Who's on the Box Tonight?

[Hornspieler]

No - it's nothing to do with TV - it's about conductors.

We all have our favourites, and "Building a Library" is a great help to us; either to confirm our choices or discover new.
But the question takes on a different meaning for a professional musician.
My first professional engagement was in 1949. By 1973, I decided to let someone else have a go. Twenty one years as a professional and there were a lot of young people after my chair, so I decided to quit while I could still do the job.

They say that Nostagia isn't what it used to be, but I decided, as an "Aide memoire" to make a list of all the professional horn players that I had sat alongside in various horn sections during those 21 years:.

105! Wow that's a lot of players!.

So I decided to compile a list of conductors that I had played for:

127!
22 more stick waggers than hornblowers.

So here is a list. Don't ask me to rate them,
see if any of your favourites are there:

Alan Abott, Christopher Adey, Kenneth Alwyn, Richard Austin,
Brian Balkwill, George Barker, Cuthbert Bates, SirThomas Beecham, Paavo Berglund, Harry Blech, Sir Arthur Bliss, Sir Adrian Boult, Nicholas Braithwaite, Warwick Braithwaite, Antony F Brown, Richard Butt,
Basil Cameron, John Carewe, Ambrose Chalk,Crossley Clitheroe, Eric Coates, Anthony Collins,
Sergiu Comissiona, Edgar Cosma, Noel Cox, William Coxe-Ife,
Meredith Davies, Sir Colin Davis, Arthur Davison, Edo De Waart, Norman del Mar, Neville Dilkes,
Antal Dorati,
Miklos Erdelyi,
Charles Farncombe, Arthur Fiedler, Ross Fink, Anatole Fistoulari, Myers Foggin, Lawrence Foster, John Fox, Alun Francis, Louis Fremaux,
Alceo Galliera, Pierrino Gamba, Gerald Gentry,Sir Alexander Gibson, Isadore Godfrey,
Ron Goodwin, Sir Eugene Goosens, Harold Gray, Sir Charles Groves, Douglas Guest,
Bernard Haitinck, Maurice Handford, Hans Richter Hasser, Laszlo Heltay, Jascha Horenstein,
David Hughes, George Hurst
Ray Jenkins, Leslie Jones,
Henry Kripps, Reginald Kilby, Royalton Kisch, Alexander Kopalov, Michael Krein, Harry Legge, Lawrence Leonard, Raymond Leppard, Monia Liter, David Littauer, Malcolm Lockyer,James Loughran, Terence Lovatt Mark Lubbock, George Liberace
Sir Charles Mackerras,Bruno Maderna, David Martin, Muir Matheson, Herbert Menges,Maurice Miles, John McN Milne, Jeremy Montague
Kenneth Montgomery, Wynn Morris
Vic Oliver, Emir O'Brien, Dermot O'Hara
Robert Philpott, Sir John Pritchard
Leo Quale
Clarence Raybold, Ernest Read, Leslie Regan, Hugo Rignold, James Robertson, Christopher Robinson, Eric Robinson, Stanford Robinson, Eric Rogers, Gennady Rozhdesvensky,
Wolfgang Sawallisch, Hermann Scherchen, Rudolf Schwarz, Christopher Seaman, Frank Shipway, Constantin Silvestri, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Sir George Solti, Walter Ssskind, Ian Sutherland, Dominic Santangelo
Vilem Tausky, Eric Thiman, Sydney Torch, Paul Tortelier, *Stanley Vann, Gilbert Vinter
Alfred Walenstein, Bruno Walter, Volker Wangenheim, Eric Wetherell, Lou Whiteson,
David Zinman, Emerich Zola, Algar Zuriatis

[visualnickmos]

Fascinating and impressive - you've had a dazzling career. Quite few of the names are unfamiliar to me, but a few stand out as being 'pillars' of my developing passion for music way back; Pritchard, Haitink, C Davis, Gibson, Solti, Silvestri..... to name a few. They were some of the first conductors I remember from the vinyls of the early 1970s - still lurking on shelves here in France.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Fascinating and impressive - you've had a dazzling career.

- several names were "blasts from the past" for me (Vilem Tausky conducted the second concert I ever went to - aged 12 - and the first for which I still have the programme: Schubert Unfinished and a Strauss family selection included in the programme).

But - my eye was particularly struck by "George Liberace": is that as in "I wish my brother George was here"?!

[MrGongGong]

So tell us about the difference between a bull and an orchestra

[Petrushka]

A few names I've never heard of there (Crossley Clitheroe, anyone? Could be a Lancashire village or a firm of solicitors) but some real eye-catchers too. I saw Eric and Stanford Robinson together very many years ago and I wonder what it was like to play for Eric Coates in, presumably, his own delightful music. The biggest name there is Bruno Walter and I'd really like to hear more of what he was like to play for.

[Richard Tarleton]

What a roster! HS, totting up, I saw 14 of these guys - plus a couple more (Hans Richter-Haaser and Paul Tortelier) plying their primary trade. Several were in the opera house - Leppard, Mackerras (lots), Pritchard. The earliest was Dorati, in the BBC's Maida Vale studios in the late 60s. The first time I saw Horenstein it was conducting the Bournemouth SO (Exeter, 1971), likewise Berglund (Exeter 1970). I rather think I saw Edo de Waart's London debut, standing in for an indisposed Haitink in 1972 (Mahler 1). Wyn Morris - Mahler 10 "Cooke II" second performing version (RFH, 15-10-1972) and a Mahler 8. Loughran, front row of choir seats in RFH, just behind the trombones , for the Hallé doing Lohengrin Act III Prelude, Beethoven 4 with John Ogdon and Bruckner 7 - several pints in the Coal Hole after that one. Davis, Haitink, Solti - all loads of times , and more Bruckner from Groves (standing in at the last minute for Kelmperer) and Gibson. I was just in time for so many great conductors.

[Once Was 4]

[QUOTE=Hornspieler;622024]No - it's nothing to do with TV - it's about conductors.

Eric Robinson, Stanford Robinson, Gennady Rozhdesvensky,


Hmm! One of my very few claims to fame is that I played in what was certainly Eric Robinson's final live performance. I first played for Stanford when he conducted a series of performances of La Traviata with what was called 'Yorkshire Opera' - an attempt to get a professional opera company off the ground in Yorkshire in the early 70s (the Violetta was a youngster called Josephine Barstow - not a role that she became famous for later). Warwick Braithwaite conducted what I think was the only other production this nascent company put on - Madame Butterfly. By the way the Suzuki in this also worked as a freelance violinist under another name and, as such, I still see her in her late 80s on the odd gig. I digress.
The Robinson brothers toured with a freelance (let's be honest - scratch) orchestra round small venues in Lancashire at the very end of their careers and I was often 2nd horn. We turned up one day to the Civic Hall in Whitworth to rehearse on a blistering hot afternoon. Eric was seated in a chair on the car park waving to us all individually with his walking stick. We went in to find that the hall had been double booked with a Spanish guitar duo and neither management would back down so a joint concert was agreed. This went on for an inordinate length of time: Stanford started to introduce another item but was interrupted by his brother who walked on to the stage with the cry "the Queen, the Queen, this has gone on long enough, the Queen!" So we played the National Anthem and went home via a local hostelry. They may not have been international giants but they both gave pleasure to millions of people and that is what it is all about.

Regarding Gennady Rozhdesvensky he brought a session to an early end in a different, but apparently characteristic way. We played a concert of Shnittke with him at the Huddersfield Festival and the management gave him four orchestral rehearsals - two for the Faust Cantata the day before we met the choir. He played it through once, made a couple of points and then his huge voice boomed "we re'earse again tomorrow when we have sinGGers!" And he left at about 11.30 in the morning. We sat around not quite knowing what to do until the orchestral manager came in and said "I suppose you had better all go home and have the rest of the day off". There was much cheering and shuffling of feet - a very popular conductor!

[Hornspieler]

- several names were "blasts from the past" for me (Vilem Tausky conducted the second concert I ever went to - aged 12 - and the first for which I still have the programme: Schubert Unfinished and a Strauss family selection included in the programme).

But - my eye was particularly struck by "George Liberace": is that as in "I wish my brother George was here"?!

Vilem Tausky became a good friend. A jolly man, known to us players as "The Bouncing Check",


I remember one of his comments: "... if Tchaikovsky was alive today, he would turn in his grave, the way you played this"

George Liberace: conducted for his brother at a show in Dublin's Abbey Theatre with the Radio Eireann Light Orchestra. He did not appear until the actual concert. Liberace's Musical arranger rehearsed the orchestra on the previous day ... at this stage, Liberace says this to George ... here, there is an interuption from, etc...
and at one point; "I like that high note on the trumpet ... I do like that high note on the trumpet ... matter of fact, I like it almost as much as the one I wrote in the part!"

[Hornspieler]

A few names I've never heard of there (Crossley Clitheroe, anyone? Could be a Lancashire village or a firm of solicitors) but some real eye-catchers too. I saw Eric and Stanford Robinson together very many years ago and I wonder what it was like to play for Eric Coates in, presumably, his own delightful music. The biggest name there is Bruno Walter and I'd really like to hear more of what he was like to play for.

Crossley Clitheroe was the conductor of the semi-amateur "Guildford Municipal Orchestra". It was a regular engagement for a Sunday afternoon concert in the company of those three horn players from the Philharmonia orchestra - Aubrey Thonger, Neil Sanders* and Alfred Cursue (I never played in the Philharmonia among those top class players)

* Neil was a close friend and neighbour. He was a founder member of the Melos Ensemble, but took up a teaching appointment in the USA after the sad death of his friend and mine, Dennis Brain.

I can't say that I remember much about Eric Coates as a conductor but I certainly loved his music and consider he was underrated by his contempories of much less talent.
He would have been conducting us in the BBC's London Light Concert Orchestra.
HS

[pastoralguy]

I've been lucky enough to play a lot of Eric Coates' music as The Edinburgh Light Orchestra is one of the very few bands still bringing this music before the public. I've always thought it's very underrated.

[Once Was 4]

Regarding Edo de Waart

He is/was very much of his generation: I remember in the early 70s going in to the Milton Hall in Manchester to play 6th horn with what was then the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra in Mahler 1. The horn section there then included three wonderful characters of the old school - two Lancastrians and one from just over the Yorkshire border - all three very sadly now deceased. I asked the 4th horn who was conducting - he responded "that 'ippy over there!"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Many thanks, Hs - I had no idea that George Liberace actually existed: I'd always believed him to be a fictional character, like Dame Edna Everage's husband, Norm!

Glad to hear, too, that Tausky was a decent bloke - a quick reference to Wikipedia suggests a full and active life, and not a bad innings at 92, either. That encounter with the Schubert was the start of an instant and lifelong love of that composer's work for me: I have a lot to be very grateful to Mr Tausky for.

[Hornspieler]

The biggest name there is Bruno Walter and I'd really like to hear more of what he was like to play for.

I was drafted in to play 7th horn - that's the part that covers the entire 3½ octaves (normally accepted as being the compass of the horn.) It's a sort of "bumper-up" part for any of the other six horns, to reinforce important specific passages assigned to any of those others, 1,3,5 (high) or 2,4,6 (Low) so I found myself very busy and more than a little nervous. But Dr Walter left me alone and for me it was a great experience.
I would say that there was a mental communication between conductor and player - you found yourself playing better than you knew how - a sort of telepathic control from the man on the box who said almost nothing.

I was able to enjoy the playing of the late Janet Craxton, Stuart Knussen and Biill Overton who all played "out of their skins".

The programme included Mahler's "Songs of a Wayfarer", sung by Deiter Fischer Deiskau (can't remember his name - you know who I mean!) and both the studio broadcast and the RFH concert were an experience that I will always treasure.

I wonder if there is anyone else who attended those performances - as a listener or even as a player?

HS

[pastoralguy]

But Dr Walter left me alone and for me it was a great experience.

HS

Always the sign of a great conductor.