and Galatea in 1874, and participated in every subsequent festival there until his retirement in 1900. In these performances before huge audiences in that immense space, his beautiful, resonant and clarion voice carried wonderfully. These festivals might include full performances of Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...

, Israel in Egypt and Judas Maccabaeus on successive nights, each being exceptionally demanding for the tenor (but extremely rewarding for one equal to the task). The earliest 'live' recording of a British concert was made at the Crystal Palace 1888 Festival performance of Israel in Egypt, in which Lloyd was the principal tenor, though unfortunately the selections on the surviving three wax cylinder records do not include any of his actual singing.

Creator of Oratorio roles

Lloyd created many of the great tenor roles in late Victorian oratorio and concert works. In the Hallé Concerts

Charles Hallé

Sir Charles Hallé was an Anglo-German pianist and conductor, and founder of The Hallé orchestra in 1858.-Life:Hallé was born in Hagen, Westphalia, Germany who after settling in England changed his name from Karl Halle...

at Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

he appeared with Charles Santley and Anna Williams in the first performance of an oratorio by Edward Hecht. More significantly, he created lead roles in The Martyr of Antioch
The Martyr of Antioch
The Martyr of Antioch is an oratorio by the English composer Arthur Sullivan. It was first performed on 15 October 1880 at the triennial Leeds Music Festival, having been composed specifically for that event...

(Leeds Festival

Leeds Festival

Leeds Festival may refer to:*Reading and Leeds Festivals , a rock music festival in Leeds , West Yorkshire, England*Leeds Festival , European classical music festival in Leeds...

1880) and The Golden Legend (1886) of Arthur Sullivan

Arthur Sullivan

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...

: in the Judith (1888) and King Saul of Hubert Parry

Hubert Parry

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet was an English composer, teacher and historian of music.Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is best known for the choral song "Jerusalem", the coronation anthem "I was glad" and the hymn tune "Repton", which sets the words...

: and in the La rédemption (Birmingham Triennial Music Festival

Birmingham Triennial Music Festival

The Birmingham Triennial Musical Festival, in Birmingham, England, founded in 1784, was the longest-running classical music festival of its kind. Its last performance was in 1912.-History:...

, 1882) and Mors et Vita (1884) of Charles Gounod

Charles Gounod

Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...

. Lloyd was, therefore, entirely identified with the largest works of the Sacred Musical Drama so characteristic of his age.

The early 1890s in London

Oratorio

Lloyd was very active during the heyday of George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

's reviewing days. Shaw thought Lloyd in his best vein in Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

's St. Paul
St. Paul (oratorio)
St. Paul , Op. 36, is an oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn.The libretto was begun in 1832 by the composer with Pastor Julius Schubring, a childhood friend, pulling together passages from the New Testament and Old Testament...

at the Crystal Palace in November 1889; in June 1890 he found the massed performance (3000 executants) an ordeal, but thought Edward Lloyd sang 'without a fault', when Watkin Mills and Mme Patey were in excellent form and Mme Albani her usual self. Shaw despised the massed festivals, but usually much admired Lloyd. In June 1891 at Crystal Palace, if Santley was the hero of the hour, Lloyd was delightful in Love in her eyes sits playing and in one of the Chandos anthems. But he was out of sorts for The enemy said on the following night, though he had to repeat it, and sustained his reputation.

Lloyd was good again at Birmingham in October, and in a Mozart concert aria in the December centenary celebration. In June 1892 a proposed Crystal Palace performance of Handel's Samson
Samson
Samson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....

was substituted by the familiar Judas Maccabaeus to spare Lloyd the difficulty of the new role. However the Judas came off well, with the usual line-up of Santley, Lloyd, Albani and Patey. He appeared on 2 December 1893 at the official opening of the Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

The Queen's Hall was a concert hall in Langham Place, London, opened in 1893. Designed by the architect T.E. Knightley, it had room for an audience of about 2,500 people. It became London's principal concert venue. From 1895 until 1941, it was the home of the promenade concerts founded by Robert...

, in Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

's Hymn of Praise, with Mme Albani and Margaret Hoare, under the direction of Frederick Cowen. In 1894 it was again Love in her eyes which Lloyd sang to perfection, though again he, Mme Albani, Ben Davies and Nellie Melba

Nellie Melba

Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...

all had to accord first place in popular esteem to Charles Santley, who received stupendous applause. On Jubilee Sunday 1897 he performed the Mendelssohn Hymn of Praise with Mme Albani and Agnes Nicholls

Agnes Nicholls

Agnes Nicholls was one of the greatest English sopranos of the 20th century, both in the concert hall and on the operatic stage....

.

Concert opera

Lloyd had an ovation at St James's Hall

St James's Hall

St. James's Hall was a concert hall in London that opened on 25 March 1858, designed by architect and artist Owen Jones, who had decorated the interior of the Crystal Palace. It was situated between the Quadrant in Regent Street and Piccadilly, and Vine Street and George Court. There was a...

for his Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...

's forging scene in July 1888 under Hans Richter

Hans Richter (conductor)

Hans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...

. The Philharmonic orchestra gave him a 'mundane' accompaniment in Lohengrin's grail narration in January 1889, and in Siegfried's forge his laugh was too well-bred, 'hardly the exultant shout of a young giant over his anvil'; and William Nicholl was out of tune as Mime. In July 1889 even Richter's wonderful conducting of Berlioz's Damnation of Faust could not (for Shaw) redeem Lloyd's 'wanton tampering' and 'annoyingly vulgar alteration' of important passages, and even in performances a few years later did not quite forget it, though he admitted Lloyd had set a standard in the work.

In March 1890 his 'Preislied' from Meistersinger
Meistersinger
A Meistersinger was a member of a German guild for lyric poetry, composition and unaccompanied art song of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. The Meistersingers were drawn from middle class males for the most part.-Guilds:...

was the key attraction at Crystal Palace. In July 1890 Lloyd 'sang well', but tended to 'jingoism', 'genteel piety' and 'sentimentality' in the Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

Act 3 under Richter, but 'he was not Lohengrin.' In March 1891 his Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...

in a concert performance of the last act was 'beyond cavil'. At the Richter concert of June 1891 he sang Tannhäuser's Rome Narrative and the Siegfried forging music 'very tunefully and smoothly, without, however, for a moment relinquishing his original character as Mr Edward Lloyd.' In the Lohengrin and Tannhäuser third acts repeated at Queen's Hall

Queen's Hall

in May 1894, Lloyd was 'playing a little to the gallery by a style of declamation not exactly classic, though sufficiently sincere and effective.'

Elgar: Caractacus and Gerontius

As the creator of Sacred roles, it was natural that he was chosen to give first performances of lead roles in Elgar's Caractacus (1898)and The Dream of Gerontius
The Dream of Gerontius
The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

, in which the form entirely broke free from the older 'Sacred cantatas' (a term Elgar specifically forbade with reference to Gerontius.) It is well known that the first performance of the latter, which occurred on Oct 3rd 1900 under the baton of Hans Richter

Hans Richter (conductor)

at the Birmingham Festival, was a disaster. Having created Caractacus, Lloyd had adapted himself to Elgar's musical idiom. He was certainly very nervous and, far from under-estimating the task, suffered great anxiety on this occasion, being near the end of his career and not in particularly good voice. The long and taxing nature of the role, and the frequent standing up to sing and sitting down again, had an unfortunate effect (as Bispham observed).

In that performance Harry Plunket Greene

Harry Plunket Greene

Harry Plunket Greene was an Irish baritone singer who was most famous in the formal concert and oratorio repertoire. He made a great contribution to British musical life also by writing and lecturing upon his art, and in the field of competitions and examinations...

sang the baritone roles and the angel was sung by Marie Brema

Marie Brema

Marie Brema was an English dramatic mezzo-soprano singer in concert, operatic and oratorio work in the last decade of the 19th and the first decade of the 20th centuries...

. Gerontius was not only the pivot of Elgar's career as a composer, but a transforming event in musical history. Lloyd's career, rooted in an older musical idiom, was by then almost complete and it was left to a younger generation, notably the tenors John Coates and Gervase Elwes, to immortalize both the new dynamic of the music, and themselves, in its full spiritual realisation. Elgar still hoped for Edward Lloyd to appear at a festival at Covent Garden

Royal Opera House

The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...

in March 1904, (to include Gerontius, The Apostles
The Apostles (Elgar)
The Apostles, Op. 49, is an oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra composed by Edward Elgar. It was first performed on 14 October 1903.-Overview:...

and Caractacus) but his wish remained unfulfilled: 'the great man will not emerge'. Instead John Coates took the first two roles and Lloyd Chandos the third.

Farewell

After almost thirty years before the public Edward Lloyd gave his farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall

Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

in December 1900, two months after the Gerontius premiere. Herman Klein

Herman Klein

Herman Klein was an English music critic, author and teacher of singing. Klein's famous brothers included Charles and Manuel Klein...

said that, like his great predecessor Sims Reeves (who had died in October 1900), although Lloyd was quite unlike him in character of voice and method, both exemplified the purest attributes of the bel canto and upheld the best traditions of the British oratorio school. Lloyd's voice (he wrote) 'is one of those pure, natural voices that never lose their sweetness, but preserve their charm so long as there are breath and power to sustain them.'

Klein thought him more versatile than Reeves, at home in every period and school in music. In Bach and Handel, modern oratorio, Italian aria, Lied, romance and ballad, he was equally capable of arousing admiration: and he could declaim Wagner with a beauty of tone, a fullness of dramatic expression, and a clarity of enunciation that made his German audiences in London shout for very wonder and delight.' Richter considered he was the first tenor to do justice to the Preislied from Meistersinger.

In February 1907 he ceremonially cut the first sod at the site of the Hayes, Middlesex factory of the Gramophone Company

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

, Ltd (later HMV). He emerged from retirement to sing at the Coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

of George V

George V of the United Kingdom

George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....

in 1911, and at a Benefit Concert in 1915. He died in Worthing.

Recordings: Discography

The following records were made by Lloyd for the Gramophone Company

Gramophone Company

The Gramophone Company, based in the United Kingdom, was one of the early recording companies, and was the parent organization for the famous "His Master's Voice" label...

. They give a fair sample of his ballad repertoire at this date (1904-1911), with key representations of his Handel, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Gounod, Balfe and Sullivan. This list is possibly complete.

3-2024 I'll sing thee songs of Araby (Clay). 1904
3-2025 Tom Bowling (Dibdin). 1904
3-2026 The Holy City (Adams). 1904
3-2027 The Death of Nelson (Braham). 1904
3-2028 Alice, where art thou? (Asher). 1904
3-2029 Let me like a soldier fall, Maritana
Maritana
Maritana is a grand opera in three acts composed by William Vincent Wallace, with a libretto by Edward Fitzball . The opera is based on the play Don César de Bazan by Adolphe d'Ennery and Philippe François Pinel Dumanoir , which was also the source material for Jules Massenet's opéra comique Don...

(Wallace). 1904
3-2081 When all the world is fair (Cowen). 1904
3-2082 The sea hath its pearls (Cowen). 1904
3-2083 When other lips, Bohemian Girl (Balfe). 1904
3-2085 If with all your hearts, Elijah (Mendelssohn). 1904
3-2086 Lend me your aid, Reine de Saba (Gounod). 1904
3-2087 The maid of the mill (Clay). 1904
3-2294 Bonnie Mary of Argyle (Landon Ronald, pno). 1905
3-2299 The minstrel Boy (Moore).1905
3-2801 If with all your hearts, Elijah (Mendelssohn). 1906-7
3-2802 Then shall the righteous shine, Elijah (Mendelssohn). 1906-7
3-2855 Come, Margherita, come, Martyr of Antioch (Sullivan). 1907
3-2856 Awake, awake (Piatti). 1907
3-2865 Alice, where art thou? (Asher). 1907
3-2870 The song of the south (E Lloyd). 1907
3-2889 A farewell (Liddle). 1907
3-2922 The sea hath its pearls (Cowen). 1907-8
3-2938 Bonnie Mary of Argyle (Nelson). 1908
02062 Lend me your aid, Irene (Gounod). 1905
02063 Prize song, Meistersinger (Wagner). 1905
02087 Fleeting years (Greene). 1907
02088 Come into the garden, Maud (Balfe). 1907
02090 Sing me to sleep (Greene). 1907
02095 I'll sing thee songs of Araby (Clay). 1907
02101 The minstrel boy (Moore). 1907
02118 (a) Songs my mother taught me (Dvořák),(b) Tune thy strings, o gipsy (Dvořák). 1908
02123 Sound an alarm, Judas Maccabaeus (Handel). 1908
02139 The star of Bethlehem (Adams) 1908
02157 The Holy City (Adams). 1908
04792 Rejoice in the Lord (J F Bridge). 1911

Sources

Bennett, J.R., Voices of the Past: I. A Catalogue of Vocal recordings from the English Catalogue of the Gramophone Company, etc (?Oakwood Press, 1955).
Bispham, D, A Quaker Singer's Recollections (Macmillan, New York 1920).
Eaglefield-Hull, A. (Ed), A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924).
Elkin, R., Queen's Hall 1893-1941 (Rider & co, London 1944).
Elkin, R., Royal Philharmonic: The Annals of the Royal Philharmonic Society (Rider & co, London 1946).
Klein, H., Thirty Years of Musical Life in London, 1870-1900 (Century Co, New York 1903).
Santley, C., Reminiscences of my Life (Isaac Pitman, London 1909).
Scott, M., The Record of Singing to 1914 (Duckworth, London 1977).
Shaw, G.B., Music in London 1890-1894 (Collected edition, 3 Vols)(Constable, London 1932).
Shaw, G.B., London Music in 1888-89 as heard by Corno di Bassetto (Constable, London 1937).
Young, P.M., Letters of Edward Elgar (Geoffrey Bles, London 1956).
Opera at Home, 3rd edition, reprint with addenda, (The Gramophone Company, 1927).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.