Hornspieler and the Threebees

[Hornspieler]

Light Music? I'd been playing little else for the past three years.
I needed a challenge - play something which lasts more than 3 or 4 minutes.

My chance came when Dermot O'Hara invited me out to see a Sean O'Casey play at the Abbey theatre and dinner afterwards at the Gresham Hotel in O'Connell Street.

As we sipped our brandy, Dermot opened the conversion.

"We're starting a new series of programmes on Tuesday nights. To play more classical music - you know, Schubert, Haydn, Elgar - that sort of thing. It's to be called "A half hour with ..." and the first composer is Mozart.
We've got Bernadette (Greavy - an internationally known Irish soprano) and she'll be singing a couple of arias. from Mozart's operas. We'll open the programme with The Marriage of Figaro"

(Me) "Ah yes. 'The Egg Timer' Good choice."

(D O'H) "Why do you call it that?"

(Me) "Because taken at the right speed, it lasts almost exactly four minutes."

(D O'H) "... and she can sing those two most famous arias - 'Dove Sono' and the other one."

(I couldn't remember what it was called, either)

(Me) "Well that will take you just past halfway. What next?"

(D O'H) "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic?

"That's strings only - and too long. How about a horn concerto?"

(D O'H) That would also be too long wouldn't it?

I seized my chance "The First concerto, the one in D, only has two movements, less than ten minutes."

(D O'H) Could you play it?

"Any horn player would have studied and practised all four of the concertos. Would you like me to have a go?"

(D O'H) "Have you performed it before?"

"Yes" (a lie actually but I had practised it on many occasions)

(D O'H) Right. I'll schedule that and put it to the Music panel. I'm sure they'll accept it."

So that is how I came to broadcast, live, Mozart's 1st Horn Concerto in D (K412) with the Radio Eireann Light Orchestra.

Keith Crowe, who was the audio man in charge made a recording on tape which he gave me immediately afterwards.

I still have that recording, on both computer and CD but the original tape has been lost.

I'll finish with Dublin tomorrow and we'll be back with The 3Bs and Birmingham(CBSO).

HS

[Hornspieler]

I'll finish with Dublin tomorrow and we'll be back with The 3Bs and Birmingham(CBSO).

HS

Liberace was coming to Dublin with his entourage*. We were engaged to provide the orchestra for his one performance in Ireland.

* The entourage consisted of a Musical Director, Brother George Liberace to conduct, a huge consignment of costumes and stage equipment - and Liberace himself.
I cannot resist quoting this short passage which I wrote in my Christmas stocking filler "Bravo Maestro"

When the pianist(sic)/entertainer Liberace undertook a tour of Europe in 1956,
it was the Radio Eireann Light Orchestra's task to man the stage.
We all knew that Liberace's brother George was to conduct the performance and we were
surprised to find, when we assembled for rehearsal, that neither Liberace nor his brother were
present.
The rehearsal was, in fact, taken by the show's musical arranger, who explained the
show as he conducted
“ ... at this point Liberace does such and such” ...

“Right here, George will say to Liberace ...” and so on.

The whole performance was tailored to such a fine degree that the presence at rehearsal of either conductor or soloist was quite unnecessary.

At the end of one particularly loud piece, the arranger/conductor stopped in his tracks.
“I like that high note in the first trumpet,” he enthused. “I do like that high note in the first
trumpet. In fact, I like it almost as much as the one I wrote in the part!”

We also played for the Wexford international Opera Festival and it was there that I first played in von Flotow's "Martha"; with that beautiful closing phrase for the first horn. Still my favourite today.

HS

[Hornspieler]

=Hornspieler;537997

We also played for the Wexford international Opera Festival and it was there that I first played in von Flotow's "Martha"; with that beautiful closing phrase for the first horn. Still my favourite today.

It was time to move on. I was getting nowhere and out of touch with my connections in London.

So I contacted a young student and suggested that he should apply for the job. Radio Eireann, who had been paying out a fortune in fees and subsistance, jumped at the chance and I was free to go.

Well, not quite; because I had, for some weeks, been "Doing a Line", as the Irish would put it, with a young lady who was a very talented violinist, having been taught by Jaroslav Vanacek and had won the "Feis Coel" - the most prestigious award in Ireland for young musicians.
She was too young to be given a contract (Why?, you may ask) but she had frequently played as a deputy for the symphony orchestra.
When I told her that I was leaving, she immediately announced that she would go with me. Her family were against me, she sais, calling me a protestant (which I wasn't) and an unwanted foreigner, which I suppose I was, in their eyes.

As she was, technically underage , I suppose I could have been arrested for abducting her, but she solved that problem by going to England without me and staying with two of her student friends. So I took her to the ferry at Dun Laoghaire and packed her off to London, carrying only her violin and a small suitcase. When the family came looking for her, they found only me and it was a week later that I took a flight to Heathrow and rejoined my family. Father called at our house, demanding to see his daughter and my mother gave him a piece of her mind and told him that the girl was welcome to stay in her house for as long as she wished and anyone who dared suggest that anything would be 'going on' in her house would have her to answer for and 'the girl' was welcome to stay as long as she chose.

So father departed unsatisfied but defeated. I must say that I bore him no malice and I think he knew his mission (probably initiated by his wife, who lay down the law in that household) was pointless, because he had arrived with a large suitcase packed by the runaway's sisters, containing clothes toiletries and sheet music.

My next post will take you back to South East London and from there, over to Bournemouth - the first of the (original) 3 Bs.

Goodnight all,

HS

PS I forgot to tell you that the runaway's name was Aoife - pronounced "Aer-fur" in Gaelic but she was called Eepha by everyone else.

[Hornspieler]

Aoife moved in with us the following day. She was installed in her own room, in which was a small wardrobe, a chest of drawers with a mirror on top and a single bed! (There was also a discreet bolt on the inside of her door - mother was taking no chances!)
I added a music stand to the collection and she practised every morning before emerging:

Scales, long bows, double stopping, staccato, pizzicato - I was glad that I only needed to blow a few long notes and practise my lip trills (I never was any good at them, but I could bluff my way through when required.)

Picking up on my connections was a lot less fruitful. I had been away for too long and others had moved in.

1957 brought such delights as a season with the D'Oyle Carte company under that joke of a conductor Isadore Godfrey, Sunday Concerts with Crossley Clithero's Guildford Municipal Orchestra and the occasional recording session when the "fixer" was Jack Simmons*

* They used to be called "Factotums" and could always be recognised by wearing tan leather spats on their footwear.

Decca, EMI, Columbia - they were all involved, calling us such names as "The National Symphony Orchestra"
My friend and neighbour Neil Sanders, who was second horn to Dennis Brain in the Philharmonia Orchestra found me a few one-off dates out of town but that was about the lot.

Then I had a phone call from someone who called himself Don Carlos (his real name was Abe Walters) but that was not a suitable name for his Latin American Band., "Don Carlos and his Cuban Rhythm" which was principally employed in Bertie Green's Astor Club in Berkeley Square.

He said he was looking for a replacement horn player, so he had rung Dennis Brain(!!!) and Dennis had given him my name.
The job involved alternating with a conventional band (Jimmy Silver)in 45 minute shifts, starting at 11pm and finishing a 3.30 am.

For me, it was a good opportunity to hold down a good weekly income - and I could still take on Symphony Concerts in the Festival Hall, Albert Hall, Fairfield Halls and even as far out as Eton College (more about that one in another story) so it was just a matter of topwear off and put on a frilly blue shirt and scarlet bandanna and I became "Don Ferando" playing horn but also claves, chocolo, and cabassa.

Most days, arriving home at 4 a.m was no disadvantage - quite the opposite in fact, (but draw your own conclusions!)

We are now into 1957.

Watch this space!

[Hornspieler]

Life carried on in its unpredictable way. Then, on a Sunday morning, I switched on the radio and the first item on the news was the tragic death of Dennis Brain, who had been driving back home in his beloved TR2 sports car from Edinburgh to his home in Hampstead.

I just couldn't take it in. Only a few weeks previously, I had sat with him in his car, outside the V & A Museum and chatted with him while he waited to go in to play a concerto with one of the Chamber Orchestras.

The hood was down and dennis was quite relaxed. "I prefer to sit out here and wait until it's time to go in and play" he said. "There's something about the atmosphere in museums that I don't particularly like. It's as if you're prying into something that is none of your business.

"You know, I've started to get a reputation for never cracking a note, but every morning when I wake up, I'm one day older and it's one day more difficult to live up to that. I'm thinking of taking up conducting and also starting to play the organ a bit more "
(Dennis was an F.R.C.O and his main study at the Royal Academy of Music was the Organ - not the horn.)

Well, who knows what he might have achieved?

My close friend, the Violinist and conductor Arthur Davison, always asked me to play 1st horn with the Royal Amateur Orchestra and a concert in the Dukes Hall at the Royal Academy of Music was already scheduled during the following week
Only a few months previously Dennis had played a concerto there with the orchestra, having confessed that he had never, in fact, performed as a soloist in that hall.

(I've written about that concert and the rehearsals for it on another thread, but I'll try to find it if requested.)

Anyway, Arthur decided that the orchestra should play the programme which they had rehearsed, except that he would start with Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte" in memory of Dennis and his support and encouragement to all amateur horn players.

I played that work with tears running down my cheeks. How I got through it, I will never know.

With his father Aubrey's death only 3 years previously and now this tragedy, horn playing had changed for ever. It would never be the same.

Let's move on, but there is one strange thing that I must mention before continuing:


For some time, a rumour had been circulating among the more credulous orchestral players that Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" symphony was unlucky. Disasters of one sort or another - heart attacks, accidents - that sort of thing associated with orchestras after they had performed that work. I believe that in one orchestra, the members refused to play it, deeming it unlucky.
A load of nonsense, you may say, but that symphony was the last work that Dennis played in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh before setting off to drive all the way back to his home in London - a journey which he had made on several previous occasions.

Even now, more than 50 years later, when I hear the last few bars of that symphony, my eyes fill with tears.


HS

[Hornspieler]

The King is dead! Long live the King!

Dennis's death and his father Aubrey's death only 3 years previously, had changed British horn playing for ever. It would never be the same.

The much admired "English" horn sound was brushed aside by the new obsession with instruments of wider bore and the obsession with what amounted to brass band cornet player's technical agility. Those of us who cared did our utmost to preserve it.

Christmas 1957.

Aoife had reached her twenty-first birthday.
We decided it was time that I made 'an honest woman' of her and we published the bans in the local C of E church.

I booked a hotel for our honeymoon and chose Bournemouth because I knew the town, had attended performances at both the Pavilion and the Winter Gardens when at school in Salisbury and because my Music Master, Antony Brown, who had taught me to read music, transpose, had even escorted me to The Royal Academy of Music and was my accompanist when I was awarded my Scholarship had moved to Canford School near Bournemouth; where he was held in high regard..

So it was a stroke of luck when Barry Tuckwell rang me to advise that there was going to be a vacancy for a Principal horn in the Bournemouth Orchestra if I was interested. Maybe he was just doing his share of driving the "Aubrey Brain sound" out of London but I thanked him anyway and contacted Bournemouth to arrange an audition while I was down there.

So I was probably first in the queue, which is no bad thing - it sets the benchmark by which all the other candidates can be judged.

Next, "The Wedding" and then we arrive at last at the first of Hornspieler's 3 Bs - BOURNEMOUTH.

HS ( I think its time I got dressed!)


i

[Hornspieler]

The wedding reception was held at our house. My mother did the catering.

Among the wedding guests were Neil Sanders and his wife Molly, 3 of my former RA Band comrades (One of them played the organ for the ceremony) Some of our immediate neighbours - and the photographer from the Astor Club who had volunteered to compile a Wedding Album.

As a courtesy, we invited Aoife's family, knowing that they would not even bother to reply, but, remarkably, Aoife's Auntie Gwen and a cousin arrived bearing a present from Auntie Dympna.

As we put our luggage in the car, removed the tin cans from the rear bumber and prepared to set off for Bournemouth, my mother appeared, carrying Aoife's Violin.

"Take this with you" she said. "You never know, you might need it."

So, with my instrument and music and Aoife's violin, we set off for the drive from Beckenham (yet another B) to Bournemouth.

(At this stage, it seems appropriate to insert another extract from my Bravo Maestro - which is still on offer to anyone who is interested.)

On a more personal note: I was about to be married and had already arranged to go on
honeymoon in Bournemouth when I learned that a vacancy for Principal horn had come up in the orchestra there, so I actually gave my audition six days after my wedding.

Some months later, I was talking about auditions to the orchestra leader.

“I reckon that you can tell whether a candidate can play his instrument by the way he stands
up there,” he said “before he even plays a note.”

“In that case,” I replied, remembering how my knees had been knocking together, “how on
earth did I get the job?”

“Well, old boy,” he grinned “we knew that you were on your honeymoon. We thought that
you were doing damned well to stand up at all!”

I'll be back tomorrow, getting closer to promoting Birmingham as that elusive 4th B

HS

[Hornspieler]

The wedding reception was held at our house. My mother did the catering.

Among the wedding guests were Neil Sanders and his wife Molly, 3 of my former RA Band comrades (One of them played the organ for the ceremony) Some of our immediate neighbours - and the photographer from the Astor Club who had volunteered to compile a Wedding Album.

As a courtesy, we invited Aoife's family, knowing that they would not even bother to reply, but, remarkably, Aoife's Auntie Gwen and a cousin arrived bearing a present from Auntie Dympna.

As we put our luggage in the car, removed the tin cans from the rear bumber and prepared to set off for Bournemouth, my mother appeared, carrying Aoife's Violin.

"Take this with you" she said. "You never know, you might need it."

So, with my instrument and music and Aoife's violin, we set off for the drive from Beckenham (yet another B) to Bournemouth.

(At this stage, it seems appropriate to insert another extract from my Bravo Maestro - which is still on offer to anyone who is interested.)



I'll be back tomorrow, getting closer to promoting Birmingham as that elusive 4th B

HS

Prompted by one of our fellow message Boarders (Slarty) I have read all the way through this thread and realise that the sequence of events is unclear:

The 3 Bs should run from Bournemouth to Belfast, Then a freelance period (including Birmingham - My new 4th B and finally Bristol - after which I started out a new career and, with it, a new interest in life and other people's problems.

* It was the discussion about Sir Michael Tippett and his 60th birthday concert which introduced Bristol as the second B when in fact it was the last of my now revised list of four.

So before continuing with the outcome of my audition for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra vacancy, are there any questions that you would like me to answer?

HS

[Hornspieler]

The 3 Bs should run from Bournemouth to Belfast, Then a freelance period (including Birmingham - My new 4th B and finally Bristol - after which I started out a new career and, with it, a new interest in life and other people's problems.

* It was the discussion about Sir Michael Tippet and his 60th birthday concert which introduced Bristol as the second B when in fact it was the last of my now revised list of four.

So before continuing with the outcome of my audition for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra vacancy, are there any questions that you would like me to answer?

HS

Apparently not. We are approaching the 100 messages on this thread and 56 of them are from me (4,183 people have viewed this thread)

So I will continue telling you about that Bournemouth Audition:

I had decided to offer a work called "Hunters Moon" written by Gilbert Vinter..

It opens with an introductory flourish, settles into jolly tune in which some of the horn player's tricks like hand muting are employed and then lapses into a lilting melody where the player can demonstrate his/her ability to bring a lump into the listeners throat with some nice phrasing and a touch of rubato. Then the accompanist wakes things up and the horn, who has sunk to the lowest note in the instrument's accepted compass leaps back into action and the work concludes triumphantly on the highest note of the 3½ octave range.

When I entered the room, I saw an empty music stand, an unoccupied piano stool 3 men sitting at a table and Charles Groves, who shook my hand, took the sheet music from my grasp and seated himself on the vacant piano stool.

He gave me an "A" to tune up and then said, "Right. Let's go."

He couldn't possibly have seen that piano part before, but he never faltered and it was an exceptional job of sight reading.

I've never felt so secure with an accompanist before and I knew that the job was probably mine.

But there were still other candidates to be heard (who presumably would receive the same Charles Groves treatment) and I had to wait for another 10 days before being offered the post.

Aoife gave an audition* and was accepted for a month's trial which was made permanent after the first week.

*She played Saint-Saens 2nd Violin Concerto

So that was where we landed at the first of those 3 Bs - Bournemouth

I shall say no more about Birmingham and the 4th B until somebody else submits that 100th post.

HS

[Tony Halstead]

(100th post!)
You are very lucky that you had an accompanist at all, and even luckier that you had such a good one.
For my first-ever audition there was no accompanist, and after about only 2 minutes of the Mozart 3rd concerto, I was halted in mid-phrase, and then asked by the conductor to play the first 16 bars of the 3rd movement HAND STOPPED!
Then I had to play about a dozen 'orchestral excerpts' for 2nd and 4th horn. Did you play any 'excerpts' at your audition?

[Hornspieler]

(100th post!)
You are very lucky that you had an accompanist at all, and even luckier that you had such a good one.
For my first-ever audition there was no accompanist, and after about only 2 minutes of the Mozart 3rd concerto, I was halted in mid-phrase, and then asked by the conductor to play the first 16 bars of the 3rd movement HAND STOPPED!
Then I had to play about a dozen 'orchestral excerpts' for 2nd and 4th horn.

HAND STOPPED ("Gestopft" in German) An instruction to close the hand in the bell of the instrument to produce a muffled, or echo effect as opposed to :

"Mit dampfer" "With mute" An instruction to insert a Mute (Usually cone-shaped) into the bell of the horn.

Sometimes, there is no time to pick up a mute and insert it (or remove it and replace the right hand, so the player has to hand-stop the notes anyway.

But using the hand to close the aperture of the bell raises the pitch of the instrument by a semitone, so the player must transpose those "stopped notes" down a semitone.

In the work that I played at my audition there are several passages calling for the use of the hand-stopping technique to produce a sort of sneering sound.

Sorry, Tony, you know all this of course and I suspect that you were being asked to use this technique and not to try to play your instrument as a valveless horn.

Did you play any 'excerpts' at your audition?

Only one. That long solo in the second movement of Brahms 2nd symphony. It's written for Horn in B natural so a player used to the now standard practice of writing everything for the F horn has to transpose the notes down an augmented 4th. Tricky, but it's in most of the horn excerpt books and in fact I played it from memory. A lot of players have a prepared copy, already transposed into Horn in F.

We horn players accept these techniques but other readers may be enlightened. (We all like to keep up the myth that the horn is the most difficult of all the orchestral instruments.) Total nonsense of course! Every instrument is written to the extreme limits of its capabilities (and in some cases nowadays, outside of those accepted limitations)

My next post will detail why I decided to move from Bournemouth (B1) to Belfast(B2)

HS

BTW If you want to learn more about horn playing and to listen to some incredible performances, try looking for my old friend the late Ifor James on youtube. He and his pupil, Michael Thompson, talk in depth about basic horn technique and you will find an unbelievable performance of The Carnival of Venice variations by Ifor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6mmFkDMYdI

Beware: Don't download those recordings of Hunters Moon. They are absolutely apalling and why anyone would actually download them onto youtube is unbelievable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_ymBJPZR6k

[jean]

Ifor James! I remember him as principal horn of the RLPO in the fifties with John Pritchard when, still at school, I started to go to orchestral concerts on my own.

There aren't many players of that era whose names I can call to mind.

[Hornspieler]

Ifor James! I remember him as principal horn of the RLPO in the fifties with John Pritchard when, still at school, I started to go to orchestral concerts on my own.

There aren't many players of that era whose names I can call to mind.

I'm glad that you remember Ifor James, Jean.
He was the son of that popular oratorio soprano Ena Mitchell so he was born into a musical environment.
He started to blow notes on a cornet before he was 10 years old and in his late teens, he joined that famous Brass Band "Bessie's o' the Barn.

When he was called up for National Service in the RAF, he applied to the RAF Central Band conductor (Wing Cmmander A E (Sousa)Sims) To join their ranks but was told that they were in need of a horn player if he was interested.
Of course, being a brass band man, Ifor naturally thought that Sims meant a Tenor Horn, but on arrival at Uxbridge he was presented with a French Horn, he had to be shown how to hold it. Still, there were the three pistons, just like his cornet and, having been surrounded by music all his life, he was able to adapt to this strange looking instrument. So much so, in fact, that he decided to concentrate on being a horn player and with that in mind, he applied to the Royal Academy of Music to further his studies.

That was when I met him and the circumstances were unusual.

I was in my third year and was playing in one of the regular Chamber Music concerts in the Duke's Hall. A nice but challenging .programme:

Mozart: Quintet for Piano and wind instruments.
Short Interval
Brahms: Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano.

It was a good day for me, marred only by our violinist (William Reid) breaking his E string in the last movement and John Streets (the pianist) and I had to sit and wait for his return from the dressing room before restarting the finale.

After we had left the stage, I was approached by someone of my own age, carrying a horn case.

"I really enjoyed that. I wish I could play like you"

"You're new here, aren't you? Are you with Aubrey (Brain) ?

"Yes"

"Well, you've come to the right place. Let's go and get a cup of tea."

That was the beginning of a friendship which lasted until I left all musical activity behind and Ifor had moved abroad to further his career; performing and teaching.
(Do take a look at those URLS which I posted in my previous post.)

It's strange to realise now that it was me that took him out to play second horn to me on his first few professional dates. Ifor got a job as Assistant Principal to Maurice Handford in the Hallé orchestra at the same time as I was steam rollered into the Royal Artillery Band and he soon got away from Handford's sneering conceit and joined the RLPO as Principal in his own right.

Every year, since our first meeting until he left for the continent, we met at Paxman's Horn Centre, which was in Gerrard Street, Soho at that time. We used to try all the instruments in the shop, exchange news with Bob Paxman and Dick Mereweather and then have a slap up Chinese Meal in one of the many restaurants in that part of Chinatown.

A sad loss to the world of horn playing but his genius can be appreciated in all those wonderful recordings which he left behind.

So, back to those 4 Bs.

Why did I leave the sunny shores of Bournemouth for the wet and dreary city of Belfast?

Watch this space!

HS

[Hornspieler]

So, back to those 4 Bs.

Why did I leave the sunny shores of Bournemouth for the wet and dreary city of Belfast?

Watch this space!

HS

1963

We had bought a house, produced a girl and a boy (1960 and 1961) and eight cuddly puppies.

Felix Kok had been appointed the orchestra's Leader and I had secured the job of Orchestra Manager ( in London, we would have called him "The Fixer") - the man who books the required extra players, carries a float to pay them on the night, supervises the platform settings, checks the accomodation for the conductor and soloist(s) and is generally on hand to sort out any immediate problems.

Sounds a lot but not a problem if things are done in the right order and the extra £7 a week to add to my Principal's salary
(£18 10s in those days) was a useful addition to our income
But all was not good. Felix Kok left to take up the leadership of the CBSO and was Replaced by Gerald Jarvis* - a Canadian who I had known from the Royal Academy of Music (a pupil of Frederick Grinke)

*He is the Leader who I described in "Bravo Maestro" as having a circle of friends which was insufficient to form a complete circle.

Aoife was a pupil of Jaroslav Vanacek who taught the European style of playing.

She was being pestered by another violinist who hung around her (stalking it's called nowadays) and used to stand for hours outside our house. She complained to Jarvis about this harassment but he refused to use his position to intervene.

So there was an unhappy atmosphere both at home and at work.

Then I saw an advertisment for a General Manager and Secretary for a new orchestra to be formed in Belfast.
It was to be called "The Ulster Orchestra"

Aoife would be on home territory and back in touch with her sisters.
I was only too aware of the talented group of youngsters who were anxious to get me out of my seat and I had the administrative and budgetting experience to handle that aspect.

So I applied for and got the job.

We left my parents behind in our Bournemouth house and headed for Belfast.

(more later - duty calls)

HS

[Hornspieler]

Hornspieler and the 3 B's

Finale: Allegro con fuoco

When I accepted the post of Manager of the newly formed Ulster orchestra it was for a contract of 2 years, renewable by mutual consent.

During those two years, I had recruited my office staff, engageded two loyal platform attendants (I inherited the music librarian from the former City of Belfast Orchestra) organised booking office facilities in all the venues, found a good publicity company, gained access to the Bournemouth orchestra's Programme Note writer and purchased a new van to transport the orchestra's heavy equipment.

Maurice Miles was persuaded to resign on the grounds of his commitments to the Royal Academy of Music and I found a new conductor who I had met and played for - Sergiu Comissiona a pupil of Silvestri. I had also poached an assistant conductor, my former colleague from the BSO horn section, Alun Francis, who had studied conducting with Silvestri during the Maestro's tenure in Bournemouth.

But towards the end of my contract, I decided not to renew. There was constant interference from the Director of the Northern Ireland Arts Council - a former bassoon player who had always wanted to manage an orchestra but had now found himself in a higher post. He was continually arranging for artists to appear with the orchestra, at excessive fees on dates when there was not even a concert hall of adequate size available.

Embarrasing and frustrating but even worse was the political unrest within the Province. When they started turning police land rovers on their side in the Falls Road and audiences walked out if we played the National Anthem, I decided that enough was enough.

I moved the family back to Bournemouth, where my wife was offered an immediate position as Nº 3 1st violin (Principal Rate)

That ensured an income for the family, but the horn section had already been completely replaced and so I went freelance.
The CBSO were awaiting the arrival of their new chief conductor, Louis Fremaux, but their co-principal horn had left to follow another career, so I was asked to hold the seat until Fremaux could attend auditions for a replacement.

So, for nearly eight months, I shared the chair with John Johnson, formerly of Liverpool and a very experienced campaigner. (So experienced, in fact that he was cute enough to suggest that I should play the first ha,lf of the programme allowing me to get away early and, because his wife was in the violin section and he had to wait to drive her home, he would play the second half).

Very clever! That meant that he got to play the Tchaikowsky, Brahms and Beethoven symphonies and I was stuck with 1st performances of Arts Council commissions, errant concerto soloists and Berlioz overtures.

Anyway, that was only in 1969. For the next three years I was playng as far afield as Glasgow (Scottish Radio Orchestra) London (LPO, RPO and BBC Concert Orchestra) and also managing the business of Arthur Davison's "Virtuosi of England" with whom I also played when horns were required.
Too much time away from home. I had to find something nearer - like Bristol, for instance....

Total Confusion

I've just read through this thread from the beginning and I must apologise to all for introducing Bristol as B2 when it should have been Belfast and the Ulster orchestra as B2 (All that unneccesary quibbling about Sir Michael Tippett)

So it is Birmingham and my spell with the CBSO which becomes B3 in 1969 and Bristol from 1973 to 1977 (posts #23 to 69 )becomes the last of the Bs in Hornspieler's bonnet!

It is my experience with the CBSO in 1969 which links my re-starting this thread because of my concern with the future of the Ulster Orchestra - my B2 which is due to celebrate 50 years of music making for the people of Ulster and worldwide.