Harry Sennett, Operatic Tenor in around 1930

My Grandma proudly kept newspaper cuttings about a radio show of her Uncle, Harry Sennett - he was an Operatic Tenor.

Some poor tattered old mementoes here from Grandma's collection:


The cutting on the left tells of an hour-long Radio showcase for the winners at the Leicester Musical Festival (see cutting on the right). Harry Sennett is pictured. The cuttings are undated and I wasn't sure from which year these date, but having found matching entries in the Times Archives, I think they're from March 1929.

 
The 1929 Leicester music festival test piece was Gounod's - Faust: 'All hail thy dwellings pure and lowly' (Salut, demeure chaste et pure). It was a cavatina for tenor, playing the role of Dr. Faust.
If you click on this youTube link, you could pretend it was another blast from the past - though it isn't actually our Harry singing ;-) and I'd presume he was singing in English, hence the title in English ??  I'm sure he was every bit as good, though, said she loyally.
There are several other recordings on YouTube - this one is beautifully clear, and this recording was contemporary with Harry's time on the radio, 1928.

I'm grateful to Harry for choosing this piece, because in order to find out more about it, I searched in Goggle Books & came up with this old text (1891) of George Bernard Shaw - a "Review & Bombardment"  of the whole opera.  Punches were not to be pulled.  We get the certain impression that Faust was played much more often then than now.

We can also see in the Times that Harry Sennett was heard on the radio (Daventry radio call-sign 5GB) from December 1927 when he appeared with the Pattison's Salon Orchestra. In October 1930, Harry was the Tenor with the Midland Studio Orchestra, directed by Frank Cantell.  On the majority of early occasions, our Harry was the tenor with an orchestra; usually an outside broadcast. Several occasions list Harry as the tenor with the organ & orchestra from the Lozells Picture House, Birmingham. {Links here give info about the picture house, and it's Wurlitzer organ. A note here tells us that the first outside Radio Broadcast was from there - 1923??.}
But, Harry was also listed as an artiste on some entertainment slots, for example on "Cabaradio; a post-prandial pot pourri".

Read more on the History of BBC Radio:- a page on the 1920's, 1930's, and the Radio Times Archives.

Where was he living then?
We were told that Harry was also a leader of the Daventry Men's Choir. The letter head at the top of this post gives us the addresses of 61 Grafton Road in Shirley, Solihull, West Midlands - that wouldn't be too far from Daventry for the radio (5 GB)?
Also the letterhead gives us the address 47, Prince Edward St., for which there isn't a match in the modern gazeteer of the Midlands. Glad for any tips on that!

Return to reading about Harry's busy life now - Harry Sennett page 1, 2 or 3.