A brilliant and kind man

Philip Langridge, who died on March 5 aged 70, was one of the most versatile operatic tenors this country has produced. He was an outstanding Lieder singer, described as “spellbinding” by the distinguished pianists, among them Maurizio Pollini and Andras Schiff, with whom he worked. But Langridge was at his most compelling on the boards of the world’s opera houses, bringing his natural empathy to performance. He was a regular draw in Sidney, Milan, the Met and Covent Garden. A glance at his discography reveals an astonishing range. Though his mastery of Britten and Birtwistle welcomed comparison with Sir Peter Pears, Langridge was just as accomplished when singing Bach and Beethoven: breadth that few have ever matched.

Langridge trained as a violinist at the Royal Academy of Music in the late fifties and began singing lessons in 1962. He joined the John Alldis Choir shortly after, where he first met Sir Harrison Birtwistle, an encounter that marked the start of a long and very close association. Their partnership was at its most creatively intense in the 1980s. Langridge sang the lead in Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus in 1986 and the Lawyer in the world premiere of Punch and Judy in 1989 and further roles in Birtwistle operas: Kong in The Second Mrs Kong at Glyndebourne in 1994 and Hiereus in The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House in 2008. Birtwistle composed a song for Langridge’s 70th birthday, structured uniquely for its dedicatee’s voice. There are few higher compliments.

For a man of such obvious eminence, Philip Langridge was privacy, modesty and generosity itself. If he was ill-at-ease or bored among the lawyers and their offspring who populated his corner of South-West Surrey he never showed it. He was irresistibly self-effacing, jesting that he made his debut “singing Messiah for a fiver in Surbiton”. Someone with whom time spent was never time wasted.