Antony Hopkins - Happy Birthday!

[mercia]

Britten wins. But I feel no need to press the case against so distinguished a nonagenarian.

Agreed on both counts.

(I've just been looking at the earlier verses of Southwell's poem. I like "Come, Raphael, this babe must eat, / Provide our little Toby meat". Jesus as Toby I must remember. I have now discovered that Toby means "The Lord is Good" in Hebrew)

[Nick Armstrong]

quite savage words, no?

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/newheaven.htm

(last four verses)

That's fascinating, hercule - you have illuminated the piece for me. I never knew that was the context for that movement of Ceremony.

[StephenO]

TaM was a formative influence in my learning about music from R3 - and I'm eternally grateful.

I think it was for many of us. Belated 90th birthday wishes, AH, and many, many happy returns.

[kernelbogey]

Does anyone know if AH will hear about all these good wishes? Can someone get them to him? Maybe his address is in Who's Who - or by some other means? It would be great to let him know that all these old fans remember his programmes with such fondness and gratitude!

[EdgeleyRob]

90th birthday ! thats frightening.Belated best wishes to AH from me.
'Talking About Music' was key to broadening my musical knowledge in my youth.

[french frank]

Does anyone know if AH will hear about all these good wishes? Can someone get them to him? Maybe his address is in Who's Who - or by some other means? It would be great to let him know that all these old fans remember his programmes with such fondness and gratitude!

I have been in touch with him a few times. I'll drop him a note.

Btw, the interview from which I quoted above was published in full in the latest issue of Musical Opinion, to mark his 90th birthday.

[kernelbogey]

[....] I'll drop him a note.[...]

Thank you, ff: I hope he'll be pleased to learn of this.

[Tom Audustus]

I grew up learning from his radio programmes and his books.

[french frank]

Gosh! A coincidence - I was searching for this thread and it's reappeared ...

I've had a very nice phone conversation with Antony Hopkins this morning. He said he was very touched to read all the comments (I copied them from here). He had a very good birthday - while he was shaving, Beatrix, his partner opened the window and outside there was a dawn chorus of the local WI singing Jerusalem - he goes to their meetings once a month and plays it for them on the piano (they apparently weren't quite up to performing the Siegfried Idyll).

Apparently, there was quite a long article in The Times - have just tried to access it but can only get as far as:



Anyway, he was reminding me that all the programmes were live and that he had to adjust what he was saying with an eye on the clock: if the person working the 'grams' played a longer extract than intended he had to cut a paragraph or two from what he was saying (now there's real broadcasting skills!). He only once had a live orchestra (à la Discovering Music) though he did a talk on a Reizenstein piano concerto, with Reizenstein himself playing the piano part and AH playing the orchestral part on a second piano ...

(He thinks Howard Goodall is very good on television, but resents the size of the budget which can send him to Brazil just to stand in the bedroom of Villa Lobos ...)

On one occasion he was on all three radio stations (Light, Home and Third) at the same time (unique?).

One other thing he said, and I asked him whether I should mention it, and he said, firmly, yes. In January Beatrix wrote to Radio 3 to point out that his 90th was approaching and that, as well as his talks which lasted for over thirty years, he had had three nominations for the Italia Prize (two for composing, one for his talks) and that perhaps a tribute could be arranged. She received no answer.

Finally, his physical health is not splendid but he appears to be very robust and alert mentally. He sends everyone who remembers him his thanks.

[vinteuil]

from The Times -

Happy Birthday Antony Hopkins, 90

The composer and conductor Antony Hopkins starts his birthday celebrations today when the ladies from the local Women’s Institute gather on his lawn to surprise him by singing Jerusalem. His radio series Talking About Music ran for more than 30 years. He wrote scores for several films including The Pickwick Papers and Decameron Nights. He says: “The really good thing about getting old is having a partner, Beatrix, who is half my age.” Tonight the Luton Music Club is honouring him and playing two pieces he composed.

[french frank]

Not a long article, then? (I may have made that up). I think he said there was a photograph which had been taken the day before (or have I made that up too? )

[Don Petter]

vinteuil's quote was the Happy Birthday slot at the bottom of the Times Letters page on 21/3/11. AH was the 'featured' person, with a small photo and paragraph about two inches square.

(Nothing else comes up in a search of the online Times.)

[french frank]

vinteuil's quote was the Happy Birthday slot at the bottom of the Times Letters page on 21/3/11. AH was the 'featured' person, with a small photo and paragraph about two inches square.

Thanks for the clarification. We talked for about 25-30 minutes and I was remembering as much as I could.

[french frank]

Oh! Just had another phone call . For the benefit of decantor - AH unearthed the script on the Ceremony of Carols and read out exactly what he'd said about This Little Babe. He felt it hadn't been too harsh on Britten ...

A bit spooky hearing that voice reading the words from so long ago . But what a voice!

He also said some of his books were being reprinted by Travis & Emery, and the first*** has already appeared to mark the 90th birthday.

***It's The Concertgoer's Companion, Vol 1 - Bach to Haydn

[PaulT]

I see I have on my computer the draft of a long interview with AH, which someone was working on with him last September - hope he/they won't mind me snipping this tiny bit about Talking About Music (coincidentally, the name of this very forum ), as a birthday reminder:

"I ought to stress that the choice of pieces in Talking About Music was my choice: it was very, very seldom that a producer asked me to talk about a specific piece. What would happen was that I'd be given the broadcasting programme for the entire week, and I'd choose a piece from that list and would talk about it that week - or, if it was a big piece, over two weeks.

And this went on for, I think, 36 years. It sounds an awful lot, but it wasn't by any means all through the year. Although sometimes I did 24 in a year. But it gradually diminished: 12, and then six. And then eventually I realised that it had been a while since they'd asked me to do any, and wrote the BBC a letter. And they replied that they wanted something more in tune with a younger audience. The letter was from someone I'd never met. I assume he didn't know that I'd actually spent a huge part of my life working with young players and young audiences. Still, the books - Talking About Symphonies, Talking About Concertos, and so on - are still selling. So people must be reading them. And I hope there are young people among them."

As he never has been a consumer of alcohol:

Edit: The interview with Mark Doran was published in Musical Opinion, March-April 2011, to mark AH's 90th birthday.

I am shocked to hear the BBC's response that "they wanted someone more in tune with a younger audience". When I was a teenager and my father was introducing me to classical music I used to look forward to Mr Hopkins' broadcasts each week. His simply explained analysis of a work to be played on R3 that week opened my ears to so much and I owe him a huge debt for setting the groundwork of my musical education. At that stage I was learning the piano at school and the first five minutes or so of each lesson was given over to discussing the work that had been the most recent subject of Talking About Music.

I have just been reading his lovely article in Musical Opinion. What a wonderful life!

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7146/is_201103/ai_n57037081/?tag=content;col1