The CBSO seems to have
been part of my life’s horizon for a
very long time yet to my shame I have
been to very few of their concerts.
I was born in Birmingham. My father
sang the praises of the City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and when I was a
student in Bristol (1971-75) I went
to several of their concerts at the
Colston Hall. In fact I attended far
more concerts by the Bournemouth Symphony
Orchestra. That said, there are affection
and respect there. It’s borne of tradition,
borne of memorable recordings and of
the CBSO’s determined allegiance – emphasised
during Sakari Oramo’s tenure – to the
byways of the repertoire.
My father also extolled
the virtues of the founder conductor
who was in post long before Maggie Cotton’s
day and long before Boult took over
the orchestra: T. Appleby Mathews (b.
1890s? - d. 1949). That was when the
orchestra was simply the City of Birmingham
Orchestra - CBO. Boult who held the
CBO reins from 1924 to 1930 recorded
the Bantock Hebridean Symphony with
them under that shorter name on acoustic
78s. These were never issued - a fascinating
revival project there for some dedicated
engineer with access to the masters.
The orchestra’s first
LP recording was made in the 1960s with
Hugo Rignold (1905-1976). As far as
I know they never made any 78s. That
LP was a Lyrita (SRCS33) of Bliss’s
Blow Meditations and the Music
for Strings. These remain fine interpretations
and we can only hope that they will
not be neglected in the latest Lyrita
reissue deal struck with Nimbus.
From my Bristol days
I recall one not-wonderful concert conducted
by Harold Gray and several luminous
ones under Louis Frémaux (b.
1921) including an indelibly memorable
Ma Mère l’Oye suite. Frémaux
also impressed me enormously with a
stunning EMI Studio 4 (EMI’s riposte
to Decca’s Phase Four) recording of
Massenet’s ballet music from El Cid.
From 1977 there came the Walton coronation
marches plus Te Deum and Gloria
– still unequalled.
After such an introduction
you might be expecting Maggie Cotton’s
book to be entirely about the trials
and tribulations of the CBSO written
from the exalted podium vantage point
of the percussionist. Music is certainly
central to this beefy book but in addition
we get lots of vivid 1950s and 1960s
detail that will set readers of a certain
age reminiscing. Scenes in mother’s
kitchen, seasonal celebrations, a jam-making
granddad, vintage sweets, appalling
comments from teachers and a host of
teeming period flavour.
The author was born
in 1937 in Yorkshire. Her passion for
music was inflamed by a performance
Sibelius’s First Symphony by the Yorkshire
Symphony Orchestra given in Huddersfield
Town Hall. In that connection I should
mention the book’s dedication to the
late Adrian Smith (a one-time reviewer
for this site) the conductor of the
Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra who
often directed concerts in Huddersfield
and whose attitude to repertoire was
wonderfully refreshing and ambitious.
Maggie Cotton’s prentice
efforts in local youth orchestras led
to a successful audition for the National
Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in
1954. An early part involved playing
the tambourine in Dvořák’s
Carnival Overture. Thus
were the foundations laid. Among her
fellows in the NYO were Iona Brown,
Rohan de Saram and Nicholas Braithwaite.
There she also encountered conductors
who were to have a major impact on her
CBSO life: Hugo Rignold and Adrian Boult.
But that would be after her studies
at the RAM. Those years included participating
in the multifarious percussion-encrusted
A Grand Grand Overture by Malcolm
Arnold – one of the Hoffnung concerts
in 1956 and playing the xylophone in
Holst’s Choral Symphony. The
role played by the supportively benevolent
James Blades should also be mentioned
alongside her page-turning assignments
for Wilfred Lehman and Alfredo Campoli.
In 1959 came her sub-principal
percussionist job with the CBSO and
at last financial security … even a
van. Boult was there at first. There
are a couple of anecdotes that will
leave you shivering. Maggie must have
developed a thick skin as the target
of sexist banter in the very different
man’s world of the orchestra at that
time. And Boult was no exception, as
we read. A very different world and
one also conjured by the title. Boult
stood down in 1960 with his place being
taken by Hugo ‘Riggy’ Rignold.
Little character vignettes
are dotted here and there throughout
including a vivid pen portrait of RVW;
one to add to the composer’s literature.
There’s plenty of detail about Boult
and Rattle and Oramo and Riggy. The
latter’s instant dismissal of the tardy,
defiant, foolhardily hot-headed and
desperately unwise CBSO principal percussionist
elevated Maggie to the lead percussion
place. We also encounter the podium-dancing
Louis Frémaux; he of the French
Resistance and French Foreign Legion
service. His years with the CBSO were
a delight but they ended in bitterness.
There is much about
Simon Rattle and not all of it very
favourable. However his dynamic work
ethic and vivid bawdy way with words
and music are communicated with stunning
vigour and touching sincerity. Rabelaisian
- or is it Chaucerian - references to
farts (think woodwind and brass) and
sex were part of getting his message
across to the orchestra at rehearsals.
A particularly slinky passage had to
be played not so much sensually ‘off
the shoulder’ but shamelessly ‘topless’.
Maggie is delightfully
direct – she leaves us in no doubt about
her preferences – on retiring from the
CBSO she cited one of her pleasures
as the relief in not having to perform
any more Elgar or Vaughan Williams.
Coincidentally that was very much the
Rattle line as well if I recall correctly
his programmes on twentieth century
music.
The book is smashing
value combining what amounts to a musical
biography over 239 pages with a further
140 pages of chapters reflecting on
various themes in the music world into
which are woven anecdotes, insights
and experiences. We read about recording
sessions, new music, composers with
no idea what is practical for an instrumentalist,
introducing children to classical music
(how to do it and how not to do it),
international tours, encounters with
animals, work as an orchestral fixer
for Northern concerts, dress codes,
experience of conductors including those
with a tendency to lecture the orchestra
and much else. At other times the reader
is treated to a delicious image of the
orchestral players as a Chaucerian melee
of bullies and misers, dipsos and Lotharios
… and the rest.
Maggie also writes
about of her excitement and pride in
Birmingham. The Birmingham that was
taking shape in the 1960s as the Bullring
was built. There’s evident and fully
justified pleasure in the orchestra’s
new concert hall which makes even worse
the small-minded slights or oversights
by the scandalously thoughtless management
who invited only part of the orchestra
as guests to the official reception
to launch the hall.
‘A weird old hag hitting
things’? I think not!
Plenty to interest,
provoke and reveal but precious it ain’t.
A perfect Christmas-New
Year read.
Rob Barnett
See
also review by Paul Serotsky
Further
details and specimen page
