VERNON HANDLEY
1930-2008
When my telephone rang at 11.00
a.m. on Wednesday 10 September,
and Lewis Foreman told me that he
had just heard from Roger Wright
that Tod Handley had died two hours
earlier, my reaction was one of
great sadness, but tinged with a
feeling of frustration – frustration
that something was unfinished, that
there was so much still to be said
and done.
He was a great musician who never
quite achieved the fame he deserved
– and, perhaps, so much desired.
The reason for this was a combination
of ill-health (some of it self-induced)
and bad luck. So many were the occasions
that I had beaten a path to some
out-of-town concert to hear Tod
conduct, sometimes involving an
overnight stay, only to find that
he had cancelled and someone else
– who did not fulfil expectations
in quite the same way – had stepped
into the breach at the last moment.
The last straw was perhaps the car
accident in which he was involved
while conducting in Germany, resulting
in frequent spells in hospital at
Abergavenny, near where he lived,
and the necessity for crutches or
sticks to aid mobility. I remember
talking to him on the telephone
in hospital one Christmas morning
and, at around 11.15, as our conversation
was drawing to a close, he said,
‘And now I must deal with this Christmas
pudding!’, an indication that even
this great man was not exempt from
the strange chronology of hospital
catering!
I first got to know him when I was
secretary of the Elgar Society London
Branch and he gave a marvellous
one-day course at Guildford in the
early 1980s called ‘Elgar from the
conductor’s point of view’ (though
he quickly made it clear that it
was really ‘Elgar from this
conductor’s point-of-view’). This
was a real tour-de-force for, although
he had his programme worked out,
and recorded illustrations all arranged
in the correct order, to be managed
by his assistant Alan Forrow of
the Guildford Philharmonic Society,
his own delivery appeared to be
entirely spontaneous and without
reference to notes. Comparisons
of various recorded interpretations
of Elgar’s music were involved,
and how they matched (or didn’t
match!) the printed score. He brought
the house down, and had us eating
out of his hand, by stating early
on that he was not going to identify
the conductors of the various excerpts,
for ‘after all, some of these idiots
are my friends’!
Tod had immense musical integrity,
and for him – as with his mentor
Sir Adrian Boult – the score was
always the starting point, resulting
in superb performances that reject
the endless recycling of received
opinions and get back to what is
actually on the page, often with
revelatory results. I remember a
small but utterly illuminating moment
in one of his brilliant talks to
the Elgar Society, where he pointed
out that at the words ‘The mind
bold and independent’ (The Dream
of Gerontius, fig. 44), almost
everybody, in recorded and live
performances makes the note value
of ‘The’ a semi-quaver, whereas
it is actually a quaver. He was
right – and the difference is actually
very telling!
What also attracted me was of course
the stick technique – an example
of ‘real’ conducting rather than
‘waving yourself about’ in front
of an orchestra. After the death
of Rudolf Kempe in 1976 I had felt
that there was no-one else who conducted
properly any more, but Tod filled
the gap, I think with a marvellous
performance of Rakhmaninoff’s Second
Symphony with the London Philharmonic
Orchestra at the Royal Festival
Hall, where I realized that beneath
all those big romantic tunes so
much was happening to give the music
a whole new dimension of passion
and excitement. I’ve always admired
those successful disciples of Nikisch
who could say so much with their
sticks and so make the music more
powerful and telling as a result.
The art that conceals art.
So once again my post-Kempe thought
gloomily returns: ‘Who else conducts
like that now?’ – Hilary Davan-Wetton
perhaps? Bryan Fairfax (but alas
he doesn’t conduct any more)? Very
few, I think …
It was also apparent that after
so many of Tod’s performances, orchestras
– jaded or played out, perhaps –
seemed utterly invigorated, though
it is for the members of those orchestras
to say whether or not this is correct.
When he was invited back as guest
conductor of the First Orchestra
at the Royal College of Music (where
he had previously been Professor
for Conducting), the students had
been impressed not only by his rehearsing
and conducting, but also by the
fact that he had taken the trouble
to memorize the names of players
and so addressed them personally
(‘Marcus’, rather than ‘First Trombone’)
as required during the rehearsals.
This was another occasion where
he did not appear at the actual
concert owing to being taken ill,
the excellent John Forster (an ardent
disciple of the maestro) standing
in at very short notice.
In the latter years he would often
look terrible, and totter to the
rostrum for rehearsals, concerts,
or recordings but, as soon as the
stick came down and the music began,
the years would fall away and energy
and inspiration would emanate from
him. I remember the same experience
at Sir Adrian Boult’s concerts towards
the end of his career.
On a personal level he was always
approachable, though he did not
always follow up the things he said.
When he rang up to congratulate
my wife and me on the birth of our
daughter in 1998 he promised to
call in on the way back from that
year’s bird-watching holiday with
‘a gift for the little one’, but
this never happened. However, once
in response to the news in our Christmas
letter that we had decided to home-educate
our daughter, he rang and spoke
at length to both my wife and me
with great enthusiasm about this,
congratulating us on our decision,
which shows, at least, that he had
read the letter! My wife has never
forgotten this, and my friend Andrew
Neill tells me how much Tod loved
children, and I bitterly regret
that my daughter, now a ten year
old cellist and singer, never met
her ‘Uncle Tod’ or saw him conduct.
We had hoped this might have come
to pass at Prom No. 2 this year.
I tried to pin him down of several
occasions over my idea for a book
called Vernon Handley and the
art of real conducting, which
appealed to him greatly, but would
have involved a high level of personal
input from him. Nothing came of
it because of the difficulty of
arranging the necessary meetings.
Perhaps something along these lines
may now appear posthumously. He
deserves to be remembered and honoured
for his contributions to music in
so many ways additional to his performances,
live and on record. I shall miss
him enormously.
Garry Humphreys © 2008
www.garryhumphreys.com
see also Richard
Adams interviews Vernon Handley
