Norman del Mar - favourite recordings

[PaulT]

He used to conduct the LPO regularly when they made their out-of-town visits, no doubt because he was cheaper than the likes of Boult and Pritchard. I recall a number of excellent concerts in the Dorking Halls in the 1960s and 70s, in particular one which opened with the finest performance of Don Juan I have ever heard. I went backstage and he kindly autographed an LP sleeve of his DG recording of Enigma Variations. Wasnt his version chosen as top dog on BAL many years ago?

His Delius Miniatures CD with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta is one of my favourites too.

[Chris Newman]

I remember him as a very tall, slightly stooping man, a dapper dresser with a love of open-topped sports-cars who had a balletic conducting style: sometimes balancing on one foot, then the other, occasionally leaping into the air. Gerard Hoffnung, a close friend, captures him in cartoons in mid-pirouette in a tutu. I first heard him at the Dome, Brighton with the New Philharmonia at one of its first concerts (they were still fulfilling their last engagements as the Philharmonia which had been given the boot by Walter Legge). He gave an ardent speech asking us to support the new orchestra. He conducted Berlioz's Royal Hunt and Storm (my introduction to Berlioz), Tchaikovsky's SECOND Piano Concerto with Shura Cherkassky and Pathetique Symphony. I was very impressed and often heard him at the Proms and the Maida Vale studios (wonderful Mahler and Bruckner). In Salisbury he used to come with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its little brother the Sinfonietta (marvellous concerts of Delius, Elgar, Grainger and Richard Strauss). Being so tall, he had a commanding presence; I remember once in the old Gramophone Exchange in Wardour Street he entered with Elizabeth Lutyens and the whole shop, staff and customers, almost jumped to attention.

[secondfiddle]

Good to see Norman Del Mar getting some notice. As I wrote on another board (and at the risk of repeating myself), he is one of those conductors whose reputation has faded because he was never given a major orchestra and was not invited to record nearly often enough.

He was superb with large forces, such as Schonberg's Gurrelieder, Delius's Mass of Life (his BBC performance fortunately was once released on Intaglio and should be re-issued), Mahler (I remember wonderful performances he gave of the symphonies in the 60s and 70s, especially Nos. 3 and 6), Bantock's Omar Khayyam (two memorable Maida Vale evenings in January 1979), Lambert’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament, Vaughan Williams' Sancta Civitas and Five Tudor Portraits (which he did in a superb Last Night of the Proms 1975, with Walton’s Portsmouth Point, Delius’s Eventyr and Berners’ Triumph of Neptune – a programme that puts to shame the sort of offering we have had in recent years), Bax, Richard Strauss of course. . . the list could go on. His performances always had tremendous strength and he could build impressive climaxes. He was especially good in British music and someone I rated alongside Boult. It is a pity that so few of his finest interpretations have survived on LP/CD. His Bax 6 for Lyrita was highly praised on LP and it was a long time before it was eventually reissued on CD. His live performance of Elgar’s The Music Makers, released briefly on BBC Classics and already mentioned, has more power and drama than any other one I know (although why has the 2004 First Night of the Proms performance of that work under Slatkin with the beautiful singing of the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson never been issued on DVD as a tribute?)

Fortunately I have many off-air recordings of Del Mar conducting works he was never to record commercially. Perhaps some company should dig into the archives and issue some of his best performances. And why does Radio 3 no longer have its ‘From the Archives’ programmes, another example of why R3 programmes are so dull and lacking imagination today? A sequence of archive Del Mar performances would both introduce a magnificent conductor to a new audience and remind those who saw or heard him of his many strengths.

[barber olly]

Good to see Norman Del Mar getting some notice. As I wrote on another board (and at the risk of repeating myself), he is one of those conductors whose reputation has faded because he was never given a major orchestra and was not invited to record nearly often enough.

Fortunately I have many off-air recordings of Del Mar conducting works he was never to record commercially. Perhaps some company should dig into the archives and issue some of his best performances. And why does Radio 3 no longer have its ‘From the Archives’ programmes, another example of why R3 programmes are so dull and lacking imagination today? A sequence of archive Del Mar performances would both introduce a magnificent conductor to a new audience and remind those who saw or heard him of his many strengths.

There seems to be constant recycling of very ordinary recordings from the 2000s from the BBC Regional orchestras but very little from the 70s and 80s. The Symphony series would have been a great opportunity to replay some of these recordings.

[Barbirollians]

Picked up his Strauss record today for a song . Also Sprach is not my favourite Strauss so have left that for the moment but the orchestral excerpts from the operas are done with such style .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That 1961 Noye's Fludde is still very special. At the risk of being somewhat predicatable, there's a high-speed Eine Alpensinfonie live recording for those who like to rush up the Wainwrights, Munros (and Alps).

[Barbirollians]

Well all credit to Norman del Mar - he got me to listen to Also Sprach Zarathustra with new ears . A performance strikingly free of bombast and it holds your interest throughout.

[Barbirollians]

Snapped up a very cheap copy of the Enigma and Pomp and Circumstances Marches and have finally got round to listening to it today . The Enigma is splendid but the P & C marches are a revelation . Much more thrilling than Boult to my ears but just as musical . No2 in particular is terrific fun.

[jayne lee wilson]

He was a very adventurous conductor and a lot of his best adventures can be found now on Lyrita CDs. Rubbra 3,4,6 and 8, also symphonies by Hoddinott and Rawsthorne, there's probably much more in that catalogue - great champion of less well-promoted English composers.

Precious memory for me of seeing him do Mahler 3 live at the Norwich festival in, I think, 1979. First live 3rd I ever heard, didn't recover for days.

I heard an interviewer once ask him about CD, about how you could listen straight through longer works, some acts of Wagner operas, for example, compared to all those LP sides - "yes" he said, "but that's not really listening, I feel".

[Barbirollians]

I look forward to having a chance to read some of his books - some extracts of what he wrote about R Strauss have fascinated me .

[Petrushka]

I read Norman del Mar's Richard Strauss books in 1974 just as I was getting to hear the great tone poems for the first time (in the Kempe recordings) and they were a marvellous introduction to the music. Of particular help were his writings on Don Quixote and the Alpine Symphony. Written with great skill and humour they were invaluable aids to listening, a thousand times better than any sleeve-note.

[cloughie]

My music is best understood by children and animals" - Igor Stravinsky

? Foxes, firebirds and nightingales?

[Chris Newman]

I have been sorting out my CDs lately and found a del Mar recording which brought back wonderful memories of a lovely night in Salisbury Cathedral. This recording on the Chandos Collect label includes several items which were blended gorgeously with works by Richard Strauss. NdM was a master conductor of both Delius and Strauss. With the former he was the nearest rival of all time to Thomas Beecham and some might say the latter as well.

Delius: On Hearing the First Cuckoo and other works;
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
Summer night on the river
A Song before sunrise
Aquarelles (2)
Late Swallows
Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Norman Del Mar

[PaulT]

Its understandable that much of Beecham's magic in Delius rubbed off on Norman del Mar who was a horn player in the newly formed Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1946. Beecham appointed him as his assistant conductor soon after and he made his professional conducting debut with the RPO in 1947.