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On 8 October 1953, a music student named Janet Baker 鈥� newly arrived in London 鈥� emerged out of Oxford Circus underground station and saw a news placard that read "Kathleen Ferrier dies at 41". The young singer was stopped in her tracks by this news, realising that she would never get to meet Ferrier, never get to hear her sing live. Janet Baker herself was to go on and, in part at least, take on Ferrier鈥檚 mantle 鈥� another truly great low-voiced singer from the north.

Baker would be the first to admit that Kathleen Ferrier was unique. Her huge, rich contralto voice had made her a household name: some of her records had outsold Frank Sinatra's and Vera Lynn鈥檚. Her artistry, her warm personality, her radiant beauty (everybody who knew her used that word - radiance); all this seemed to strike a very deep chord with people recovering from the trauma of war. Some people have said that, at the time of her death, Kathleen Ferrier was as famous as the newly crowned Queen.

Kathleen was a girl from Blackburn; an accomplished pianist who left school at 14 to spend a decade as a GPO telephone operator. But she kept her music up in the evenings, and it was clear that her gifts were considerable. She got serious lessons and moved to London, where she studied and spent the war years giving concerts around the country. Her singing teacher later tried to explain the huge sound of the voice, saying that she had an extraordinarily wide vocal cavity: "If she opened her mouth and you took an apple and lobbed it in, it would go straight down." That sound was noticed by Benjamin Britten, who wrote The Rape of Lucretia for her. John Barbirolli became a close friend and he admitted that her singing could reduce him to tears on the podium. And there was Bruno Walter, who helped Kathleen become famous for Schumann and Mahler.

People who knew Ferrier remember her lust for life, for travel, for cigarettes and "a dirty big pint", as well as her filthy humour. But one day in 1951 she wrote to her sister that she鈥檇 discovered "a bump on mi busto". Breast cancer was diagnosed. When Kathleen flew to Vienna to record Mahler鈥檚 Das Lied von der Erde with Bruno Walter, everyone, including Ferrier herself, knew as she sang the final Abschied that it was her own farewell to life. When the recording stopped, there was silence - until Kathleen said to Bruno Walter: "Was I alright, love?鈥�. He couldn鈥檛 reply.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 成人论坛 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 成人论坛 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This is an excerpt from a recording by Kathleen Ferrier with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Bruno Walter.

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