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to Chapter 16
17
Woodwind
and Brass Soloists and my Colleagues
in the Orchestra
So many
fine soloists have come out of the orchestra
– Galway, Goossens, Brymer, Camden,
Brooke, Brain, Bean, Parikian, Pini,
and many more.
As
well as the soloists I have written
about there was always the pleasure
of playing in the orchestra with colleagues
one respected and admired, especially
the woodwind and brass players. The
woodwind and brass soloists when I was
young and for a large part of the time
I was in the profession were all members
of one of the London orchestras or free-lance
musicians in London so that at one time
or another I played alongside all the
artists I shall refer to. It is only
in the last 25 or 30 years that it has
been possible in Britain for a woodwind
or brass player to consider a career
entirely as a soloist.
Two
very fine flautists Geoffrey Gilbert
and Gareth Morris both had successful
solo careers at the same time as being
members of one or other of the London
symphony orchestras. James Galway was
the first flautist to leave orchestral
playing altogether and make a highly
successful career as a soloist, but
only after he had been principal flute
in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
and then, later, of the Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra for some years. The great
oboist Leon Goossens, who maintained
his international solo reputation from
the 1930s for the following 30 years,
still continued to play in orchestras
throughout his life. The same was true
for the clarinettists Frederick Thurston
and Reginald Kell, and later Jack Brymer
and Gervase de Peyer. From when I began
to be really interested in playing the
clarinet in 1939 and for many years
afterwards the only opportunity to hear
the Mozart Clarinet Concerto was when
Frederick Thurston played it each year
at the Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,
of which he was principal clarinet.
It was
not until Kell went to live in the USA
in 1949 that he was able to give up
orchestral playing. Previously he had
at one time or another been principal
clarinet in the LSO, the LPO, the RPO
and Philharmonia. He had been my hero
in my teens and the first time I sat
alongside him remains one of the most
thrilling moments of my life. He had
not been able to attend the rehearsal
in the morning so I had had to move
up to play first clarinet – that was
still in the days when a star player
could get away with something like that.
When he came onto the platform at the
concert in the evening he introduced
himself, ‘My name is Reg Kell’ – as
if I would not know who he was! He was
a big man with large hands and when
he took the clarinet out of its case
to assemble it, it was as if it were
a piccolo. Just the way he did that
was a thrill..
Many
years later Gervase de Peyer, who had
been principal in the LSO, followed
Kell to the USA where he has had a very
successful solo career for many years.
He is one year younger than I am and
we often played together in several
orchestras. From the start it was clear
he was more suited to being a soloist
than an orchestral player, even though
he was a fine player in the orchestra.
He had a natural tendency to play as
a soloist, whatever position he was
in, as I found when he played second
to me. I have written about Jack Brymer
several times already but must refer
to him again here because he was one
of the great wind players of the second
half of the 20th century,
as Beecham said once at a rehearsal
after Jack had played particularly beautifully.
For me all his finest qualities, his
soft, clean articulation and silken,
seamless legato combined with
a wonderful lyricism are to be heard
in the stunning recording of the Mozart
Clarinet Concerto he made with the RPO
and Beecham. This is a rare example
of conductor, soloist and orchestra
coming together as if they were one.
A recording to treasure.
Archie
Camden and Gwydion Brooke were both
outstanding bassoonists each with a
very personal way of playing and totally
different from each other. Camden, who
was in the Hallé Orchestra before
he came to the BBC Symphony Orchestra
when it was formed in 1930, was the
first British bassoonist to change from
the French bassoon to the German or
Heckel Bassoon. Adam Heckel assisted
in redesigning the bassoon keywork in
1820 and soon started manufacturing
instruments. Traditionally the German
bassoon has a much more ‘woody’ tone
and is rather less flexible than the
French and it was in this way that Camden
played. He was for many years the most
outstanding player in Britain. Not long
after Camden started playing the German
instrument Gwydion Brooke who was still
at the Royal Academy of Music heard
about this new instrument and went to
see Camden in Manchester and at once
got himself a similar instrument. It
was not long before he had persuaded
his fellow bassoon students and their
professor to change, too. Brooke joined
the RPO at the same time that I did
and he was also in the Philharmonia
whilst I was so I had many opportunities
to witness his incredible virtuosity.
He had a very idiosyncratic style and
was the first to play the German bassoon
with vibrato making his playing much
more flexible. His performances of the
Weber Concerto were dazzling.
Even
the great Dennis Brain, for me the finest
wind player of all, played the horn
in orchestras until the end of his all
too short life. It was after a concert
with the Philharmonia at the Edinburgh
Festival in 1957 after a performance
of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony.
He was driving back to London in the
early hours of the morning when he must
have dozed off for a moment, crashed
his car and been killed instantly. He
had been sitting just behind me on the
platform of the Usher Hall and I remember
thinking at the time how extraordinary
it was that when, near the beginning
of the symphony, the horn has just a
single held note, by some magic Brain
made it sound like a melody. This event
remains vividly in my memory, not only
because apart from Ginette Neveu I have
never felt the loss of any another musician
quite so powerfully, but because through
chance my own life was spared on that
occasion.
I had
to get back to London that night as
I had an unusually attractive TV engagement
the following morning, one of a series
of Sunday afternoon half-hour programmes,
playing on screen in a quintet: two
violins cello, piano and clarinet. We
played special arrangements of light
music and accompanied a very popular
singer in the 1950s, Elizabeth Welch.
I had considered returning with Dennis
by car, but as he was not feeling too
well he decided to stay for a while
with his friend the flautist Gareth
Morris before setting off. Not wishing
to risk being late I decided to take
the night train instead. As it happened
the train was very late and when I eventually
arrived at the BBC White City TV studios
I was told there was a telephone message
from my wife. She had been told by a
neighbour of a news item on the radio
reporting the death of Dennis Brain
in a car accident and was concerned
that I might have been involved.
Sixteen
years later, when the Philharmonia was
on the way to give a concert in Warsaw,
one of several we were to give with
Norman Del Mar conducting, on a tour
of Poland and Romania, I was sitting
chatting with him on one of the interminable
coach journeys we had to undertake.
We were remembering various artists
we had both worked with and he mentioned
Dennis Brain, with whom he had been
second horn in the RAF Central Band
and then in the Philharmonia. I told
him about an extraordinary dream I had
had about Dennis, and that it had been
so vivid that when I awoke it took me
a while to realise it had been a dream.
I was astonished when Norman told me
he had had a similar dream at about
the same time. It seems that Dennis’s
sprit had lived on. I wonder if there
were other musicians who may have had
a similar experience?
Inspired
by Dennis Brain there has been a succession
of superb British horn soloists, Alan
Civil and Barry Tuckwell, and now David
Pyatt. There have also been some very
fine trumpet players in a particularly
English tradition. The first I remember
hearing was Ernest Hall whose noble
tone dominated the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s
brass section. Richard (Bob) Walton,
his pupil, followed in the same style
and was Beecham’s principal trumpet
in the LPO and RPO. Two more players
in the same tradition were David Mason
and Philip Jones who went on to form
the celebrated and much recorded Philip
Jones Brass Ensemble. Another very fine
player in quite a different style was
George Eskdale, for many years principal
in the LSO and a distinguished soloist.
In contrast to the Ernest Hall school
of playing this was more akin to the
brass band cornet sound and style, very
lyrical and suited for playing melodies.
In general
the difference in sheer technical ability
of the woodwind and brass instrument
soloists and their colleagues in the
orchestras is not very great. There
are a good many wind players in the
orchestras with enough technical skill
to perform the solo repertoire. It is
usually a matter of temperament, personality
and musical imagination that holds them
back.
In the
previous chapter I suggested that many
orchestral string players at some time,
probably when they were quite young,
will have dreamt that perhaps they might
one day have the opportunity to become
a soloist or a member of a string quartet.
Whereas for woodwind and brass players
the possibility of a solo career was
extremely unlikely, there have always
been opportunities for violinists, cellists
and pianists to become soloists As a
rule it has usually been clear from
a fairly early age, often by the age
of four or five, whether there is the
outstanding talent required for a successful
solo career.
Of those
that show obvious natural ability only
a very few will go on to have an international
solo career There will be some others
who start off quite well, perhaps winning
some competitions but just not having
what it takes to break into the ‘big
time’. A number of very fine string
players decide that the satisfaction
of a life playing chamber music will
be far more rewarding than the solitary
glory of being a soloist. Nearly all
the other string instrumentalists wanting
to follow a career as a professional
musician will play in an orchestra of
some kind, most as what used always
to be called ‘rank and file’ players,
though now, in these days of political
correctness, they are referred to as
‘tutti’ players. From amongst them will
arise those with outstanding technical
and musical qualities who in addition
have the qualities of leadership needed
to lead a section. Not all very good
players have this quality so that in
a very good orchestra there may be quite
a few exceedingly good players within
the string sections.
In chapter
4 I wrote about the small orchestras
there were in the cafes, restaurants
and at seaside resorts at the beginning
of the last century. Until the 1940s
these little orchestras provided the
opportunity for violinists with sufficient
technique and musical qualities to lead
a small group and express themselves
musically in an individual way. Now
there are far more orchestras requiring
good violinists, but there they have
to be part of a section, playing the
same notes as everyone else in the section,
whether they are the leader or sitting
at the back. The many opportunities
for personal self-expression available
in the past have gone. Now they only
really exist for the soloist or chamber
musician.
As well
as the pleasure when sitting in an orchestra
of listening to my woodwind and brass
colleagues, there was also the enjoyment
of hearing the violin and cello solos,
the much less frequent viola solos and
the extremely rare solos for the double
bass. The Leader (Concert Master) of
an orchestra has some wonderful solos
in the orchestral, opera and ballet
repertoires, such as those in Scheherazade
by Rimsky-Korsakov, the Missa Solemnis
by Beethoven, Tchaikosky’s Suite in
G, in the opera from Thais by
Massenet and the well-known violin solos
in the ballet music for Swan Lake
and Sleeping Beauty by Tchaikovsky.
The
solo violin part in Ein Heldenleben
by Richard Strauss is particularly
demanding and calls for considerable
virtuosity. Michel Schwalbé,
for more than 30 years Karajan’s leader
of the Berlin Philharmonic, was famous
for his performances and recording of
the solo part in this work. He had a
fantastic technique, comparable with
any of the great international soloists
and used to dazzle the National Centre
for Orchestral Studies Orchestra each
year when he came to coach them for
me. Though Oscar Lampe who was leader
of the RPO for some time had no pretension
to be a soloist and had neither the
technique nor the brilliance of Schwalbé
I particularly remember him playing
the big solos in Heldenleben
with great sensitivity when we recorded
it with Beecham.
Over
the years I have listened to many fine
leaders – outstanding players such as
Rodney Friend, who was leader of the
LPO and then the New York Philharmonic
before returning to lead the BBC Symphony
Orchestra , Hugh Bean, Carl Pini, Erich
Gruenberg and Manoug Parikian, all leaders
of the Philharmonia at one time. Manoug
Parikian was (for me) the ideal leader.
As well as being a very fine violinist,
he had a bearing and authority that
commanded respect from everyone, the
members of his section, the whole orchestra
and conductors. All of them had solo
careers though they were never really
able to established themselves as full-time
soloists. Not even Schawlbé with
his virtuosity managed to do that. Is
it, perhaps, a question of personality?
Or because they had the qualities a
good leader requires: a concern for
their section and, at times, for the
whole orchestra , rather than the over-riding
ambition needed by a soloist?
The
principal of the cello section also
has many big solos to play. Some of
the best known in the concert repertoire
are those that come from operas and
ballets such as the cello solos in the
suites from Swan Lake and Sleeping
Beauty, the Overture to William
Tell by Rossini, the Overtures Morning
Noon and Night in Vienna and Poet
and Peasant by Suppé.
The solos in the slow movements
of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.
1 and Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto.
In Jeux d’enfants by Bizet,
in the movement Little Husband, Little
Wife, there is a lovely duet for violin
and cello (sometimes now played by the
whole of the violin and cello sections).
One of my earliest music memories is
hearing this played by Marie Wilson
and Raymond Clark, when they were both
in the BBC Symphony Orchestra at a broadcast
from the BBC Maida Vale studios, where
I had been taken by my father. Many
years later I played in the RPO and
the Philharmonia with Raymond when he
was their principal cello. He was a
beautiful player and had the musicianship
and skill to have been a distinguished
soloist, but always remained in the
orchestra, perhaps lacking the necessary
ambition.
Anthony
Pini, who was principal cello with the
LPO and RPO for Beecham and later of
the Royal Opera House Orchestra, was
a very fine orchestral cellist as well
as a distinguished soloist, particularly
well known for his performances of the
Elgar Cello Concerto. It is not often
that the clarinet section sit near to
the front desk of the cellos, but on
one occasion when the RPO were playing
for the opera at Glyndebourne I found
that was I sitting a few feet away from
Pini. We were doing Ariadne auf Naxos
by Richard Strauss in the original version,
in which the first act is a play with
incidental music, often performed separately
at concerts as the suite Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme. I was enormously impressed
with the way he played every note with
such immaculate accuracy. Only one other
player had this same effect on me, the
clarinettist Bernard Walton. During
the Philharmonia tour in South America
I sat next to him whenever we played
the Brahms Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4.
His absolute accuracy of intonation,
note values, dynamics and rhythm were
a model of orchestra playing. It takes
great discipline to play like that and
if not allied to a response to the music
itself can lead to a sterile performance.
Pini and Walton were both artists as
well as remarkable craftsmen.
There
was one other cellist who unfortunately
had a rather short career. John Kennedy,
the father of Nigel Kennedy the violinist,
was a wonderful player. He had a most
beautiful tone and a gift for playing
a melody with tremendous charm and grace.
Shirley, Lady Beecham showed me a video
of a rehearsal for a concert at Lincoln
Inn Fields, with Beecham conducting
the RPO when Kennedy was playing the
cello solo in the Overture Morning,
Noon and Night by Suppé.
Beecham hardly conducts at all and his
face expresses sheer delight as he looks
and listens to Kennedy. Part of this
concert was televised, though unfortunately
not the overture. Kennedy was a lovely
man, high spirited and amusing, but
sadly too fond of the strong waters.
After a while he left the orchestra
and went back to Australia where he
died a few years later.
Even
though there are so many ‘viola jokes’,
probably the result of having been played
in the past by indifferent violinists,
the viola when played really well has
a wonderfully rich tone. In the hands
of an excellent player the viola solos
in Strauss’s Don Quixote and
Harold in Italy by Berlioz and
the ballet Giselle by Adolphe
Adam can be very beautiful.
So far
I have only written about the enjoyment
of listening to the individual musicians
in the orchestra who have solos to play,
but anyone who has played in an orchestra,
even a not very good one, will tell
you that there is a special thrill when
sitting in the middle of the orchestra
when it is going full blast in a big
tutti passage. There are places, particularly
in the compositions by Wagner, Strauss,
Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, when the whole
of the violin or cello section have
a big tune fortissimo that I found tremendously
exciting.
Chapter
18
