Lloyd, David, 1912-1969

Person

Lloyd, David, 1912-1969

David Lloyd, the Welsh tenor, performed in opera and appeared at music festivals and concerts of choral societies in Europe, the USA and Canada and throughout the British Isles. He gave radio broadcasts for the BBC and also appeared on BBC and ITV television. He was an excellent exponent of Mozart and Verdi but is best remembered by most Welshmen for his rendering of the songs and hymns of Wales. Recordings of his singing have been released by the Columbia, Decca, Delyse, Qualitone and Sain recording companies.

Born in Berthengam, Flintshire, 6 April 1912, the son of a coal miner and one of seven children, David George Lloyd was a product of the eisteddfod system. He left school at the age of fourteen and became an apprentice carpenter. Between the age of eighteen and twenty-one he sang at local eisteddfodau and acquired a reputation as a concert artist. In 1933 he entered the Guildhall School of Music, having won the Sam Heilbut Major Scholarship to study singing under Walter Hyde. Whilst at the Guildhall he won a number of prestigious prizes, namely the Catherine Howard Prize in 1934, the Gold Medal in 1937 and the Knill Challenge Cup and Silver Medal and the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Silver Medal in 1938.

He joined the Glyndebourne Opera Company in 1938 as principal tenor under the baton of Fritz Busch, making an immediate impression as Macduff in Verdi's Macbeth. In the same year he was principal tenor at a Mozart festival in Belgium and Verdi festivals in Denmark and Sweden. He was principal tenor at Sadler's Wells when the Second World War broke out in 1939. After serving for five years in the Welsh Guards, he resumed his career in 1946 as principal tenor at the Verdi and Mozart Festival of Holland and also principal tenor at the Verdi Festival of Britain under Sir Thomas Beecham. In June 1954 he met with a serious accident whilst making a programme for the BBC, resulting in the fracture of his spine. Six years elapsed before he started performing again on concert platforms, making his comeback at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod in July 1960.

In 1961 he toured the USA and Canada, giving concerts and conducting Welsh festivals. He adjudicated at the National Eisteddfod at Caernarfon in 1959 and at Swansea in 1964. David Lloyd died on 27 March 1969.