Louise Kirkby Lunn - Oratorio and Concert Work

Oratorio and Concert Work

Henry Wood first conducted the Prelude and Angel's farewell from The Dream of Gerontius, with Kirkby Lunn in the cast, in February 1901. In March 1904, Kirkby Lunn was a principal soloist in the Elgar Festival concerts given at Covent Garden, appearing on the first night with John Coates and Ffrangcon-Davies in Gerontius, and on the second with them and with Agnes Nicholls, Kennerly Rumford (the spouse of Kikby Lunn's contralto rival Clara Butt) and Andrew Black in The Apostles. In this way she effectively replaced Marie Brema, the original choice for the Gerontius angel. Two years later she performed it with the same colleagues (but for Henry Wood) in Leeds. She sang it under Hans Richter at Birmingham in 1909 with John Coates and Frederic Austin; The Athenaeum remarked, 'each, in turn, brought to it an accession of glory.' Wood greatly admired her, and employed her frequently, choosing her for a Sheffield Festival presentation of a suite from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Christmas Eve, with Francis Hurford, in 1908.

In 1909, Kirkby Lunn performed the Sea Pictures songs under Elgar's baton at the Royal Philharmonic Society concerts. On that occasion she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society, when the Hon Secretary, composer and pianist Francesco Berger, referred to her 'rare combination of personal artistic achievement added to a richly endowed nature.' She made two further appearances before the society before the war, on the opening nights (November) of the 1913 and 1914 seasons. At the former she sang the scena from Wagner's Rienzi, 'Gerechter Gott!', for Willem Mengelberg, and on the second occasion the Ballade La Fiancee du Timbalier by Saint-Saëns, for Thomas Beecham. She performed the Brahms Alto Rhapsody at Queen's Hall under Henri Verbrugghen in the Festival of April 1915, and she also sang in the Festival of British Music there the following month. In November 1916, she reappeared with the RPO to sing Mozart's 'Non piu di fiori' from La clemenza di Tito. As was the case with 'Che faro?' from Orfeo, she made a gramophone record of the Clemenza item.

Before the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Kirkby Lunn had been in great demand for oratorio appearances on the European Continent, and she sang frequently as far afield as Budapest. New York also heard her during this period. In 1912, she had made a tour of Australia with William Murdoch, the celebrated pianist who had made his London debut two years earlier.