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5 unusual facts about Ernest Lough


Ernest Lough

Lord Justice Eldon Bankes suggested that the Temple choir should make a record, and on 15 March 1927, the Gramophone Company brought its new mobile recording unit to the Temple Church where the choir recorded Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer, in which the famous solo O for the Wings of a Dove was sung by Ernest Lough, then aged 15.

Ernest Arthur Lough (17 November 1911 - 22 February 2000) (pronounced Luf) was an English boy soprano who sang the famous solo O for the Wings of a Dove from Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer for the Gramophone Company (later HMV and then EMI) in 1927.

He appeared as a fire control operator in a wartime propaganda film about the fire service in London titled Fires Were Started, which was filmed using actual firefighters rather than professional actors.

He auditioned at Southwark Cathedral, but joined the choir of the Temple Church in London in 1924, which was under the direction of organist and choirmaster George Thalben-Ball (later Sir George Thalben-Ball) who had just succeeded Sir Henry Walford Davies.

George Thalben-Ball

Under his direction, the choir achieved in 1927 international fame with its recording of Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer, featuring Ernest Lough as the treble soloist.



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