Our 1974 vocal soloists
12 August 2024
Our 1974 vocal soloists proved rather hard to track down 50 years later. We knew all the names, of course: Grace Dives, Annette Bisdorff, Richard Frewer and Noel Noble. No trace could be found of Annette Bisdorff, who had returned to Germany where the trail ran cold. A few old recordings surfaced on second-hand record dealer sites, but that was it. Annette, if you read this, please get in touch!
The Australian bass-baritone Noel Noble died in 2017. What we know of him comes almost entirely from an obituary in the web archives of Kingston Polytechnic. (Noel had some claim to fame as a middle-distance runner and was a staunch supporter of the Kingston Athletics Club.) He forged enough of an operatic career in the UK to make his home here from the 1970s onwards. Participation in the first Messiah from Scratch® clearly made an impression as the obituary specifically refers to it. According to one newspaper review of the performance, Noel ‘had a brandy near him for help’. It did the trick: music critic Christopher Grier praised his ‘consistency of tone over a wide range’.
The name Grace Dives is fairly unusual, but coupling it with the word ‘soprano’ produced no Internet results. A simple name search yielded someone recording audio books, however, which seemed like a lead worth following. So it proved: Grace, now in her 90s and still singing, was quick to respond. She and her husband Ken produced a stack of newspaper cuttings giving a real flavour of the excitement in December 1974. She writes: ‘I have to admit that I was NOT a young student at the time but a 40-year-old mother of two! I became involved through Piggott’s Music Camp which I had joined in 1972 and where Gavin Park also sang. Messiah from Scratch was a risky financial venture and the orchestra and soloists all had to be more or less amateur. Any fees were minimal.’
As well as Gavin and Grace, other Music Campers also took part. They included the harpsichordist Howard Williams (playing for the 50th anniversary in November) and the organist Donald Ray (died 2010).
The tenor Richard Frewer (pictured), the last of our 1974 vocal soloists, was yet another Camper. He vividly describes walking out into the jam-packed Hall: ‘It felt like entering the Colosseum to be confronted by hungry lions’. After the overture he stood, ‘and there was a long pause that felt like an hour, as late-comers were allowed in. Just imagine what it felt like to stand motionless, as six thousand pairs of eyes anticipated the tenor’s first entry. I tried to look confident and committed, but surely my knees must have knocked and I still wonder whether those close to me could see my score shaking.’ Richard went on to become a highly successful architect but maintained his singing at a professional level. He lost touch with the Tuesday Partnership after a few years, although he continued to sing as a recitalist (and still does!).
Richard has shared an amusing coda to his story. ‘In 1990 there was a nice coincidence: on the same day, with no prior knowledge, Don Monro and I arrived together at the University of Bath. Don took the Chair of Information Systems and his tenor soloist the Chair of Architecture.’
Next in the series: Who remembers Gavin Park?
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