Any autograph-hunting stories, views or regrets?

[Alison]

I have met Bernard Haitink twice backstage and once each for Maazel, Solti, Previn, Tennstedt and Muti.

All were pretty charming, I guess Klaus T was the friendliest but Uncle Bernie talked to my friend and I for about 20 minutes.

[jean]

I've never collected autographs, but my father's copy of 'Messiah' had Isobel Baillie, Kathleen Ferrier, Peter Pears, Hervey Alan and Malcolm Sargent.

I sang from it once. And then I lost it.

[Petrushka]

I went through a phase when I would automatically wander backstage and get autographs. There are several of which I am most proud:

Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in Manchester after Turangalila in February 1978.
Leonard Bernstein after a staggering performance of Mahler 9 in the Barbican June 1985
Karl Böhm after a 1978 LSO concert
Eugen Jochum after a VPO Bruckner 7 in 1982
Maxim Shostakovich after his first UK concert following his defection in 1981
Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya after a RFH performance of Britten's War Requiem
Solti and all the soloists (Helen Donath, Doris Soffel, Siegfried Jerusalem, Hans Sotin) after Lvb's Missa Solemnis at the 1982 Proms - now on the LPO label
Gennady Rozhdestvensky after Shostakovich 8 at the RFH 1983 - also now on the LPO label
Klaus Tennstedt after Mahler 5 with the LPO December 1988 - released on EMI
Peter Maxwell Davies after a pre-Prom talk prior to the first UK performance of his 2nd Symphony July 1982
Hans Hotter after a Gurrelieder Prom in 1994
Simon Rattle several times
Abbado, Haitink several times also Previn (twice) Muti, Chailly, Mehta, Wand, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis and Ozawa once each.

I actually met Solti several times the final time after his last Prom in 1996 when he invited all those waiting into the desk inside the artists entrance and ensured he obliged everybody who asked.

Near misses? Tippett who had a massive queue after a pre-Prom talk prior to the first UK performance of his 4th Symphony in 1978 and Henze who was hustled away and seemed wholly not wanting to do it. Karajan also proved impossible.

[pastoralguy]

I've always regretted passing on a pristine set of Karajan's 1970's Beethoven Symphonies that an extremely posh cd shop in Salzburg was selling about 4 years ago. It was a limited edition of 200 Lp sets produced by DG and each was autographed by the Maestro himself. (Each player was listed including one James Galway which must have been recorded just before he resigned from the Orchestra!)

It was about €250 but the owner was selling them for a friend so she wouldn't accept my debit card and preferred cash. Bearing in mind I don't have a turntable, (although I probably wouldn't have played them anyway), by the time I got to the cash machine I had second thoughts.

A real collectors item which could only have increased in value. Ah well.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

(Each player was listed including one James Galway which must have been recorded just before he resigned from the Orchestra!)

IIRC, Galway is involved in only a two or three of the recordings - and he isn't featured in the photographs of the orchestra members included in the LP box booklet (the "ordinary" non-limited edition - the first set I owned, and the first "big" purchase I made with my very first cheque book as a student).

[Richard Tarleton]

IIRC, Galway is involved in only a two or three of the recordings - and he isn't featured in the photographs of the orchestra members included in the LP box booklet (the "ordinary" non-limited edition - the first set I owned, and the first "big" purchase I made with my very first cheque book as a student).

If HvK supervised the artwork, could that have been because (as we know from that hilarious documentary) the maestro didn't like scruffy orchestra members with beards?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If HvK supervised the artwork, could that have been because (as we know from that hilarious documentary) the maestro didn't like scruffy orchestra members with beards?

- Not in this case - there were several "young scruffs" with beards in the photos (including one of the percussionists - the gaunt chap who played second Timps in the film shown over Christmas in 1978/9).

[Beef Oven!]

I went through a phase when I would automatically wander backstage and get autographs. There are several of which I am most proud:

Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod in Manchester after Turangalila in February 1978.
Leonard Bernstein after a staggering performance of Mahler 9 in the Barbican June 1985
Karl Böhm after a 1978 LSO concert
Eugen Jochum after a VPO Bruckner 7 in 1982
Maxim Shostakovich after his first UK concert following his defection in 1981
Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya after a RFH performance of Britten's War Requiem
Solti and all the soloists (Helen Donath, Doris Soffel, Siegfried Jerusalem, Hans Sotin) after Lvb's Missa Solemnis at the 1982 Proms - now on the LPO label
Gennady Rozhdestvensky after Shostakovich 8 at the RFH 1983 - also now on the LPO label
Klaus Tennstedt after Mahler 5 with the LPO December 1988 - released on EMI
Peter Maxwell Davies after a pre-Prom talk prior to the first UK performance of his 2nd Symphony July 1982
Hans Hotter after a Gurrelieder Prom in 1994
Simon Rattle several times
Abbado, Haitink several times also Previn (twice) Muti, Chailly, Mehta, Wand, Colin Davis, Andrew Davis and Ozawa once each.

I actually met Solti several times the final time after his last Prom in 1996 when he invited all those waiting into the desk inside the artists entrance and ensured he obliged everybody who asked.

Near misses? Tippett who had a massive queue after a pre-Prom talk prior to the first UK performance of his 4th Symphony in 1978 and Henze who was hustled away and seemed wholly not wanting to do it. Karajan also proved impossible.

That's quite a list, Petrushka! I doubt anyone can top it!

[pastoralguy]

I always intended to write to Tippett and Max but never got round to it. Too late now...

[makropulos]

Among others, collected mostly in the 1970s/early 80s at Proms, RFH and ROH, and in Manchester:

Berio
Bernstein (on score of West Side Story)
Birtwistle
Böhm
Boulez (on score of Le Marteau sans maître)
Boult
Brendel
Copland (on score of Third Symphony)
Curzon
Colin Davis
Haitink
Jochum
Kempe
Kempff
Carlos Kleiber
Krips (on poster for Mahler 2/LPO)
Yvonne and Jeanne Loriod
Mackerras
Maxwell Davies (1st night of Tavener)
Menuhin
Messiaen (on score of Turangalîla)
Previn
Shostakovich (letter, received in 1972)
Solti
Tippett (on score of Child of our Time)
Walton (on score of Belshazzar's Feast)

Quite a few others - it was always a fun thing to do as a student and it used to be very easy to get from the Arena to the artists' rooms at the Proms.

Regrets: too young to get Stravinsky or Klemperer in person. Britten never signed anything for me, but a friend gave me a wonderful inscribed copy of the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

[Petrushka]

Among others, collected mostly in the 1970s/early 80s at Proms, RFH and ROH, and in Manchester:

Berio
Bernstein (on score of West Side Story)
Birtwistle
Böhm
Boulez (on score of Le Marteau sans maître)
Boult
Brendel
Copland (on score of Third Symphony)
Curzon
Colin Davis
Haitink
Jochum
Kempe
Kempff
Carlos Kleiber
Krips (on poster for Mahler 2/LPO)
Yvonne and Jeanne Loriod
Mackerras
Maxwell Davies (1st night of Tavener)
Menuhin
Messiaen (on score of Turangalîla)
Previn
Shostakovich (letter, received in 1972)
Solti
Tippett (on score of Child of our Time)
Walton (on score of Belshazzar's Feast)

Quite a few others - it was always a fun thing to do as a student and it used to be very easy to get from the Arena to the artists' rooms at the Proms.

Regrets: too young to get Stravinsky or Klemperer in person. Britten never signed anything for me, but a friend gave me a wonderful inscribed copy of the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.

Now that is an awesome list!

I know from a previous thread that we were in the same room when we both got Messiaen's autograph but I wouldn't mind betting that some of the others were collected at the same time as mine.

[Beef Oven!]

IIRC, PMD was sitting next to Birtwistle a few rows in front of me at the Elliott Carter concert (he was also close-by) that Boulez was conducting. I only got Carter's autograph, but regret I didn't go for all four!

[Alison]

I could imagine Eugen Jochum being a pleasant sort of chap to give autographs??

[Petrushka]

I could imagine Eugen Jochum being a pleasant sort of chap to give autographs??

Yes he was. I think I was the only one in his dressing room at the time but have no recollection of what was said after all these years!

Most artists are perfectly happy to oblige, in my experience, and the only one I can remember being off-hand was Zubin Mehta. When I went backstage at the RFH in December 1988 after Klaus Tennstedt's incandescent performance of Mahler 5 he was in a highly nervous state, sweating, wringing his hands, cigarette firmly in mouth and so on as if having lived every second of the performance he'd just given.. He obliged readily enough all the same.

How on earth did you manage to get 20 minutes out of Bernard Haitink? Always fairly reticent about interviews as he has said that he often comes out with more than he should do.

[pastoralguy]

Perhaps the autograph I have the most affection for is the one of only three I had framed. Edwin Paling was the leader of the RSNO for many years and I heard him on many occasions as both soloist and leader of the Orchestra. A very fine player with a beautiful sound who wasn't afraid to employ portamenti when the music demanded it.

When he retired, there was a lovely photo in The Scotsman which I requested a copy of. He signed it for me and wrote a lovely inscription. A treasured possession!