Norman Allin

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Norman Allin (19 November 1884, Ashton-under-Lyne - 27 October 1973, Pontrilas) was a British bass singer of the early and mid twentieth century, and later a noted teacher.

Contents

[edit] Early studies

Allin studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music under John Acton (singing) and Walter Carroll (theory).[1] He was married to the singer Edith Clegg in 1912 and went to London, where Henry J. Wood heard him and planned to involve him in the 1914 Norwich Festival,[2] but it was interrupted owing to the outbreak of war.[3] However he sang O ruddier than the cherry (Handel) at a Prom for Henry Wood during the first War.[4] He was not called up owing to being classified in a low medical grade.

[edit] Operatic career

Sir Thomas Beecham auditioned him and at once offered him the title role in Boris Godunov, but Allin felt a less challenging debut was needed and instead first appeared (for Beecham) as Old Hebrew in Samson et Dalila on 15 October 1916. With the Beecham Opera Company he appeared in Aida. He first sang at a Royal Philharmonic concert, under Beecham, in 1918.[5] He later appeared as Boris, as Gurnemanz in Wagner's Parsifal, Hagen in Götterdämmerung, and as Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier at Covent Garden.[6] He was a founder of the British National Opera.

He created the role of Sir John Falstaff in Holst's At the Boar's Head. In 1934 he appeared in the original Glyndebourne Festival production under Fritz Busch and Carl Ebert of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.[7] In 1938 Henry Wood wrote that, had Allin not possessed such a retiring disposition, he might have become one of the world's finest operatic basses, and that even so his roles numbered almost fifty. During the Second World War he was a member of the Carl Rosa Opera Company, which gave London seasons in which Allin appeared with Joan Hammond, Gwen Catley, Heddle Nash, Dennis Noble, Parry Jones and Tudor Davies.

[edit] Concert and oratorio

Allin's career was however not only operatic, and he was perhaps best-known as a concert recitalist and in oratorio. He appeared before the Royal Philharmonic Society in a Royal Choral Society Beethoven Missa Solemnis in 1927 under Sir Hugh Allen.[8] In 1932, after giving his 270th performance of The Messiah, at a Halle concert, he decided not to sing the part again.[9]

He always gave the greatest satisfaction when he sang in festivals, and Wood felt that he could trust him with anything.[10] He was one of the soloists in the original line-up for Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music on 5 October 1938. Allin's line goes down to low D; the words set for his solo are 'The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus.' He was also in the performance of it for the Royal Philharmonic Society, on behalf of the Musicians' Benevolent Fund, in February 1940.[11]

[edit] Teaching career

In 1934 he took part in a seven-month operatic tour in Australia, in Melbourne and Sydney. Oh his return he was offered a Professorship of singing at the Royal Academy of Music, and took it up in autumn 1935. Later he also accepted a similar appointment at the Royal Manchester College, which he held jointly with the other, only resigning the Manchester post in 1942 owing to pressure of work in London.[12]

Among Allin's pupils were Jean Allister, Pamela Bowden, Richard Lewis, Norman Lumsden and Ian Wallace (who followed his teacher into the role of Bartolo at Glyndebourne).

Allin's voice was of a depth and resonance now rare in British basses, the preferred style of voice now being lighter.

[edit] Recordings

Norman Allin recorded for Columbia Records. His recording career lasted from about 1916 to about 1940. Many titles were cut twice, first acoustically and then electrically.

Among the acoustic recordings was an early best-seller, the 10" record of Bruno Huhn's 'Invictus' (to words of W. E. Henley) coupled with Coningsby Clarke's 'The Blind Ploughman'. This was re-made electrically and shows Allin's voice in fine form. Examples of his operatic and concert titles are:

He is listed to appear in the 1930s Glyndebourne version of Le Nozze di Figaro as Bartolo, to Roy Henderson's Count and Heddle Nash's Basilio. He took part in the Vaughan Williams Serenade recording immediately after the concert premiere of 1938.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Eaglefield-Hull 1924.
  2. ^ Pound 1969, 126-127.
  3. ^ Brook 1958.
  4. ^ Wood 1946, 292.
  5. ^ Elkin 1946, 145.
  6. ^ Eaglefield-Hull 1924; Brook 1958; Pound 1969.
  7. ^ Harewood 1954, 68.
  8. ^ Elkin 1946, 156.
  9. ^ Brook 1958, 14.
  10. ^ Wood 1946, 292.
  11. ^ Elkin 1946, 178.
  12. ^ Brook 1958, 14-15.

[edit] Sources

  • BBC Radio 3 broadcast written and presented by John Steane, 1988, for the 50th anniversary of the Serenade to Music.
  • D. Brook, Singers of Today (Revised Edition - Rockliff, London 1958), 11-15.
  • A. Eaglefield-Hull, A Dictionary of Modern Music and Musicians (Dent, London 1924).
  • R. Elkin, Royal Philharmonic (Ryder, London 1946).
  • Harewood, Kobbé's Complete Opera Book (Putnam, London 1954).
  • R. Pound, Sir Henry Wood, a biography (Cassell, London 1969).
  • Rosenthal, Harold and John Warrack. (1979, 2nd ed.). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera. London, New York and Melbourne: Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 0-19-311318-X.
  • Sadie, Stanley and Christina Bashford. (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Vol. 1, p. 94. ISBN 0-935859-92-6.
  • Sadie, Stanley and John Tyrrell. (2001).The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Vol. 1, p. 405. ISBN 0-333-60800-3.
  • H.J. Wood, My Life of Music (Cheap Edition, Gollancz, London 1946).

[edit] External links

  • Video clip of Norman Allin singing The Song of the Flea (Mussorgsky) [1]