Revived the Elizabethan glories of counter-tenor singing style
GRAYSTON BURGESS, who has died aged 86, was an English counter-tenor and a pioneering choral conductor.
Whether reviving the long-lost glories of Elizabethan England or promoting the more recent music of Michael Tippett and Benjamin Britten, it fell to Burgess and others to reintroduce the countertenor voice to modern audiences. As director of the Purcell Consort of Voices he led the way in developing the historically informed performance style for which they became known and which influenced many of the choral groups and conductors that followed.
The younger son of a music shop proprietor, Donald Grayston Burgess, known as Duffy, was born on April 7 1932 at Cheriton, Kent. Brought up mainly by his grandparents after the death of his father, he began his musical career by joining his brother in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral.
In May 1940 the choir school, together with the cathedral organist, were all evacuated to Cornwall, where they spent the rest of the war singing services in Cornish churches.
In 1945, with Burgess now head chorister, the choir returned to Canterbury, and a year later he left for Cheltenham College, before, in 1950, winning a choral scholarship to King’s College, Cambridge. There, as well as singing in the Chapel Choir under Boris Ord, he became a member of Consolidated Opera Incorporated, which allowed him to widen his musical horizons and explore the operatic repertoire.
Burgess’s professional career began in earnest in 1955 when he became a music tours officer for the British Council. At the same time he was appointed a Lay Vicar, singing at Westminster Abbey, a role he performed until 1969. He later moved to St Paul’s Cathedral as a Vicar Choral.
To non-ecclesiastical audiences he became known as a stalwart of the provincial choral society tradition, excelling in more intimate repertoire, particularly alongside his friend and fellow counter-tenor John Whitworth, combining a solid and natural vocal technique with sensitive interpretations.
While at home on the concert platform
exploring the medieval and renaissance repertoire, he was always open to the challenges of modern pieces by the likes of Malcolm Williamson. Among his stage roles, Burgess appeared at Covent Garden as Oberon in the 1961 and 1964 revivals of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Burgess around that time joined his university colleague John Alldis in his new 16-strong choir. By 1963 he had joined the early music group Musica Reservata and the same year he founded the Purcell Consort of Voices, a six-strong group that introduced audiences, mainly on the South Bank, to aspects of medieval and renaissance culture.
Among their many discs, a pioneering rendition of Richard Davy’s Passion According to St Matthew won praise, as did their exploration of the music of the medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut. Also notable were recordings of the compositions of Prince Albert and the music of Queen Victoria’s court.
Throughout his career Burgess was active as a teacher, and he settled in Herefordshire where he taught at a girls’ school. When, in 1992, the school merged with Malvern College, Burgess became head of vocal studies. Retiring two years later, he and his wife then moved to Cambridge.
There, in addition to running a local community choir, Burgess became the spokesman and public face of a lobby group, the Campaign for the Traditional Cathedral Choir.
In 1953 he married Mary Bryan, daughter of the president of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. She died in 1996 and for the last few years Burgess lived as a brother of the Charterhouse at Smithfield. He is survived by three daughters.