Kenneth Shenton writes:
WILLIAM KENDALL was an English tenor of outstanding talent, admirable range, and endless versatility. He spent his 46-year career as a lay clerk at Winchester Cathedral, but was also at ease performing both in the concert hall and on the operatic stage, and recording in the studio. His excellent memory, unusually sensitive musicality, and enquiring mind allowed him to explore the entire range of repertoire. As a consequence, his singing was more than ordinarily informed and never less than interesting.
Born in London on St Swithun’s Day 1951, William James Mackenzie Kendall was the son of Ronald Kendall, the managing director of a shipping-development and finance company, and his wife, Dorothy. At The King’s School, Canterbury, Kendall excelled as a singer and violinist, and won a choral scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge. Further studies included 12 months at the Royal College of Music with Robert Tear, and vocal tuition from Sir Peter Pears and Helga Moot. He returned to The King’s School, as a vocal tutor, from 1975 to 1978.
Kendall joined the choir of Winchester Cathedral, dedicated in honour of St Swithun among others, in May 1975, serving until July 2021. Besides the daily services, there were concert tours, recording assignments, radio broadcasts, and the occasional television appearance. It was with the Winchester choir that he made his London solo debut at St Augustine’s, Kilburn, in the 1979 series of Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts.
In 1985, the choir undertook some 13 recitals, seven radio broadcasts, and finished the year performing Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at the Barbican, in London, with a performance back in Winchester the following evening. The next year, the choir travelled to New York for the première of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem. After performances in London and Vienna, the choir took an 18-day tour of nine cities across Canada and the US.
Kendall was a keen stalwart of the English choral-society tradition. Solo engagements ranged from Verdi’s Requiem at the Three Choirs Festival to Handel’s Messiah in St Paul’s Cathedral. At Westminster Abbey, in 1989, he took part in Bruce Wood’s modern recreation of the ceremonial music of Henry Purcell and John Blow that was used at the Coronation of William of Orange and his wife, Mary, some 300 years earlier. Kendall was no less in demand at events throughout Europe.
On the operatic stage, his appearances at the Edinburgh International Festival included the lead in Janácek’s early opera Sarka, and roles in Gluck’s Iphigenie auf Taurus, Beethoven’s Leonore, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The Gluck production was later reprised at the Teatro Real, in Madrid, in 2004.
Kendall also enjoyed a long and productive collaboration with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir, appearing with them in more than 100 concerts worldwide. Their Deutsche Grammophon recording of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis was voted Record of the Year in The Gramophone’s Classical Musical Awards in 1991. He also took the title role in Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with David Hill.
Of his many and varied recordings with Winchester Cathedral Choir, perhaps none is finer than Andrew Lumsden’s 2019 celebratory compilation of the choral music of John Tavener. Here, his stunning solo, part of the 1987 carol “God is with us”, will surely remain a most fitting epitaph.
William Kendall died on 26 December 2024, aged 73.