Peter Dawson (bass-baritone)
| Peter Dawson | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Peter Smith Dawson |
| Also known as | J.P. McCall, Will Strong, Will Danby, Hector Grant, Arthur Walpole, Robert Woodville, Evelyn Byrd, Peter Allison, Denton Toms, Charles Weber, Arnold Flint, Gilbert Mundy, Geoffrey Baxter, Alison Miller |
| Born |
31 January 1882 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| Died | 27 September 1961 (aged 79) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Genres | Opera, oratorio, song |
| Occupation(s) | bass-baritone singer, songwriter |
| Years active | 1899–1950s |
Peter Smith Dawson (31 January 1882 – 27 September 1961) was an Australian bass-baritone and songwriter. Dawson gained worldwide renown through song recitals and many best-selling recordings of operatic arias, oratorio solos and rousing ballads during a career spanning almost 60 years.
Although Dawson's repertoire embraced a great deal of contemporary popular songs and light music, he possessed a remarkably fluent and technically adroit vocal technique which enabled him to excel in highly demanding classical pieces. His voice combined an attractive dark timbre with an ideal balance of diction and vocal placement. He also possessed a smooth legato, a strong but integrated 'attack' that eschewed intrusive aspirates, and a near-perfect ability to manage running passages and difficult musical ornaments such as roulades.
These skills probably derived from his studies with Sir Charles Santley, a virtuoso English baritone of the Victorian era. If Dawson's interpretations were not profoundly penetrating, they were not shallow either; and in his chosen field of English concert pieces of the vigorous, manly, outdoors kind, he remains unequalled. The tremendously high technical finish of his Handelian singing sets an unmatched standard, too.
In 1984, Dawson was chosen by the Guinness Book of Recorded Sound as one of the top 10 singers on disc of all time, listed alongside such luminaries as Elvis Presley and the great operatic tenor Enrico Caruso.
In 2007, Peter Dawson's 1931 recording of the song Along the Road to Gundagai was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry.
Peter Dawson was born in 1882 to immigrant Scottish parents, Thomas Dawson, an ironworker, plumber and seaman from Kirkcaldy and Alison, née Miller, in Adelaide, South Australia. The youngest of nine children, he attended East Adelaide Primary School, then Pulteney Street Grammar School. At the age of 17 he joined a church choir and received singing lessons from C.J. Stevens. Then, aged 19, he won a prize for the best bass solo in a competition at Ballarat, Victoria, and began taking up concert engagements. He was a featured singer at the 1901 Christmas performance of Messiah at the Adelaide Town Hall.
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