Frederic Austin

Frederic Austin (born March 30, 1872 in London , † April 10, 1952 ) was an English opera singer (baritone) and composer .

Life

After taking private lessons in composition and organ playing in Birkenhead, Austin initially worked there as an organist and taught at Liverpool College of Music . There he met Cyril Scott , through whom he came into contact with other English composers, in particular Balfour Gardiner , Percy Grainger , Roger Quilter , Arnold Bax , Frederick Delius , Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst .

In 1906 he gave up teaching and increasingly made a name for himself as a baritone soloist, so in 1908 he sang in Covent Garden under Hans Richter in the Ring des Nibelungen . Further appearances u. a. under Thomas Beecham also took him to the European continent. Aside from Wagner, Austin's singing focus was on the music of his contemporaries, for example the works of Claude Debussy ( Pelléas et Mélisande ), Richard Strauss ( Feuersnot , Elektra ) or Arnold Schönberg . From 1924 to 1929 he was artistic director of the British National Opera Company .

Austin also emerged as a composer, u. a. with a symphony in E minor (1913), two concert overtures, a concertino for piano and other orchestral works, such as the rhapsody Spring (1907). He also wrote chamber music, songs as well as stage and film music. Frederic Austin's reworking of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch was performed 1,463 times in London between 1920 and 1923.

His brother Ernest Austin was also active as a composer.

literature

• Friedrich Blume (Ed.): Music in the past and present , 1st edition, 1949–1986
• Martin Lee-Browne: CD-Text supplement ClassCD 404, Royal Northern College of Music Symph. Orchestra, Douglas Bostock (Austin: Spring , et al.), 2002

Web links

• Frederic Austin at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
• Short biography, Chester Novello (engl.)