Bob Briggs 1954 – 2011 :
Disc and Concert Reviewer for MusicWeb International / Seen
and Heard
Bob as his April Fool invention Claude – Denis
Autobüsse
| Bob's daughter Natalie has set up
a tribute page on their
website, with some photos |
The death of Bob Briggs, an important and popular member of
MusicWeb / Seen and Heard’s London reviewing
team was announced yesterday. Bob died in hospital where he
had been for several months receiving treatment for advanced
cancer – which with typical humour, we gather he always
referred to as “Kevin”. Bob did not wish to have
a funeral and instead donated his body to medical research and
training. He will be greatly missed by his colleagues and we
understand from his family that a memorial service may be held
for him at some time in the future.
Len Mullenger - MusicWeb International’s Founder
and Owner writes: “ Bob Briggs was a larger than
life character who you never expected would die and whose loss
will be irreplaceable. Although he worked for me for several
years as a CD reviewer our communications were by phone or e-mail.
The first time I met him was a bit of a shock. He was dressed
in a large black tent complemented by long flowing locks of
black hair and a long beard. He looked exactly like Hagrid!
Bob knew everybody in the book and musical world. The way he
described it to me I got the impression he worked from the depth
of a railway arch selling old books. As a reviewer he had two
great virtues – an encyclopaedic knowledge and a very
enquiring mind. He would have a go at anything. He also seemed
much more willing than most to “champion the underdog”
by which I mean not only that he’d review unfamiliar and/or
neglected music but also that he’d review less high profile
performers – the Ealing Symphony Orchestra was one example.
He was also extremely productive. Where most reviewers would
ask for 3 or 4 discs in a month he would request 20 and still
tell me that if I had more just send them along. His reviews
were long and informative and full of personal anecdotes. As
soon as he asks I will beam him up some mp3 files to listen
to.”
Bill Kenny, Bob’s former Editor on Seen and Heard
adds:
“In addition to being a formidable disc reviewer Bob
Briggs also managed to pack in a prodigious number of concert
reviews from London, all of them erudite and entertainingly
crafted and ranging across almost all musical genres, excluding
opera but importantly including musical theatre works by the
likes of Sondheim, Cole Porter and Gershwin. As Len says, Bob’s
knowledge was legendary but his concert reviewing had one other
remarkable characteristic; it was invariably kindly even when
performances were less than first rate. Small wonder then, that
he was extremely well regarded by the artists whose work he
reviewed and I know that he was particularly pleased when the
London Phoenix Orchestra dedicated a concert to him on learning
of his illness.
As Len also says, Bob liked to do things on the grand scale
and among his other accomplishments, he held the record for
the longest interview that we have ever published
– with composer Howard Blake which took over five
hours to complete and amounted to some 7,000 words when written
up. Personally I shall miss the extraordinary sense of humour
with which his emails were always peppered, more than I can
say. Bob knew and loved music in a manner which was absolutely
unique and I can do no better than commend readers to remember
him by reading the review which I will always regard as his
best work. This is Bob (and his Teddy) on a disc of Vintage
Children’s Favourites. It’s typical, memorable
and completely priceless.”
Len Mullenger and Bill Kenny 7.12.2011
A memory from Geoff Diggines
I got to know Bob Briggs a few years ago when Bill sent a
memo asking if anyone writing for SandH from London from S&H
could visit Bob, who was in hospital at the time. As I am quite
close I agreed to make the visit. I had intended to stay for
about 1 hour. I ended up staying for over 4 hours, so much did
we have in common, and I was fascinated by Bob's vast knowledge
and love of music. Bob quickly recovered and was soon discharged.
From that time until his last illness I saw him quite a lot
at concerts, pubs and restaurants, and also had many e mail
conversations with him. I hadn’t imagined I would ever
meet someone of such enormous erudition, not just in music,
mixed with such humour. To use an old fashioned phrase Bob was
a man of great wit. Sometimes his humour could be outrageous,
verging on black humour. But he had that rare quality, especially
in today’s context, of being able to laugh at himself.
I have never laughed so much as being with him in a pub over
several pints!
I don't think that Bob possessed an ounce of pretension or
snobbery. As a book seller he had a wide knowledge of literature;
anything from Kafka to detective fiction, which mirrored his
love of film, particularly classic film noir. But it was mostly
music that dominated our conversations. His musical taste was
wide-ranging (including many forms of 'light music') and he
never became stale in his musical preferences. Rather than listening
to, or reviewing, another Mahler, or Rachmaninov symphony/ concerto,
he would always go to great lengths to seek out rarely played
music. He had a particular love of Scandinavian music; composers
like Dag Wirèn and John Fernström, to name a couple
but also neglected (in this country at least) contemporary French
composers like Pascal Dusapin. Bob also thought it an outrage
that major British symphonists like Peter Racine Fricker and
Malcolm Arnold were hardly ever performed in the classical mainstream
centres. We had lots of disagreements about composers and interpretations,
but with Bob these divergences were always productive, never
descending into petty point scoring or one-upmanship.
I visited Bob in hospital regularly through his last illness.
From an early stage, when he knew his illness was serious, he
showed a degree of stoicism, irony and humour in regard to his
condition, which even experienced hospital staff found amazing!
And this was part of his uniqueness. He was a 'big' man in every
sense of the word. I learnt much from him both in the realm
of music, literature etc, but also in the affective realm; his
humour, stoicism and generosity of spirit.
I will sorely miss his friendship but the very idea of writing
a 'memory', or obituary for Bob would have struck him at best
as mildly amusing. I can hear his responses now, in language
that probably would not be printable...... But then that was
Bob! Or, at least, an important part of him.
Geoff Diggines 9-12-11
Martin Anderson of Toccata Classics and Toccata Press who has
known Bob since the late 1970s has emailed to remind us that
Bob studied composition with Harold Truscott at Huddersfield
Polytechnic shortly before he and Martin met. Martin reports
that Harold considered Bob a gifted student and was disappointed
that Bob didn’t make more of his ability after her graduated.
Typically however, Bob himself says in his biographical note
for MusicWeb that:
When I was 17 I went to Huddersfield Technical College,
and, subsequentlyHuddersfield Polytechnic (as it then was) where
I had the great good fortune to study composition (and so much
else) with the great Harold Truscott, to whom I owe almost everything
musical in my life. He opened my ears to so many musical things
and was the catalyst for my continuing interest in literature.
After studies I gave many concerts as a singer, specialising
in English music of the 20th century, and continued writing,
gaining performances in this country and the USA and Australia
and being commissioned from the Bromsgrove Festival (my proper
6th Symphony), the USA and Iceland! At a concert of my music
in London in about 1982 Roger Wright played a piano piece of
mine.
At 25 I gave up writing music – I realized that my work
simply wasn’t good enough and I was never going to set
the Thames on fire with my genius – and started writing
about music – for Records and Recording, the very short
lived Classical Sounds, sleeve notes for LPs and the odd programme
book for concerts.
Len Mullenger and Bill Kenny
........................................
Hi Len,
Like you, I've been intensely saddened to hear of the death
of Bob
Briggs. He and I were very close friends between the early 70s
and
middle 80s. I was very interested to read his obituary on your
site:
seenandheard-international.
At the end, Martin Anderson quotes Bob himself on his concerts
as a
singer after leaving college, and the performance of his symphony
no. 6
"Visions" at the Bromsgrove Festival. I was the pianist
in "Visions",
and at most of the other concerts also (I still have tapes of
several of
them.) ("Visions" was an amazing challenge, which
included such
novelties as reaching inside the piano and brushing up and down
the bass
strings with a felt-headed drumstick. I spent about three months
learning it, and then a week of frantic rehearsals at Keele
University,
teaching the soprano Rosemary Kirby - and Bob himself - to sing
the
piece!)
As you probably know, he didn't just stop composing at the
age of 25 -
he destroyed everything he had written up to that point (including
"Visions".) That caused a rift between us which I
never fully managed to
bridge: I had boundless respect and admiration for his music,
and I felt
that the destruction of it was a most regrettable act, which
robbed the
musical world of a considerable treasure-store. He warned me
that he was
going to do it beforehand, and I tried to talk him out of it
- but I
failed (once set on a course of action, he was not a man to
be
deterred.)
All best wishes,
Peter Duffy
