Jonathan Woolf was born in London in
1963. Successive failure to master the
piano, cornet and violin persuaded him
to abandon such musical ambitions as
he had. Instead a vicarious pleasure
was nurtured in the talent of others,
encouraged by his parents who insisted
on taking him as a child to concerts
through which he happily slept (the
acme of this achievement was one given
by Klemperer).
A period in the wilderness
- also known as university - saw
late nights accompanied by day time
visits to now long-departed record
shops. It was at Direction in Dean Street
for example that he first heard
Rubbra and a George Lloyd Symphony,
that kindled his interest in British
music. And it was at the Music Exchange
in Betterton Street that he
descended to the basement depths and
bought his first 78. He still maintains
an inquisitive approach to the repertoire
maintaining interests in British,
Czech and Scandinavian music amongst
much else.
As a reviewer he focuses
on
a significant number of historic recordings,
remaining as unshakeable an
admirer of musicians of the past as
the day he first
heard their recordings (specifically
violinists Mischa Elman, Albert Sammons
and Fritz
Kreisler).
Married, he works as
a librarian, a suitable profession for
cataloguing the mountainous piles of
LPs, CDs, 78s, cassettes and books that
seek daily to envelop him.
