John Braham — from meshorrer to tenor

John Braham (i774-1856), the one-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of whose death has recently passed, was one of the outstanding British opera singers of all time, yet still lacks an informed biography.

True, this journal has published an article on Braham by Mollie Sands and references to his life from the Revd Cohen, Alfred Rubens, Professor Kaiman Burnim1 and others; but all of these, where they reflect on his person rather than his achievements, are to a greater or lesser extent influ? enced by the accumulation of legend and conjecture which his fame encour? aged in his time and later. Apart from these the reader can refer only to the largely anecdotal survey of J. Mewburn Levien, now sixty years old,2 the article in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography^ inaccurate as to Braham’s dates and family, or the more cursory coverage in Grove.4

The present study is largely concerned with

Written by

David Conway

Published in

Volume 41

2007

Other articles within the volume

• In memoriam: Lionel Kochan, 1922-2005
• Kindertransport: Tylers Green Hostel for young Jewish refugees
• Mac Goldsmith
• Addendum III: Lieutenant Marcus Bloom: a Jewish hero of the SOE
• Addendum II: More than just a few: Jewish pilots and aircrew in the Battle of Britain
• Addendum I
• Captain Isidore Newman, SOE
• A Jewish contribution to British psychiatry: Edward Mapother, Aubrey Lewis and their Jewish and refugee colleagues at the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital and Institute of Psychiatry, 1933-66
• Hagedud Ha-Sini: The Jewish Company of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, 1932—42
• Jewish missionary activity in Portugal between the Wars
• Izak Goller (1891—1939): Zionist poet, playwright and preacher
• Two Hebrew grammars and the Enlightenment
• England expects…: British Jews under the white ensign from HMS Victory to the loss of HMS Hood in 1941
• John Braham — from meshorrer to tenor
• An eighteenth-century Sephardi lady: her relations and her property
• The Mahamad as an Arbitration Court
• The Domus Conversorum: the personal interest of Henry III
• Preface