Adrian
A. Smith
b. Kingston-upon-Hull,
28 October 1931
d. Huddersfield,
6 December 2005
Contributions from
John Quinn
Paul Serotsky
Sir Malcolm
Arnold
Arthur
Butterworth MBE
Mathew
Curtis
Keith
Llewellyn
Elaine
Carter
Marilyn
and Dick Myers, Edgewood Symphony
Orchestra
Stuart
Marsden, SPO Trumpeter
From Paul Serotsky,
writer and reviewer -
In 1991, the blossoming
Slaithwaite Philharmonic forsook the
comparatively cosy confines of St. Paul’s
Concert Hall (Huddersfield University)
for the wider expanses of Huddersfield
Town Hall. Regardless of any nostalgia
for the orchestra’s former venue – and
there were those who would sooner have
stayed "cosy" - I am certain
that, had the SPO remained in St. Paul’s,
it could never have staged some of the
astonishing events that, with hindsight,
must already have been gestating in
Adrian’s imagination. As the title of
his history of the SPO suggests, for
Adrian nothing, but nothing,
was "impossible" - the "improbable",
on the other hand, was the red rag to
his bull. Before the event, would we
have dared to imagine that the SPO would
not only put on, but also pull off,
a performance of Shostakovich’s Leningrad
Symphony, and would top that, a
few years later, with Mahler’s Third?
To be fair, even Adrian himself harboured
secret doubts: having listened to the
recording I had made of the Mahler,
he rang me to express his surprise at
how good it sounded (the performance,
that is, not the recording). Now, it
gladdens my heart to know that my modest
recording allowed him, as it were, to
retire to his critic’s seat in the audience
Adrian’s faith in the
SPO was boundless. During those heady
days of the 90s the orchestra went from
strength to strength, consolidating
and expanding its reputation for imaginative
and adventurous programming, of works
great and small, popular and neglected,
but always worthy of an audience’s attention.
His attitude was not "Can we do
it?" but "When can
we do it?" Sadly, one ambition
that he never realised was to conduct
the SPO in the Huddersfield première
of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Under his baton, that would have been
a fireworks night to remember!
Ever since the Town
Hall rehearsal in October 1991, when
Adrian's "Excuse me, but do I know
you?" registered on me as not altogether
unreasonable (seeing as in the two years
since our first and only meeting I had
shed a singularly bushy beard), we steadily
developed a relationship of mutual respect
and tolerance - respect (albeit cunningly
concealed) on my part, and tolerance
(albeit scarcely maintained) on his!
As a result, I have come to appreciate
some of his less spectacularly obvious
talents, in particular his editorial
abilities. This all came about because,
in the covering letter I sent with the
SPO’s copy of each recording, I would
comment on their performances. It wasn’t
long before Adrian invited me to contribute
to Philharmonic, the SPO’s quarterly
magazine of which he was founder and
editor.
Although we shared
the same high regard for the proper
use of the English language, in matters
of style and taste we were poles apart.
As one who took some pride in being
the most obstreperous – for some reason,
I preferred this to Adrian’s "most
prolific" - contributor to Philharmonic,
I was better placed than most to register
admiration for his deft diplomacy and
when required – which was fairly frequently
- Boycott-like batsmanship. Equally,
it was Adrian who took the credit, although
some would prefer to say "blame",
for involving me in programme note writing
following my particularly enthusiastic
preview of the SPO’s forthcoming Mahler
Third.
Subsequently, over
both articles and programme notes, we
fought many a running battle, in which
he would sometimes - thankfully only
figuratively! - beat me about the head
with Fowler’s Modern English Usage
and any number of other substantial
reference tomes. Come to think of it,
very likely he would have taken me to
task over much of what I’m writing here!
Very occasionally, he seemed to lose
his temper but, in another close parallel
with Barbirolli, this was merely momentary
exasperation, which evaporated with
the moment. On one occasion, he returned
a draft with a list of complaints, starting
with "I’ll be blunt" (this
was ominous: he was never anything else!)
and ending with, ". . . and anyway,
at 3100 words, it’s far too long. You’ll
have to get it down to less than 2500."
After much work, I returned the revision,
apologising abjectly because I couldn’t
get below 2600. His reply? "You
took so long getting back to me I was
starting to worry that you’d taken your
bat home," soon followed by, "What’s
100 words between friends?" Only
once did I get, "I can’t
print this – you’ll have to re-write
it!". Needless to say, re-write
it I did.
Clearly, though, I
must have benefited from his tutelage:
in June 2003 he e-mailed me: "Congrats
on the Vancouver commission.
Tell me - had you written programme
notes before I asked you to do SPO notes?
. . . I'd like to think I was instrumental
in launching you in a new direction!"
Indeed he was, and I was but one of
many that he had launched in one way
or another. His dealings may have been
– shall we say? – robust, but he was
also an unstintingly supportive friend,
even a surrogate, idealised father.
On an occasion, when I had been callously
treated by another organisation, he
declared, "How can people be so
insensitive to those who have given
hours of their time to voluntary service? I
begin to understand the N Ireland factions
and even the Taliban."
Like John Quinn, I
was dragooned into MusicWeb by "another"
Adrian. Perhaps surprisingly, "Adrian
the Reviewer" was quite different
from "Adrian the Editor/Author".
Whereas the "Editor" insisted
on tact and diplomacy, the "Reviewer"
took the opposite viewpoint, placing
absolute honesty and frankness of expression
above all else. In one e-mail exchange,
he said, "Having exhausted every
conceivable excuse for avoiding the
task, I've turned to the CDs long
awaiting review. I've just
sent off two - one, of another splendid
organ recital by Jean-Pierre Lecaudey,
the other, of a wretched liturgical
piece by a contemporary Frenchman -
so bad that by comparison Stainer's
The Crucifixion . . .
positively glistens with inspiration."
His candid reviews
in the Huddersfield Examiner
are the stuff of legend. They were certainly
succinct: he constantly complained about
the space made available to him. They
frequently got him into hot water, of
a sort that led me to suspect that Arthur
Butterworth had Adrian very much in
mind when he wrote his carefully-considered
and acutely perceptive MusicWeb article,
The
Critic's Prime Concern. Quite simply,
Adrian saw no kindness in saying that
something was wonderful when patently
it wasn’t. He asked me, "How can
people hope to improve if we don’t speak
as we find?" Like his charity,
his honesty began at home: in 1992,
having received a critical accolade
for a performance by his own orchestra,
he exhorted, ". . . we can - and
must – do better yet!" Adrian prized
his candour, on one occasion commenting
ruefully, "We have one thing at
least in common - no concern about our
'reputations'." I am certain that,
now he’s gone, he’ll be sorely missed
even by "Grumble-guts of Golcar".
On the concert platform,
quite apart from matters musical, he
was always willing to consider matters
microphonic. Not everyone is even tolerant
of these technological intrusions, but
it was typical of the Smith psyche that
he sought to maximise the benefits of
every aspect of the "business".
Adrian received many accolades for his
conducting, but I don't think he actually
was a conductor. His stick technique,
for one thing, would have had his Christian-namesake,
Dr Boult, sobbing into his soup. No
– plenty of people can conduct, but
few can get the results that Adrian
did.
Notwithstanding the
close parallels with Barbirolli drawn
by John Quinn, I think Adrian’s achievements
on the podium derived almost exclusively
from a functional quality he shared
with Leonard Bernstein, and that is
the ability to inspire, which
corresponds closely to Maggie Cotton’s
succinct "Adrian the Enabler".
Whether by instruction, teasing, cajoling,
begging, or yelling - the method matters
not – there was something deep within
him that was beyond price. Neither did
it matter whether he knew what this
"something" was, only that
he made full use of it.
Yet, for all his achievements,
Adrian’s most treasurable asset was
his character. In the programme booklet
for his SPO Farewell Concert the potted
biography, which showed every sign of
being penned by Adrian himself, said
this:
"Among his
interests outside music he lists religion
(he is a Roman Catholic), politics (firmly
Conservative), literature (Anthony Trollope
is his favourite novelist), writing
and editing, medieval church architecture
and photography . . . He abhors the
tabloid press, most forms of popular
culture and all forms of political correctness,
not to mention the media's obsession
with 'celebrities'. Unapologetically
English, he does not regard soccer as
the defining characteristic of his nation's
identity."
His dislikes are especially
revealing – basically he disdained things
that were all surface and no substance.
For Political Correctness, which compounded
this sin with the far worse one of warping
the English language to fit its ends,
he had reserved a special place in hell.
To anyone privileged to hear him hold
forth on PC, it was an education.
Like most visionaries,
though, he tended to be single-minded,
which spelt danger for those who had
to deal with the consequent practicalities.
He would regard with innocent amazement
the tearing out of hair in frustration.
The crux was that Adrian was, in the
truest sense of the word, an amateur,
the intensity of whose love of whatever
he was doing drew people to him, and
made them tear their hair with glad
hearts - even if they didn’t think so
at the time.
Like so many others,
I was such a small part of his life,
but he played such a large part in mine.
Like so many others, the thought that
is uppermost in my mind is, "What
am I going to do without him?"
An Improbable Venue - Adrian and the
SPO
