without hesitation after which, on Sargent's advice, Ferrier decided to base herself in London. On 24 December 1942 she moved with her sister Winifred into a flat in Frognal Mansions, Hampstead. Stardom Growing reputation Ferrier gave her first London recital on 28 December 1942 at the National Gallery, in a lunch-time concert organised by Dame Myra Hess. Although she wrote "went off very well" in her diary, Ferrier was disappointed with her performance, and concluded that she needed further voice training. She approached the distinguished baritone Roy Henderson with whom, a week previously, she had sung in Mendelssohn's Elijah. Henderson agreed to teach her, and was her regular voice coach for the remainder of her life. He later explained that her "warm and spacious tone" was in part due to the size of the cavity at the back of her throat: "one could have shot a fair-sized apple right to the back of the throat without obstruction". However, this natural physical advantage was not in itself enough to ensure the quality of her voice; this was due, Henderson says, to "her hard work, artistry, sincerity, personality and above all her character". On 17 May 1943 Ferrier sang in Handel's Messiah at Westminster Abbey, alongside Isobel Baillie and Peter Pears, with Reginald Jacques conducting. According to the critic Neville Cardus, it was through the quality of her singing here that Ferrier "made her first serious appeal to musicians". Her assured performance led to other important engagements, and to broadcasting work; her increasingly frequent appearances on popular programmes such as Forces Favourites and Housewives' Choice soon gave her national recognition. In May 1944, at EMI's Abbey Road Studios with Gerald Moore as her accompanist, she made test recordings of music by Brahms, Gluck and Elgar. Her first published record, made in September 1944, was issued under the Columbia label; it consisted of two songs by Maurice Greene, again with Moore accompanying. Her time as a Columbia recording artist was brief and unhappy; she had poor relations with her producer, Walter Legge, and after a few months she transferred to Decca. In the remaining wartime months Ferrier continued to travel throughout the country, to fulfil the growing demands for her services from concert promoters. At Leeds in November 1944 she sang the part of the Angel in Elgar's choral work The Dream of Gerontius, her first performance in what became one of her