| Biography | Sir James Steuart Wilson was an English singer, known for tenor roles in oratorios and concerts in the first half of the 20th century. After the Second World War he was an administrator for several organisations including the Arts Council of Great Britain, the BBC and the Royal Opera House.
Following service in the First World War, Wilson became known for singing tenor roles in oratorios by composers from Bach to Elgar, and was particularly admired both as the Evangelist in Bach's St Matthew Passion and in the title role of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius. He was a champion of music by English composers of his generation, notably Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst and Rutland Boughton. He also appeared from time to time in operatic tenor roles, including Satyavan in the first professional performance of Holst's Savitri.
The quality of his voice and his technique were not universally admired. In a high-profile libel case, which became known as "the case of the intrusive H," Wilson sued a member of the public who had criticised one of his performances in a letter, and the BBC for publishing it: he won £2,000 in damages.
In 1937 Wilson settled for a while in the United States, teaching at the Curtis Institute of Music. He retired from singing and returned to the United Kingdom in 1942 where he began a second career as an administrator. He initially worked for the BBC, then after the war was appointed music director of the newly created Arts Council of Great Britain. In 1948 he became the BBC's director of music, and engineered the enforced retirement of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's chief conductor, Sir Adrian Boult. The following year he became deputy general administrator of the Royal Opera House, in which post he secured the premiere staging of Vaughan Williams's The Pilgrim's Progress in 1951.
Unhappy with being subordinate to the Royal Opera's general administrator, David Webster, Wilson resigned from his post in 1955 and started a campaign against homosexuals in the musical profession. He was quoted as saying: "The influence of perverts in the world of music has grown beyond all measure. If it is not curbed soon, Covent Garden and other precious musical heritages could suffer irreparable harm." |