Tony Duggan

I was born in 1954 in the English Midlands, the son of a comedian and singer who toured the variety theatres of England between the 1920s and the late 1950s. This accounts for my interest in variety and music hall in addition to classical music. After a convent and prep school education I took an honours degree at the Open University with majors in Drama, Art History and Theology where I also extended my interests in musical history. I also studied Modern Philosophy and Music as an extra-mural student with Keele University. My first memory of music came before I could walk listening to my father composing and playing songs on the piano. So my earliest musical influences were the old stars of the English music hall. Classical interests came in my teens and these now extend to special regard for Wagner, Elgar, Bruckner, Sibelius, the Second Viennese School, as well as the general European musical landscape that the end of the 19th century mapped into the early years of the 20th. I have also been known to write about Gustav Mahler whose life, times and music I have studied for nearly forty years. I have a special concern for the phenomena of “live” performance and how it affects interpretation. A never-ending fascination with “the concert hall as theatre“ drives my philosophy of how music should be played, enjoyed and appreciated, as well as how the music and its performance relate to the times around it. This aspect has led to my enthusiasm for archive recordings. The only musical instrument I play is the gramophone and if I were to burst into song I would clear three blocks. In never having learned any other instrument I believe there is positive virtue to be derived from this in communicating enthusiasm to those who may be newcomers, as well as to those who are not-so-newcomers, in classical music. In reviewing recordings I believe something of the experience of listening ought to be communicated to the reader by writing that should be enjoyable of itself. Whether I have ever succeeded in this laudable aim I leave others to judge.

Tony Duggan
Stafford - 800 Years old this year

Mahler CD recordings survey at:
http://www.musicweb-international.com//Mahler/index.html