Inspirations - part 1

 

Illustrating a talk about Charles Darwin

As I began to write this, Mary was practising the cello downstairs.  She used to accompany me often on the piano, but these days most of her energies are directed towards the cello.  Practising is vital for musicians.  It it's not always easy to listen to, but I can honestly say it is a pleasure to hear her, not only because there are a lot of really nice sounds coming from her bow but because I can hear the improvement over weeks and months and indeed years.  I cannot even imagine being able to play a stringed instrument in tune (it is 60 years since I put aside the short-lived attempts I made to learn the viola) let alone musically as Mary does.  I am a lazy musician so rely on whatever passes for talent in my singing and recorder playing - not nearly enough practice, so I stand no chance at getting anywhere near perfection.

But although she has a few opportunities to play with other musicians just now, Mary shows a determination which is shared by amateurs like us all the way up to the best professionals.  In our heart of hearts we know that only a lot of practice leads to the wonderful music we so much like to listen to. Listening as we do every day to music on radio and on recordings, I have been marking out the musical influences which keep us going.  In another post I'll list some of the musicians and performances that inspire us, but first a few of the people who have contributed to my love of music at closer quarters.

Richard Sturge at his
wedding, long before we met

 Richard Sturge, music teacher at my secondary school and conductor of its   choirs, tried in vain to make a reasonable pianist of me, and I think gave me   every opportunity before admitting defeat (he did not often give up on pupils).    But he was an inspirational choral conductor, encouraged my singing (from a   joint solo moment in Rubbra as a 12-year old soprano onwards)  He has left me with memorable and indelible experiences, from the Verdi Requiem which was my first experience of a major choral work with soloists including Cynthia Glover and Winfred Brown, to the carol concerts our small choir did every December around Essex and in London, a repertoire which remains my favourite these many years later.  The boarding school I attended was not always happy for me, but its musical life (a touch unlikely in a Quaker school) was wonderful thanks largely to him.                                                                                                                                

At university I was supposed to be a chemistry student but took every opportunity to listen to music and
to sing, and again recall whole chunks of the major works we performed there, including Dido & Aeneas, a staged version of Handel's Saul, and Bach's St John Passion  All three have continued to play important parts in my musical life over the intervening 55 years.  Much of the credit for this part of my musical inspiration must go to Philip Ledger, taking the helm of the embryo music department at UEA and already a key part of the English Opera Group but still on the way to the the height of his distinguished career.  I feel proud to have known him and worked with him as a chorus member, and to have had the privilege of signing Bach in one performance with Peter Pears as Evangelist.

Much later in my life in my 40s, I encountered Joan Robinson.  I had been attracted to a group called the London Lieder Group which met in NW London, under the inspiration of a slightly eccentric man called Leslie Minchin, an enthusiast for translating lieder into English (I always sing the texts in German except the few Shakespeare and Walter Scott ones which fit well in English) - copies of his books on Schubert and Schumann are still on sale.  There I met a Joan, who spent her life (when not teaching piano to earn a crust) playing Schubert accompaniments (and, I later discovered, music hall songs!).  She was an exceptional accompanist and we worked together for nearly a decade.  We did numerous recital weekends, concerts and two Edinburgh Fringe weeks (in the days when you could do those as good amateurs).  I learnt an immeasurable amount from her about Schubert song, and sang with her  nearly 150 of the 600+ he wrote.  She died too young, and I belatedly realised that she like me had suffered from depression over many years - a wonderful Schubertian role model.

Tony Milledge (like most here now sadly deceased) became a friend in the 1980s, and I joined his
Canonbury Chamber Choir for several years until I moved to Derbyshire.  Nearly everyone in the choir was expected to contribute as a soloist, and my memorable moment was singing the soprano/tenor duet from the B minor mass with Alison Liney, as well as singing alongside Mike Hutchinson whose splendid tenor solo career continued for many years after I left.  Their St John Passion with Mike as Evengelist still remains in my memory, alongside the performance I was involved in here in France in the chorale BaBach with Fraech Haicied as Evangelist.

I go further back in mu musical memory to recall Ruth Liebrecht, whose weekly Tuesday evening recorder groups were so important in my musical education.  It was there that I learnt much I still carry with me of the renaissance consort repertoire, and there also that I stumbled across the world of early music and Musica Reservata, Michael Morrow's pioneering group which rehearsed in Ruth and Heinz's house.  I still think of Ruth as, in a sense, my 'second mother', thankful to have been given a lodging there over many years and proud still to be in touch with their son Uri whose translations of German lieder texts are widely valued.  The recorder playing I began there in my early 20s were the foundation for me of 50 years playing renaissance consort music.

Which brings me finally to Walter Bergmann.  We still have the descant recorder on which our son already too briefly tried to master the instrument with Walter's help at his Belsize Square home, but his inspiration on SRP summer schools was manifold, among other things in the moments when Mary and I meet and got together.  Walter lived round the corner from my temporary lodging in Belsize Square, and he as a pioneer in editing, publishing and playing early music.  I will never forget the way he seized and tore up photocopies students had brought to his classes - apart from his inspiration as a musician, he was a lawyer by origin and so knew the importance of copyright for people like him who earned their living by editing and publishing early music.

Playing recorders in Anduze - Association des musiciens amateurs