Antony Hopkins - Happy Birthday!

[Guest]

I think this section of the Forum can hardly miss celebrating Antony Hopkins' 90th birthday today.

His 'Talking About Music' programmes, which many of us fondly remember as a fascinating and civilised way of extending our musical knowledge, ran for more than 30 years.

His compositions included much film music, which I hadn't realised (not being, in any sense, a film buff).

Time, perhaps, for a re-issue of some of his recordings with The Intimate Opera Company? I particularly remember Arne's The Cooper on a Saga LP. There were also quite a few recordings on Decca in the early LP days, and a complete Three's Company, his comic opera for soprano, tenor, baritone and piano (libretto by Michael Flanders) on an Argo 2LP set, with Flanders as the narrator.

[Mary Chambers]

I didn't know he was a composer, but I remember his music programmes well. Happy Birthday!

It is the actor who is the imposter.

I googled AnTony Hopkins and was told I had spelt it wrong

[Don Petter]

sorry to nit-pick but you are talking about Antony Hopkins

Anthony Hopkins is an actor

Aaaargh! Mea Culpa. I've fixed the text (which now makes your post look wrong ) but can't change the heading. Perhaps ff could do so, if so inclined?


[It may, I suppose, attract more attention to the thread from those who only know the upstart Anthony H.]

[salymap]

Antony Hopkins was one of the great communicators on music years ago. A very Happy Birthday to him.

[french frank]

but can't change the heading. Perhaps ff could do so, if so inclined?

[It may, I suppose, attract more attention to the thread from those who only know the upstart Anthony H.]

Hmmm, didn't read your last sentence and have emended.

Yes, happy birthday to an esteemed Friend of Radio 3

Mary - I see he wrote the music for Ustinov's 1962 film Billy Budd - have you been deliberately averting your eyes (and ears)?

[Don Petter]

Many thanks, ff. I can now come out from behind the curtain - my red face will eventually resume its normal blotchy hue.

[makropulos]

I'd like to add warmest birthday wishes. Antony Hopkins's broadcasts were an absolute revelation to me when I was a teenager, leading me to discover so much interesting music.

A number of years ago I was involved in making a private recording some incidental music he composed for a Dorothy L. Sayers play - it was an immensely attractive score and Antony Hopkins not only came to the event but joined the choir for the occasion. A lovely man - and a terrific musician.

[Nick Armstrong]

Hear hear. I posted about him on the Red Nose thread, as the best thing about Donald Macleod's 'spoof' Composer of the Week was hearing Hopkins' voice again. It prompted me to look him up and like Mary, I had no idea he was such a prolific composer, largely for the stage it seems.

If there are any recordings left in the vaults of him talking about music, I wish they would be given an airing.

I hope he is in good health and enjoys many happy returns.

[french frank]

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.

[Nick Armstrong]

As he never has been a consumer of alcohol:

AH! ok I withdraw my and substitute a couple of and maybe a

[Nick Armstrong]

... they replied that they wanted something more in tune with a younger audience.

I wonder which patronising Sebastian or Henrietta that was...

[kernelbogey]

I'm very pleased to learn of AH's ninetieth and to wish him a happy day and long life. TaM was a formative influence in my learning about music from R3 - and I'm eternally grateful.

I remember one programme with great vividness - on the Messiaen Quartet for the end of time. As ever, he started the programme with a riveting extract for the 'innocent ear'. In that matter, he had the same knack as Alistair Cooke of hooking the listener in his first sentence (or, in his case, sometimes musical extract). He recounted very movingly the story of the first performance of the quartet in a prison camp in Silesia; and drew out the mysticism of the work, especially the movements with piano and violin or piano and cello.

In another programme he quoted a mesmerising sentence from Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe: I ordered the book immediately, but could never get into it (although I tracked down that strange sentence ending '...a stone, a leaf, a door'.) I haven't a clue what the music on that programme was!

[decantor]

I am another whose schooldays were enlightened by AH, and who savoured hearing his voice again in the 'spoof' context.

But he did upset me once, well over half a century ago. Aged 11, I had fallen in love with Britten's Ceremony of Carols. Not so long afterwards, AH devoted a programme to that work, and I hung on his every word. Referring to This little Babe, AH declared that he could not understand why Britten had set that text to such savage music. What? Was the Great Man criticising the Great Man? What did the words matter when the music was so rollickingly good? One idol had defaced another. I almost burst into tears.

I forgive the Great Man for his one 'error of judgement', thank him for his contribution to my education, and wish him well on reaching this new milestone.

[mercia]

he could not understand why Britten had set that text to such savage music

quite savage words, no?

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

(last four verses)

[decantor]

quite savage words, no?

Quite so, hercule - overtly militaristic symbolism throughout. Britten wins. But I feel no need to press the case against so distinguished a nonagenarian.