 However, he had to overcome a social convention which resisted a member of the upper classes becoming a professional singer, and it was not until the early 1900s, in his late thirties, that he gave his first professional performances in London.His principal teachers were Jacques Bouhy in Paris (1901–03), and in London Henry Russell and Victor Biegel, who remained his friend and teacher throughout his life.Bouhy asked him to decide between a baritone career in opera or a tenor career in oratorio and concert, and he chose the latter.