Roy Henderson is best remembered for being one of the original opera company at Glyndebourne, and features as the Count in Figaro and Masetto in Don Giovanni in the Mozart Opera Society sets recorded in the 1930s by the company. He was also one of the sixteen original soloists in Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music. He later became a voice teacher, with Kathleen Ferrier his most renowned pupil. He made a number of early records on Broadcast Twelve.

Bizet - Carmen - Toreador Song
Wagner - Tannhäuser - O Star of Eve
Orchestra
Roy Henderson, baritone

Bizet - Carmen - Toreador Song - Henderson
Wagner - Tannhäuser - O Star of Eve - Henderson

(mp3 files – click to play, or right click the link, then select “Save as”)

Broadcast Twelve 5100/3231
Matrices L 0241, L 0245 (5100-A/3231-A, 5100-B X/3231-B X)
Recorded January 1929
Sides play at about 77rpm, and 78rpm.

At these speeds both aris play in score pitch.

Gounod - Faust - Even bravest heart
Rossini - The Barber of Seville - Room for the City's Factotum
Orchestra
Roy Henderson, baritone

Gounod - Faust - Even bravest heart - Henderson
Rossini - Barber of Seville - Largo al factotum - Henderson

(mp3 files – click to play, or right click the link, then select “Save as”)

Broadcast Twelve 5089
Matrices L 0242, L 0246 (5089A X, 5089B)
Sides play at about 77rpm, and 78rpm
Recorded January 1929

At these speeds the Gounod plays in D flat, putting the introduction at score pitch, and the aria a tone below. The Rossini plays in A, a surprisingly large transposition of a minor third below score pitch.

Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Henry J. Wood
Isobel Baillie, soprano
Lilian Stiles Allen, soprano
Elsie Suddaby, soprano
Eva Turner, soprano
Margaret Balfour, contralto
Muriel Brunskill, contralto
Astra Desmond, contralto
Mary Jarred, contralto
Parry Jones, tenor
Heddle Nash, tenor
Frank Titterton, tenor
Walter Widdop, tenor
Norman Allin, bass
Robert Easton, bass
Roy Henderson, baritone
Harold Williams, baritone

Download - Vaughan Williams - Serenade to Music - Henry Wood

(mp3 file – right click the link, then select “Save as”)

Columbia LX757-8
Matrices CAX 8367-2A, 8368-2A, 8369-1, 8370-1
Recorded 15th October 1938