Clara Butt (1872-1936)

Clara Butt (1872-1936)

Clara Ellen Butt (her full name) was born in Southwick near Brighton on 1st February, 1872. She was the daughter of Sea-Captain and sometimes Oyster Fisherman, Henry Albert Butt, and his wife Clara (Hook). She was baptised at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Southwick on 3rd April, 1872.

By the time her younger brother was born two years later, the family had moved to Jersey. Around 1880, the family moved to the Bristol area where Clara subsequently came under the musical tutelage of the famous singing coach Dan Rootham, conductor of the Bristol Festival Choir. She studied under Rootham for several years, as well as frequently performing in the choir. During this time, her talent developed so well that when she auditioned for a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London in January 1890 she was readily accepted.

By this time, Clara, still a few months short of her eighteenth birthday, was a towering six feet two inches in height - truly extraordinary for a woman of that era. Initially trained as a soprano, she had since come to recognise that her calling was that of a contralto. She was possessed of a rich booming voice with an extraordinary range, able to acheive the highest and lowest notes with equal ease.

In December 1892, whilst still a student, she was offered the opportunity to sing with the Royal Choral Society at the Royal Albert Hall - performing the contralto solos in performances of Arthur Sullivan's "The Golden Legend" and others. Three days after appearing at the Albert Hall she sang the role of 'Orfeo' in a student performance of the opera "Orfeo and Euridice" staged by the Royal College at the Lyceum Theatre in London. Of her performance in the latter The Times musical correspont wrote "That she is by far the best singer that has ever come from the Royal College of Music is beyond dispute." Truly an auspicious start to what promised to be a glittering career.

Four months later, on March 11th 1893, she sang the same part in a command performance for the Prince of Wales at the same theatre. Shortly after that she was invited to sing at a State Concert at Buckingham Palace and subsequently in a private performance for the Queen at Windsor Castle. This was to be only the start of her association with royalty. Throughout her career she would remain the darling of the Royal Court and would be invited to perform at innumerable Royal occasions including coronations and jubilees. In fact, when the Royal College sent her to Paris in the summer of 1893 to study under Henri Louis Duvernoy, it was no less a patron than the Queen herself who paid her expenses.

A chance to study the part of 'Delilah' with Saint-Saëns passed her by due to laws which at the time forbade the representation of biblical subjects on the British stage, but in 1896 she was able to return to Paris for six months to study with Jacques Bouhy; her expenses this time paid by a loan from an anonymous admirer. She also spend six months in Berlin studying with the great soprano Etelka Gerster.

In the years that followed she continued to perfect and expand her talents through oratorio performances all over the British Isles as well as concert appearances in London, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Budapest and Prague. She also supplemented her income from the lucrative business of singing at private musical soirees during the London “season”, often performing at two or three different great houses on the same evening. This also served to introduce her to the hurly burly of the London social scene which would stand her in good stead as her career continued to unfold. Her repertoire consisted of the works of Bach, Handel, Lieder and of all the popular ballads of the day. She sang in the great Handel Festivals that were then held tri-annually at the Crystal Palace, as in all the great provincial festivals across the country. Among the works for which she was best loved were her performances in Handel’s "Messiah" and "Samson", Elgar’s "Dream of Gerontius", Gounod’s "Rédemption" and Parry’s "Judith" to name but a few.

In 1897 Clara met and began to perform with the great baritone Robert Kennerley Rumford. They embarked on a breif but highly successful tour of the American continent together in 1899 and were married the following year. The ceremony took place at Bristol Cathedral on 26th June, 1900. So many turned up to see the spectacle that the cathedral doors had to be locked with many thousands shut outside. Many great vocalists of the time attended to lend Clara their support and Arthur Sullivan composed an anthem specially for the occasion. Her marriage essentially signalled the end of her operatic appearances however, as her husband would not allow her to take part in love scenes with other men. Still it seems to have been a strong marriage lasting as it did more than thirty years until Clara's death.

Clara was greatly impressed by Elgar's D Major "Pomp and Circumstance" March which was performed for the first time in 1901 and asked the composer if he could write something like it for her. He replied to her that "you shall have that one my dear" and turned to Arthur Christopher Benson to write lyrics to be applied to the central trio of the piece. Thus "Land of Hope and Glory" was born. It was dedicated to the coronation of King Edward VII and Clara performed it for the first time in public in June of 1902. It would become not only Clara's signature and most popular performance, but virtually a second national anthem. She performed it with such gusto that Sir Thomas Beecham once claimed you could have heard her clear across the English channel. When she recorded the song it sold so rapidly that there could scarcely have been a gramophone in the whole of England without a copy of her record lying beside it.

In subsequent years she triumphed in all of the great British concert halls as well as many across the continent of Europe. There were also tours of Australia and New Zealand (1907) and South Africa (1911) as well as extended World tour which took in Australia, Canada and the US (1912-1914), which elevated her to the status of one of the most celebrated concert artists in the World. Nor did she forget her family, contributing from her growing fortune to pay for the vocal tuition of her three sisters; Pauline (soprano), and Ethel and Hazel (both contralto), whom she sent to the best teachers. All three sisters adopted their mother’s maiden name of Hook as their professional name. The most successful of these was Ethel who acheived a measure of fame in her own right without ever quite attaining the lofty heights to which Clara had ascended.

During the four years of World War I, she was a tireless worker for War charities and helped to raise over £100,000. In May 1916, she arranged a whole week of performances of Elgar’s "Dream of Gerontius" at the Queen’s Hall, London, in aid of the British Red Cross Society, repeating the occasion in Glasgow later that year. Throughout the war she continued to work tirelessly to raise money for charity, raising a total sum in excess of one hundred thousand pounds - an enormous sum of money in those days. It was largely in recognition of this war work that King George V appointed her a "Dame of the British Empire" in 1920.

Following the war, moving with the times, she made the main staple of her performances generous quantities of the ballads old and new, that were then so popular with the public and for which they adored her. She toured the far flung corners of the British Empire where her patriotic renditions of 'Land of Hope and Glory' and 'Rule Britannia' were as eagerly received as when she performed them on Empire Day rallies in Hyde Park.

In later life Clara was dogged by personal tragedies. Her first son died of meningitis whilst still at school, the second took his own life with a firearm. On 27th June, 1925, whilst returning to her country home after celebrating her silver wedding anniversary in Bristol, the motor car in which she was travelling was involved in a fatal traffic accident with a motorcyclist. Francis Willis, a 20 year-old man from Swindon, was thrown twenty yards and received a fractured skull. Dame Clara tended to him at the roadside, stemming the bleeding from his wounds, but he died at the scene. Around this time Dame Clara developed cancer of the spine which made her gravely ill and subsequently confined her to a wheelchair. In spite of these setbacks she found the strength the strength and courage to continue working, even to the point of making many of her later recordings from her wheelchair. Dame Clara Butt died on 23rd January, 1936, at North Stoke in Oxfordshire, her death coming within a few days of those of King George V and Rudyard Kipling. The deaths of three such iconic personalities in so short a space of time seeming to lower a veil foretelling the demise of the British Empire. A commemorative plaque was placed on the building where Clara died but it has since been demolished.

Clara Butt possessed one of the greatest and most powerful contralto voices ever heard, with considerable range and power. Standing over six feet tall she would stand out in a crowd even today - in an age when the average height was a few inches shorter than it is now she was truly statuesque. On and off the stage her dress sense was immaculate. In the casinos of Monte Carlo which she often frequented later in life she was known as "La Grande". On the concert stage she beautiful gowns and fine jewelry, and made a wonderful impression as she marched majestically onto the stage picked out by spotlights. She was always intensely dramatic and had an incredible sensitivity for the moods of the music so that her interpretation of any performance was always utterly convincing.

She filled concert halls throughout her career both with her booming voice and her adoring fans. Few other performers before or since have ever been so loved by their fellow countrymen. She always gave her all to any performance and worked hard at all times to be the best that she could be. She made many recordings during her long career and for many years the first page of the English Columbia gramophone catologue was given over to the long list of her records.

Clara's biography "Clara Butt, Her Life Story", written by Winifred Ponder, was published in 1928.