Frederic Austin - Recitals in London and The Provinces

Recitals in London and The Provinces

At the 1905 Sheffield Festival he gave the final scena from Eugene Onegin, with Olga Wood (repeated 1911). At Hereford he appeared in César Franck's Les Beatitudes, and introduced songs by Thomas F Dunhill. His Queen's Hall performances included the Four Serious Songs of Brahms. His first major London recital (Aeolian Hall) with Hamilton Harty (piano) was on 3 April 1906, and he sang for the Philharmonic Society. For Weingartner he gave the Die Walküre finale with Agnes Nicholls, and at Queen's Hall the premiere of Balfour Gardiner's ‘When the lad for longing sighs.’

In 1906 (Southport) he took baritone roles in The Dream of Gerontius (beside John Coates) under Elgar's baton. In April 1907 he was at Reading, Berkshire, in Parry's De Profundis and Stanford's Elegiac Ode: at Hanley he gave the premiere of Havergal Brian's By the Waters of Babylon. In October, after Gerontius at Preston, he sang for Elgar in The Apostles at Birmingham. Henry Wood introduced Austin's symphonic composition Rhapsody: Spring, and engaged him to sing in two concerts, including that in which the Delius piano concerto was first given. Austin met Delius that year, and also made a Covent Garden debut, a small role in Tannhäuser, for Richter.