Hubert Eisdell

Hubert Mortimer Eisdell (born September 21, 1882 in London , † May 28, 1948 in Peterborough , Ontario ) was an English singer (tenor).

Eisdell studied at Cambridge University until 1905 . After a two-year stay in Canada with his cousin, the Governor of Ontario William Mortimer Clarke , he began vocal training with Victor Beigel on the mediation of his friend Gervase Elwes and made his debut in 1909 at William Boosey's Chappell Ballad Concerts at the Queen's Hall . At this time he met the Tasmanian pianist and composer Katharine Parker , a student of Percy Grainger , whom he married in 1910.

In 1910 Eisdell and his wife took part in a concert tour through the USA organized by the composer Liza Lehmann . 1912 came with the ballad Somewhere a Voice is Calling by Arthur Tate Eisdells first commercial disk recording. In addition to compositions by his wife and Liza Lehmann, he later recorded works that composers such as Robert Coningsby Clarke , Roger Quilter , Cyril Scott and Teresa del Riego had composed for him. As a soloist he has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Society , the Royal Choral Society , the Hallé Orchestral Concerts , the Bach Choir , the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society , the London Choral Society and the Bach Cantata Society and at the Leeds Festival under Thomas Beecham , the Norwich Festival and the Queens Hall Promenade Concerts under Henry Wood and at the Three Choirs Festival under Edward Elgar and Ivor Atkins .

During the First World War, Eisdell served as a Lieutenant at Sea in the London Division of the Royal Navy Voluntary Reserve (RNVR), and in 1918 he joined the Admiralty as Secretary to Commodore Douglas King . After the war he signed a contract with the Columbia Graphophone Company , for which he recorded until 1933. In addition to recordings of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (under Felix Weingartner ), Handel's Messiah and Edward Elgar's The Apostles , he also recorded excerpts from Arthur Goring Thomas ' Nadeshda and Mefan by Ivor Novello .

On stage, Eisdell distinguished himself as an oratorio singer, but also had success in operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan . To commemorate his friend Elwes, who died in an accident, he sang Edric Cundell's sonnet Our Dead for tenor and orchestra in 1922 . In 1923 he gave a concert in London's Aeolian Hall with songs from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries as well as by Franz Schubert , Johannes Brahms , Gabriel Fauré , Hubert Parry , Arnold Bax , Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky .

In 1932 Eisdell first appeared in Canada with Winifred Dowell and her string sextet. From 1933 he taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music , in addition to which he continued his work as a song and oratorio singer (including with the Toronto Bach Society and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir ). His last appearance was in Mendelssohn's Elias in 1937 . Until 1947 he worked as a teacher for English, French and Latin and school organist at Lakefield College in Lakefield / Ontario.

Web links

• Hubert Eisdell at Operissimo  on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
• Library and Archives Canada - Virtual Gramophone - Hubert Eisdell