Never-to-be forgotten concerts
by Arthur Butterworth
Desert island discs have often been
the topic of interesting conversation
between musicians. The kind of music
a person likes can reveal as much, if
not more than any amount of probing
verbal discussion: such as television
interviewers wickedly delight in to
the discomfort of their guests.
Young couples, seeking to get to know
each other, wondering whether they are
mutually compatible might resort to
asking what kind of music appeals to
the other. So this intriguing party
game is not new.
It could perhaps be equally revealing
were one to ask which particular concerts
have been an influence on a musical
person’s development. Not necessarily
which favourite piece of music, for
whatever reason that might be - perhaps
a memorably romantic occasion, such
as a marriage proposal, or a wedding
day – but rather for some purely musical
reason: such as the subsequent musical
influence that the occasion might have
had in a person’s life.
There have been quite a number of such
occasions for me; although perhaps not
quite so many as might be imagined in
a life of music spanning around seventy
years. Of the hundreds of musical occasions
I must have attended since the age of
about ten, many are still happily remembered,
others completely forgotten.
Reading Christopher Fifield’s most
excellent and absorbing biography
of the great conductor Hans Richter,
"True Artist and True Friend"
(Oxford University Press) it is interesting
to learn that Richter kept what he called
his "conducting book", in
effect an accurate and always maintained
life-time diary of every solitary piece
of music he ever conducted from the
very beginning of his career to the
very last concert he ever did.
"Now, why did I not think of doing
that ?" – I said to myself; for
in truth I have forgotten most of the
concerts I have ever taken part in,
whether as player or conductor. I regret
now that it did not occur to me at the
time to keep an accurate diary of all
of them, no matter whether at the time
they were important occasions or merely
seemed to be routine concerts of one
kind or another. But it
has not always been the concerts that
I myself have been involved in that
have, with hindsight, been some of the
most truly musical significance in my
life.
While many such occasions have certainly
been memorable, perhaps only a handful
have been so memorable that they might
be regarded as truly seminal to my subsequent
development as a musician. Here then
are just some of the most important
and vivid memories of concerts in my
own experience.
In September 1937 I was still a school-boy.
I had seen an advertisement for the
then annual brass band championship
to be held at Manchester. It had bemused
me to read on the posters that the test
piece was to be something I had never
heard of before: the Brahms "Academic
Festival Overture". I managed
to squeeze into the contest hall that
September afternoon as soon as I could
get away from school. Just appearing
on the contest platform came the then
distinguished Besses o’th’Barn Band
from Manchester and thus I heard for
the first time in my life this stunning
concert overture. It was one of the
most influential occasions of my life.
From that moment on I became passionately
devoted to Brahms, and have remained
so ever since.
Some few weeks later I saw this work
advertised for performance (in its original
orchestral format of course) by the
Hallé Orchestra. I could
hardly wait for this concert; but when
I did at last hear the proper orchestral
version I realised that the symphony
orchestra was the kind of music I wanted
to be associated with more than anything
else in life. It had taken the relatively
modest transcription for brass band
to alert me to it. This proves yet again,
the value of transcriptions; bringing
to otherwise unsuspecting – and maybe
dismissive – uncultured audiences just
what immense musical riches the classics
can reveal. I have played in and
conducted this Brahms overture more
times than I could possibly remember,
and it is still one of my most cherished
concert works.
Ten years later – 1947 – I was due
to be released from the army. At that
time I was still in Germany and had
made many truly musical German friends.
As a farewell present to me before my
return to England and civilian life,
they had – secretly – arranged to take
me to a performance in a private house
of a performance of the Bach "Goldberg
Variations" played by a distinguished
harpsichordist, Hans Schmidt.
They thought that I should like this
music. They certainly knew what they
were doing! I count this astonishing
performance – one hour and twenty-three
minutes, with all the repeats – as one
of the greatest highlights of my whole
musical life; it made me a devoted Bach-lover
forever afterwards; an occasion I shall
never forget, in that cosy drawing room,
dimly lit only by three candelabra.
My orchestral playing and conducting
career has of course included lots of
favourite music, especially Sibelius,
Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Arnold Bax.
Many of the earlier performances
of their works have certainly been the
most influential experiences: notably
the first time I heard "Tapiola"
and the Sixth Symphony of Sibelius,
and the first time – as an examination
piece – I had to conduct Bax’s "Tintagel"
more or less at sight, an experience
which made me a devotee of Bax ever
afterwards. However, some
other concert occasions have been probably
been even more memorable, and I wish
it might have been possible for them
to have been recorded at the time:
In 1951 the New York Philharmonic Orchestra
under Dimitri Mitropoulos came to the
Edinburgh Festival. I went to this concert
and sat behind the orchestra. This was
one of the most stunning demonstrations
of sheer orchestral technique
I have ever heard: Vaughan Williams’
Fourth Symphony I had long admired,
but never before, nor since have I heard
an orchestra play as on this occasion.
In 1960 at the York Festival I was
asked to play with the London Symphony
Orchestra in a performance of the Monteverdi
"Vespers of 1610" conducted
by Walter Goehr. This was a completely
new experience, playing this very ancient
music. Nowadays trumpets would NOT be
engaged to do this, but rather the original
early baroque "cornetti" would
authentically be used as Monteverdi
intended. Taking part in this music
was a rare experience, not least for
the enormously challenging part the
trumpets were called upon to play, but
even more so to hear the Dolmetsch Consort
play the recorders in a way totally
unsuspected that they could be played;
the heartening sounds of Venetian choral
music in those vast spaces of York Minster
- like the Bach "Goldberg Variations"
– proved to be another illuminating
and most memorable new musical experience.
In the 1950s the Hallé under
John Barbirolli, gave numerous, memorable
performances of Elgar, most of which
I took part in as a trumpeter: "The
Dream of Gerontius" (on the centenary
of Elgar’s birth: 2nd June
1957), both symphonies and "Falstaff"
made deep emotional impressions whenever
he conducted them, but probably the
most memorable performance of the First
Symphony took place one radiant September
evening with the sun slowly sinking
in the great west window of Truro Cathedral,
when Sir Adrian Boult conducted the
Hallé; this indeed was English
music of an indescribable memory.
Such vividly recollected memories are
the very stuff of a life-time’s musical
experience; it is not just a matter
of a pleasant, fond recollection, but
something indescribably much more than
that: as if such occasions were landmarks
of deep emotional and psychical experience
which influenced and shaped the whole
of one’s subsequent understanding of
the meaning and significance of virtually
everything one experiences afterwards:
giving purpose and insight into what
life itself is really about.
Arthur Butterworth
Arthur
Butterworth Writes - a regular column
