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6
The
London Philharmonic Orchestra
History
1932 until 1939 when it was obliged
to go into voluntary liquidation. The
orchestra reforms and is administered
by the players themselves. J B Priestley,
Jack Hylton, Sir Henry Wood. Life in
a self-managed orchestra. 1944 Sir Thomas
returns to his old orchestra. He leaves
and in 1946 forms the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra. 1947 the author follows.
When
the war started, in 1939, every one
in the London Philharmonic Orchestra
felt very insecure; would the concerts
and recordings already booked, or planned,
take place? Some of the players were
already expressing doubts as to whether
the shaky financial basis upon which
the orchestra was founded could possibly
survive. In fact it was not long before
London Philharmonic Ltd. was obliged
to call the creditors to a Liquidation
meeting.
The
Company had been founded by Sir Thomas
Beecham in 1932, with himself as Artistic
Director, and with a number of well-born
and wealthy music lovers as co-directors.
At the meeting it was left to Sir Thomas
to explain that there was no money at
all, and therefore no one would get
any. He used his famed eloquence and
charm to impart this disagreeable information,
and somehow succeeded in soothing and
placating his audience. The players
in the orchestra, all of whom were owed
money for unpaid fees, made no opposition
to the voluntary liquidation of the
company; their main concern was to keep
the orchestra in being.
Almost
at once the musicians decided to form
a new company, with themselves as shareholders.
Sir Thomas gave his blessing, the company
was created and named Musical Culture
Limited. A Board of Directors was elected
and staff engaged to administer the
affairs of the orchestra. Charles Gregory,
a very fine player who had been Beecham’s
principal horn for some years, was elected
Chairman of the Board. He was held in
considerable respect, and, as I was
to learn for myself a few years later,
he was a man of imagination and integrity.
Thomas Russell, one of the viola players,
also elected to the Board, became their
Secretary and Business Manager. The
orchestra then set about looking for
engagements.
In 1940,
after undertaking a few concerts, Sir
Thomas left for the USA, leaving the
members of the orchestra to take full
responsibility for the administration
and artistic control of the newly re-formed
London Philharmonic Orchestra. The full
story of this remarkable achievement
is contained in two books by Thomas
Russell, Philharmonic and Philharmonic
Decade, essential reading for anyone
interested in the development of orchestral
music in Britain.
Because
of his stirring wartime broadcasts J.B.Priestley,
the famous author of The Good Companions
and of many successful novels and plays,
had become a household name. After a
chance meeting with Tom Russell he became
concerned about the difficulties the
orchestra was facing and decided that
something needed to be done to rally
support for it. He suggested that a
concert be put on that would attract
a prestigious audience, and which could
be used to generate funds from the general
public. It should be called ‘A Musical
Manifesto’. Sir Adrian Boult, Basil
Cameron and Dr Malcolm Sargent (he did
not become Sir Malcolm until 1947) readily
agreed to conduct one item each, and
Eileen Joyce was willing to play the
Grieg Piano Concerto.
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On the
night of the 8th of July 1940, the Queen’s
Hall was full, which was unusual at
that early stage of the war, before
everyone had become accustomed to the
blackout. The programme for this auspicious
occasion was: Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture,
conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, Eileen
Joyce played the Grieg Piano Concerto,
with Basil Cameron conducting and, after
the interval, Dr Sargent conducted the
Second Symphony by Sibelius. The concert
started with Priestley making one of
his most effective speeches, a mixture
of homespun philosophy and good Yorkshire
hard-nosed practicality; this was his
Musical Manifesto. It was well received
by the capacity audience, and widely
reported by the press. In the next few
weeks thousands of donations were received,
ranging from postal orders for a few
shillings to very substantial cheques.
This was the turning point for the orchestra,
putting it (for the time being) in a
relatively strong financial position.
Priestley’s
speech and part of the performance of
Cockaigne Overture are re-enacted
in a film the orchestra made in 1941,
called Battle for Music. It was
quite widely shown at the time and is
still occasionally shown on TV. The
film tells of the trials and tribulations
the LPO and the members of the orchestra
experienced in the early years of the
war and how they triumphed in the face
of adversity. Some of the musicians,
in particular members of the Board,
‘act’ their role in this story with
varying degrees of success. As well
as Priestley, Dr. Malcolm Sargent, Sir
Adrian Boult and Jack Hylton also have
‘acting’ roles.
Battle
for Music is not up to Hollywood
standards, but it fulfilled its purpose
at the time and remains an interesting
and entertaining historical document.
Such shortcomings as it has are outweighed
by the honesty of its intent and the
excellence of the performances of the
music, conducted by Dr. Sargent, Constant
Lambert, and Warwick Braithwaite, with
Eileen Joyce and Moiseiwitsch as soloists.
The
film ends on a high note. Superimposed
over newsreel footage of Sir Winston
Churchill inspecting the troops, to
the accompaniment of Land of Hope and
Glory, are the following words:
An
Orchestra is like a country. It has
its triumphs, its disasters and despairs.
Only with unity and faith can it become
great.
The
London Philharmonic Orchestra has these
qualities. These musicians played on
during the darkest days and blazed the
trail for other fine orchestras.
They
showed how musicians themselves can
organise their own lives and their own
art. This spirit, which inspired this
orchestra to struggle against adversity,
to adapt their lives courageously to
changing conditions, cannot be defeated.
The
London Philharmonic becomes the treasured
possession of the British people.
Further
support for the orchestra came from
a most surprising quarter. Jack Hylton,
formerly a famous dance-band leader,
was now an impresario, with interests
in the theatre world. He undertook to
present the LPO for a week at a time
in a number of large theatres all over
the country. These theatres usually
presented either Music Hall (later to
be known as Variety), or companies touring
successful musical comedies, following
their West End run.
Hylton
saw to it that the concerts were well
advertised, and took especial care over
the presentation of the orchestra. He
had a rostrum built, that could be assembled
in every theatre the orchestra visited,
with sides and a ceiling, so that all
the sound did not get lost up in the
‘flies’, making it much better acoustically
than orchestral performances on theatre
stages usually are. The whole presentation
was rather more attractive than in many
of the conventional venues in which
concerts were given.
Each
week there was a concert every evening
and one on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons
as well. These concerts were extremely
successful, playing to full houses virtually
the whole time. A great many of those
attending the concerts had never seen
or heard a full symphony orchestra before.
Their enthusiasm for this new experience
was heart-warming.
When
I had accepted Mr Haines’s offer of
a three weeks’ engagement with the LPO
I had no idea of what I was letting
myself in for. Perhaps this was fortunate;
fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
My first
engagement with the LPO was at the Royal
Albert Hall on Sunday, the 9th of May
1943. There was a rehearsal at 10.00,
and a concert at 2.30. George Weldon
(I had played for him before in the
Wessex) conducted a mainly Tchaikovsky
programme that included the ever popular
1st Piano Concerto, and the Theme
and Variations from the Suite in
G.
Within
the first few minutes I realised that
this was something very different to
anything I had experienced before. The
quality of the string tone was much
better, and the range of dynamics throughout
the orchestra far greater – ppp
really did mean very softly, and because
of the number of string players and
the volume of tone they produced, fff
was very, very loud. To be playing in
the Royal Albert Hall! I had only been
there previously to attend Prom concerts
when I was still a student, and now
to be in this exalted company! The few
important solo passages went reasonably
well, so I left at the end of the concert
on quite a ‘high’.
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Early
on Monday morning we set off for what
for me was to be the first of three
of these ‘Hylton’ weeks. We travelled
to Norwich by train; in the afternoon
there was a rehearsal and at 7.30 a
concert. This was followed by seven
more concerts that week, each with a
different programme. With that number
of concerts there was not time for even
one rehearsal for each performance,
but as the orchestra had played the
works many times, in most cases with
these same conductors, and as they were
very good players anyway, the results
were quite satisfactory. For me the
situation was rather different; all
but a handful of the pieces we played
were unknown to me.
Those
pieces that were rehearsed were usually
just ‘topped and tailed’, and only the
tricky passages played through, giving
a novice, such as I was, only a rough
idea of the whole work. If one does
not know the music and the conductor’s
beat is at all unclear (by no means
an infrequent event), it can be difficult
to know whether they are beating two
or four beats to the bar; or what they
are doing at the end of a pause, or
at a ‘cut-off’, when there is a sudden
silence in the music. It is all too
easy to find that you are the only one
left playing when everyone else has
stopped, or, worse still, you have come
in loudly all on your own – that, for
some strange reason, is called a ‘domino’.
This can be amusing to one’s colleagues,
especially if it is a particularly high
or low note, or results in a terrible
strangulated sound, as the player seeks
to suppress the unwanted intrusion.
It is never anything but the source
of acute embarrassment to the player.
The pieces that went unrehearsed I had
to sight-read at the concert. Skating
on thin ice is a less hazardous undertaking!
Dazed and exhausted I got to the end
of the week, the adrenaline pumping
hard.
On Saturday
evening, after the second concert that
day, we returned to London, arriving
back in the early hours of the morning.
Sunday morning dawned much too early
for me; at 10.00 we were rehearsing
again in the Royal Albert Hall (RAH)
for the concert that afternoon.
Monday
morning found us on the train again,
this time bound for Northampton, where
we had another week with eight concerts.
I found the second week a little easier;
I had played a good deal of the music
once. But occasionally overconfidence
and tiredness led to mistakes; I also
had more time to contemplate how much
I needed to learn, if I was to match
the accomplishment of my colleagues.
At the end of the week, back to London
again arriving late on Saturday night
with only a few hours before another
rehearsal and concert in the RAH – and
more new
music
to learn. Then, early on Monday morning
we were off again, this time to Newcastle
for a repeat of the previous two weeks.
I now started to worry whether I would
be offered any more work with the orchestra,
or if this would prove to be just a
flash in the pan. I didn’t feel too
confident about what I was doing, but
at least I now knew what page I was
on – most of the time.
On Friday,
as I was leaving the stage at the end
of the concert, Charlie Gregory, the
Chairman of the Orchestra, stopped me,
and said, ‘Can you spare a moment? I’d
like to have a word with you.’ My heart
sank and, as usual, I feared the worst.
‘They’ve had enough’, I thought. When
I heard Gregory say ‘How would you like
to join the orchestra, as our second
clarinet?’ the gates of Heaven opened,
and I heard the sound of the Great Trumpets!
‘Oh! Yes, that would be wonderful! Thank
you.’ That was one of the best moments
of my life. I could hardly believe my
ears, or really take in the tremendous
opportunity I was being given.
As usual
we returned to London on Saturday evening.
On Sunday, 30th May 1943, we had another
concert in the RAH. It was also my eighteenth
birthday, and I was in luck – it was
a very special concert –
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Sir
Henry Wood conducted, and the soloist
was the very fine pianist, Solomon,
a truly great artist. This was the first
time I played for Sir Henry, though
I had heard my father speak about him
many times. In fact I always felt that
my father was rather pleased with his
impersonation he liked to give of Sir
Henry. Since my father retained his
Russian accent all his life even though
he came to Britain as a young boy, and
Sir Henry spoke with a slightly Edwardian/Cockney
accent, the impression he gave of Sir
Henry was none too accurate.
Sir
Henry belonged to the ‘no-nonsense’
school of conducting. There was nothing
flamboyant, or showy, about his style.
He used a longish, rather thick baton,
and gave a good clear beat. He concentrated
on getting a precise performance with
firm rhythm, clean attack and ensemble,
and good orchestral discipline. His
performances did not enthral you, but
pleased with their honesty and straightforward
musicality. ‘Timber’, as he was known
affectionately in the profession, had
a passion for establishing good habits.
He used to stand at the entrance to
the platform at the Queen’s Hall, with
a tuning fork, which he struck as each
player went past him. The musician would
then play his ‘A’ (the note the whole
orchestra tunes to, usually sounded
by the oboe). I am told that he was
never heard to say ‘flat’, but that
quite frequently he would say, in his
rather nasal voice, ‘shaaarp!’
He believed
that a three hour rehearsal should last
three hours – there was no attempt to
get the goodwill of the orchestra by
finishing early, a device employed by
some conductors. He had a very large
watch, which he used to put on his music
stand. If he had completed the music
to be rehearsed by ten minutes to one,
he would start at a place that allowed
him to continue until one o’clock. Keeping
a careful eye on his watch, he would
stop exactly at one o’clock, whether
this made good sense musically or not.
He also
liked his musicians to mark in their
music any instructions he gave them.
My father had a congenital dislike for
writing anything in the part that would
remind him, or anyone else using that
part in the future, of any changes,
additions or corrections that had been
made, preferring to rely on his memory.
Noting a lack of activity, when my father
should have been busily inserting some
instruction, Sir Henry said, ‘Mr Tschaikov!
Remember! – a bad pencil is better than
a good memory’.
That
concert on my 18th birthday, conducted
by Sir Henry Wood, was the beginning
of the most exciting and important period
of my life. At that age with my background
I might have expected to go to university,
except that I had not acquired the academic
qualifications required, or
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the
desire to acquire them. Instead, between
1943 and 1947 the LPO served as my university.
Here I not only received a wonderful
musical education playing for some of
the finest conductors from the pre-1939
war years, alongside first-class musicians,
but also a schooling that provided a
unique foundation course in living,
for which I have been grateful all my
life.
In May
1945, at the cessation of hostilities
in Europe, there were still only three
London orchestras: the London Symphony,
the London Philharmonic, and the BBC
Symphony Orchestras. The BBC Symphony
Orchestra did not return to London until
September 1945 and the London Symphony
Orchestra was at a rather low ebb, financially
and artistically. The LPO with its dynamic
and imaginative management was able
to take the lead in bringing back to
London’s musical life the international
element that had been missing during
the war years. Tom Russell, with admirable
foresight, had already booked some outstanding
conductors and soloists prior to the
end of the war. We were off to a flying
start and for the next few years a number
of very fine artists who had not played
in Britain since before the war were
engaged by the LPO.
For a
very young musician, such as I was then,
the opportunity to work and associate
with musicians like Sir Thomas Beecham,
Bruno Walter, Eduard van Beinum, Victor
de Sabata, Jaques Thibaud, Heifetz,
Francescatti,
Fournier, Gendron
– the list is endless – was incredible.
Playing
in the LPO as well as being extremely
enjoyable and rewarding musically was
for me a profoundly enriching learning
experience. The structure of the LPO
at that time led to everyone being involved
to a far greater extent than is normal.
Nearly everyone took part in the quite
frequent orchestral meetings at which
important decisions on what course of
action the orchestra should take were
discussed. Naturally, the members of
an orchestra will come from a great
variety of backgrounds, educationally,
socially and economically and hold very
different political views.
Age
plays little part in the position that
a musician may hold within his section
so that an outstanding and exciting
young violinist may become the Leader
of the orchestra when he or she is still
only in their early or mid-twenties,
whilst players sitting at the rear of
the section may have had thirty or more
years experience. The principal flautist,
who has played with the finest conductors
for a lifetime, may be sitting next
to a brilliant young principal oboist
just out of Conservatoire. While this
is always accepted as far as musical
ability is concerned, when it came to
the discussions at meetings the ‘young’
and the ‘old’ – roughly those over and
under forty – opposed each other fairly
regularly. It was rather more serious
when there was a difference of opinion
between those with very strongly held
but opposing political points of view.
On these occasions age would play no
part. The older and younger players
would join together in line with their
political convictions.
This
greater involvement in the affairs and
running of the orchestra revealed all
these differences of background, age
and opinion quite starkly and increased
the stress, frustration and the highs
and lows that are a normal part of a
musician’s life. As a result the virtues
and failings in one’s own character,
and those of ones colleagues, could
be on display for all to see. The pull
of personal ambition versus responsibility
to the group, the courage to take an
unpopular stand, and not run for cover
when a decision one had supported turned
out to have been mistaken, had to be
faced.
I saw
all those qualities and faults of character
that I was to meet throughout my life,
and see at first hand the effect virtues
and vices had on our communal life.
One witnessed courage and determination
contrasted with cowardice, duplicity
and betrayal; tolerance, kindness and
sensitivity, as well as bigotry and
a brutal disregard for the feelings
of others. Sometimes hard decisions
had to be made. Loyalty and friendship
were tested. One did not always come
up to the mark in one’s own estimation,
and, worse still, one failed the test
of the good opinion of one’s fellows.
Feelings
can run pretty high in an orchestra
and sometimes lead to bitter disputes
between colleagues so that players obliged
to sit next to one another within a
section may not be on speaking terms
for a while – possibly for years. Yet,
even when dislike is so great that messages
or instructions have to be passed through
a third party, musicians will play together
with a sweetness and unanimity that
suggests that they are lovers.
For
most of the 1940s the LPO was generally
thought of as a ‘left-wing’ orchestra,
largely because its members had elected
Thomas Russell and Charles Gregory,
both Communists, to the Board of Directors.
With Tom Russell as the Business Manager
(later General Manager) and Charlie
Gregory as Chairman of the Board of
Directors, their influence was indeed
considerable.
As a
very young man I was attracted by the
idealism and intellectual vigour of
both these men, especially Gregory,
and also by other Communists in the
orchestra, who were fine players and
set an example I wanted to emulate.
In view
of the immense changes that have taken
place in Eastern Europe it is worth
recalling that this was wartime, and
that the Soviet Union was our ally.
Uncle Joe, the now despised and rejected
Joseph Stalin, was a popular figure.
Throughout the world, and especially
in Europe and the USA, a considerable
number of the most outstanding creative
and performing artists had joined the
Communist Party. In 1944 I did so too.
But following a ‘party line’ of any
kind is not something for which I think
I am suited and I proved to be a difficult,
recalcitrant and rather short lived
member.
It is
not surprising that the LPO was not
too popular with the old-guard arts
hierarchy. Perhaps, even more than the
spectre of a ‘red’ orchestra in its
midst, the knowledge that the members
of the orchestra alone were responsible
for its management decisions and successful
artistic policy sent shivers down the
spine of those who felt that musicians
who play instruments should stick to
doing just that, and leave management
and artistic decisions to their betters
(who don’t dirty their hands with violas,
trumpets, or the like). Sadly, this
same attitude can still be heard today
from some of the backwoodsmen amongst
our critics and administrators.
Tom
Russell had both flair and insight;
and he had the energy and drive to achieve
his objectives. As an administrator
he lacked the patience for the humdrum
chores of everyday office routine; he
was more concerned with ideas, and when
those around him in the office did not
check carefully there could be quite
serious mistakes. I have always found
it ironic that the LPO dismissed Russell,
many years later, not for any mistakes
he had made or any lack of ability,
but because he went to China for his
holiday! But this did not stop the Orchestra
from taking advantage of Russell’s visit,
and the contacts he had made. They were
the first British orchestra to tour
China.
Towards
the end of 1944, several weeks before
the Annual General Meeting I received
the notice and the audited accounts.
It was the first time I had ever seen
accounts and so they were a complete
mystery to me. I assumed that everyone
else would understand them, so I decided
to take professional advice. I phoned
the chap who looked after my income
tax returns (my only contact with the
world of finance) and he agreed to have
a look at the accounts with me. Like
many accountants he was a serious man,
and as he examined the LPO accounts
his face assumed an even more serious
expression. It seems that there were
a number of entries that in his view
required questioning. His advice was
that I should not under any circumstances
agree to the accounts before I had received
satisfactory answers to the questions
he told me I should ask.
I expected
that at the AGM the older and more experienced
members of the orchestra would be leaping
to their feet and peppering Tom Russell
with questions about the balance sheet.
But there wasn’t a murmur from anyone.
Always willing to rush in when caution
might be wiser, I thought I might as
well put in my pennyworth. I stood up
and asked a couple of questions. Consternation!
Mr Haines, the Assistant Secretary,
was dispatched to seek further information.
On his return one or two more searching
questions caused increasing discomposure,
until, after his third attempt to find
evidence to silence this unwanted flow
of questions, Tom Russell decided to
throw himself on the mercy of the meeting.
It seems there was really nothing to
worry about; the cause of the apparent
inconsistencies was a move by the accounts
department from the basement to the
second floor. In the process one or
two of the books had been mislaid, nonetheless
he could assure the meeting there was
absolutely nothing to worry about. After
a short discussion he asked for a vote
of confidence, which he received, though
not without some dissent. The democratic
process has always appealed to me as
the cut and thrust of debate is natural
to my temperament. The LPO provided
the ideal environment in which it could
flourish.
Though
the orchestra’s artistic policy was
splendid, inattention to detail had
led to a decline in our financial position.
On a previous occasion, before I joined
the orchestra, the players had had to
make sacrifices to keep the orchestra
afloat. It looked as if this might occur
again. At one meeting this question
was the subject of considerable concern.
Various solutions were put forward:
we should play programmes that did not
require the engagement of costly extra
players, especially when we played in
smaller halls on tour; we should engage
conductors whose fees were relatively
modest. These suggestions so infuriated
one of the members that he stood up
and declaimed in a very loud voice,
his face red with indignation, ‘We must
never make artistic concessions. We
should take Maestro de Sabata to every
fishing village in Britain.’ This piece
of high-flown rhetoric referred to the
remarkable Italian conductor, Victor
de Sabata, who conducted the orchestra
frequently at that time. Unfortunately
Maestro de Sabata liked programmes that
included works for a large orchestra,
requiring additional wind and percussion
players and extra rehearsals, making
his visits extremely costly.
This
suggestion seemed so absurd to me that
I felt it was time to put forward a
solution. Tom Russell had a fairly large
staff, some thought too large, and had
attracted a number of interesting, valuable
and worthy people around him. Each time
I went to the LPO offices in Welbeck
Street it seemed that their number had
grown. With tongue firmly in cheek I
said, ‘I think I have the answer to
our difficulties.’ All heads turned
towards me. ‘Why don’t we increase the
office staff to forty, and send a trio
on tour? That way we could balance the
books!’ My suggestion met with a variety
of responses. Some of my colleagues
smiled, a few laughed; others looked
incredulous; several appeared to be
about to have an apoplectic fit. I learnt
that it is dangerous, when one is young,
to address one’s elders and betters
in this way. My performance in the orchestra
was listened to with increasingly critical
ears. And fault was found – because,
of course, fault there was. But I weathered
the storm, and remained unrepentant.
When,
in 1944 Sir Thomas Beecham returned
to his old orchestra he found
that it was now managing itself very
successfully. After a year or
so his
need to be able to be in charge of everything
to do with the orchestra made it increasingly
difficult for him to work together with
the orchestra’s elected management.
Reluctantly the orchestra and Sir Thomas
parted company. By 1946 he had formed
the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO)
and in 1947 I left the LPO and started
playing in his new orchestra.
This
was a step into a very different environment.
Now I was not one of a group of musicians
making decisions about their own future.
In the RPO I no longer had any part
in the management. However, there were
benefits: I was paid considerably more,
I was playing in an even better orchestra
with some of the most outstanding woodwind
players at that time. And above all
I would be playing a great deal of the
time with one of the greatest conductors.
The following years were to be probably
the happiest of my musical life
Chapter
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