Ireland’s Count McCormack Honoured in Liverpool Museum

McCormack Record in Liverpool Museum

 

It seems like a good deed is never forgotten, at least in the case of Athlone’s World Famous tenor, John 'Count' McCormack – who is proudly remembered in Liverpool for helping to build the city’s majestic catholic cathedral.

During WW1, McCormack, who was born in the Bawn in Athlone, and who spent his childhood and early adulthood in the town, began a tour of UK provincial cities, starting with Liverpool, in aid of the Red Cross.

However it was in May 1932, one month before he sang at the High Mass at the Eucharistic Congress in Phoenix Park, Dublin, that John McCormack gave a great gift to Liverpool by singing and recording ‘Hymn to Christ the King’.  The record was issued as a single-sided disc to be sold in aid of the building fund of Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King.  On one side of the disc was, side by side, pictures of the Archbishop of Liverpool, and McCormack’s favourite portrait of himself. 

The old 78 speed record, with pictorial jacket, is on display at the Museum of Liverpool Life, which is in Albert Dock in the city.  The disc is viewed by the thousands of tourists who visit the famous museum every year.

In September 1932, McCormack gave a concert in the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool in aid of the building of the cathedral.  It was an immense success, and had an audience of more than 2,500 people.

The Athlone tenor sang two arias and four songs before the interval.  It was the first occasion that he would give a public performance of ‘Hymn to Christ the King’.  McCormack was accompanied on the organ by the composer, Vincent O’Brien.

Raymond Foxhall, writing about the concert in his 1963 biography of McCormack, paints a little known picture of the tenor:

‘He detected the sound of people beating time with their feet.  He stopped singing and said angrily: “Stop padding your feet.  I really cannot sing with that noise.”

He completed the song and left the platform for a short rest.  The hall was filled to capacity, but a further 200 people had been allowed to sit on the platform to hear him.  When he returned he showed his displeasure for the feet-stamping by turning his back on the main audience and singing the next song to those on the platform.

On another occasion a woman in the gallery was always a few moments ahead of everyone else with her ‘Bravo’ and when he was singing Eric Coates ‘Bird Songs at Eventide’ she got his last two lines drowned by applause.  He glared up at the gallery and there was no further interruption of his songs’.