“Wood conducted the first performance at his jubilee concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 5 October 1938. The orchestra comprised players from the three London orchestras — the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The soloists were: Sopranos: Isobel Baillie, Lilian Stiles-Allen, Elsie Suddaby, Eva Turner Contraltos: Muriel Brunskill, Astra Desmond, Mary Jarred, Margaret Balfour Tenors: Heddle Nash, Frank Titterton, Walter Widdop, Parry Jones Baritones: Harold Williams, Roy Henderson Basses: Robert Easton, Norman Allin”
William Shakespeare died in 1616 on today’s date, his birthday, aged 52. Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, setting words from The Merchant of Venice, written for Henry Wood, who conducted this first recording, in 1938, with the original sixteen singers.
