Grade 1 Violin

  I used to steer clear of critics but in the earliest days I wrote a cheeky letter to Neville Cardus offering to pay for him to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen. He had written a fatuous piece saying he would admire Stockhausen if he could compose tunes like Lehar. I published the letter with my offer and of course there was no way Cardus  was going to take me up on that. He came out of the exchange with a brutta figura. It was just as well he didn't call my bluff because bluff it was. I liked critics who had published books on music. John Warrack had written a wonderful book on Weber for example so he was OK. David Cairns had written a magisterial biography of Berlioz but I fell out with him, I can't remember why. Possibly something to do with Stockhausen again? Ronald Crichton was a very civilised critic. He would write 'can this have been a boring performance?' instead of 'This was a boring performance.' I appreciated that. Andrew Porter was som...

    The 29 th  May 1963 was the 50 th  anniversary of the first performance of 'Le sacre du printemps' at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris. To commemorate that notorious occasion the LSO had planned a concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London to include ''Le sacre' under its Musical Director Pierre Monteux who had of course been the conductor of the ballet 50 years previously. The concert would be in the presence of the composer and would take place 50 years to the day later. Stravinsky had been unhappy to attend this concert because he would have liked to have conducted it himself but there was no denying that Monteux had been the original conductor and no doubt a large fee had been offered for him to make the journey to attend the concert and take a bow afterwards. This is the background to Stravinsky's intention to be elsewhere during the performance and merely to take a bow afterwards. So he asked his friend, Isaiah Berlin where they could ...

I never represented him but I like to think I had a hand in establishing him in his career. I first met him when he conducted 'Robert le Diable' at Wexford. I had dinner with him afterwards together with his whole family, mother, father and all. Later, when my old friend Nicholas Snowman became manager at Glyndebourne he asked me who he should get to succeed Haitink and I suggested Jurowski whom he took of course. The rest is history.

Yesterday's 'Elisir' was too awful to be funny. The entire cast, chorus and innumerable extras, doppelgangers etc jigged up and down to every rhythm throughout the opera with the exception of 'Una furtiva lagrima.' In that we had a female acrobat entwining herself in some mauve sheeting that had appeared from above. The Nemorino, John Osborn was encored (something I've never seen before in opera*). The acrobat thought it was her encore too. Unbelievable. Aleksandra Kurzak was great though and made the E.115 we paid per seat almost worth it.  * In fact I suspect 'Una furtiva lagrima' is often encored. I saw an interview with the great Ferruccio Tagliavini in which he said he once had to sing it three times.   

  Sadly at the end of his life he hit the bottle. I remember a concert with him and the Halle. It was memorable only for poor playing. What a contrast to his earlier work. Simonov told me he went to a concert Barbirolli conducted in Moscow. He was very impressed although he noticed a bottle of brandy in his dressing room that was full before the concert and half full at the end.

  A cousin by marriage was Raymond Cohen who led the RPO for many years so I got to 2 Beecham concerts. The first was in the Coventry Cathedral Festival in 1962 and the second later at the RFH. He played Beethoven 7 in both; totally different performances, often suppressing the main theme and bringing out counter-melodies seemingly for his own pleasure. Raymond played the Goldmark Violin concerto in London. After the Coventry concert Beecham addressed the audience: 'Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. You are extremely fortunate to have this magnificent Orchestra in the terrible city of yours' (huge laughter). Now we're going to play an encore and I invite you to guess what it is. If anyone can identify the piece I will pay for them to have a weekend in Paris!' After playing the piece, suggestions came from the audience: 'Is it Brahms?' 'Noooo. Brahms would never have had the inspiration to write a work like that.' Similar treatment to other su...

Rozhdestvensky used to conduct various Budapest orchestras. On the last occasion he asked me why the players looked so sad. I had a ready reply that all Hungarians are either manic or depressive which I think is true. This entire orchestra were depressives.

A few years ago I went to Prague. As usual I had arranged to see the artistic administrator the afternoon of the performance I was to hear. I asked for him at the stage door and got a very blank look. Enquiries were made but nobody had ever heard of that gentleman. Gradually it dawned on me that I was at the wrong opera house. I had no idea there were two but it spoke volumes for the lack of contact between them that one had never heard of the other one's artistic head.

Carl Nielsen? My opinion was not very high of him until I attended a concert performance of 'Saul and David' conducted by Andrew Davis and was blown away. In the right hands it is a fantastic piece. Sadly the recording with Christoff and Horenstein pales by comparison. I guess like Busoni, he needs a really good performance to bring his works to life. Do you like Busoni? My theory is that the works he is famous for are not his best. For example I prefer 'Turandot' to 'Dr. Faust' and the Violin Concerto to the Piano Concerto. However, the Turandot Suite is only any good under Muti and the Violin Concerto needs performers such as Celibidache and Adolf Busch to make its point I think. His Goethe Lieder in the hands of Fischer-Dieskau are great songs but as for the others?

  Why this concentration on that particular conductor? I think it's because there is no one these days who has the same overarching integrity. I bought 'Klemperer on Music - Shavings from a Musician's Workbench' recently. I can't think why I never read it before. The following passage sums up what makes him special in my view. He is at a performance of Gluck's Orfeo in 'little' Dessau; 'A truly encouraging example, and evidence of the truth that he who grasps the whole will recognise and rule the right in all its proportions...a musical exploit of such beauty and correctness as I nowhere else have met at any theatre.' I was fortunate enough to attend Klemperer's performance of Mahler's 9 th with the New Philharmonia Orchestra in Paris in April 1967. In his book he writes that the 9 th  is his greatest symphony. That performance embodied exactly what K  meant by 'he who grasps the whole...' I had never heard the sympho...

  I was once responsible for something to do with Klemperer about which I am not very proud. In my early days as an agent I sponsored some recordings with EMI in order to try and launch some promising artists. One of these was 'Euryanthe' and my conductor was Marek Janowski. Maybe you know the recording (with Jessye Norman, Rita Hunter, Nikolai Gedda and Tom Krause)? I later learned that Klemperer had wanted to record that opera so my project frustrated his plan to do so. Janowski took that chance I had offered him - and then left me! As a direct result of having recorded Euryanthe in Dresden with the Staatskapelle there he was invited to record the Ring with them. At least my sponsorship was financially successful; I am still receiving royalties 50 years later. Another - bigger - project was 'Guillaume Tell' with Caballe, Gedda and Bacquier, conducted by Gardelli. Gardelli had the good grace to stick with me until the end of his career. However, for me, even m...

  About Legge, I remember reading a letter he wrote to someone at HMV/EMI on the subject of where to break the music at the end of a side in the Furtwangler recording of 'Tristan.' He disagreed so violently with what the EMI functionary had proposed that the guy might well have shrivelled up and died. I gave my copy of the book where I had read this 'On and off the Record.' I think it was and much later tried to find the letter again in a later edition but it had been omitted. I must try again not least because such a letter these days would have resulted in Legge getting fired for bullying. I'm not at all like Legge in that respect but I ask myself what is better - that the side breaks should be right or someone's feelings should not be hurt. when Legge was finally fired from EMI, no one would give him a job. He was even turned down by the Wexford Festival (they should have been so lucky). I think that was a sign of the times. In fact I noticed that no...

  I hadn't heard his interviews on You Tube so I listened to them this morning. I actually had a closer relationship to him for a few years. He became Chief Conductor in all but name (he didn't want the title) of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and I used to go to his concerts there and chat well into the night with him afterwards. In some ways a lot of what he said in the interviews he also said to me back then in the 1970s. I'm thinking particularly of his view that a conductor has to learn his (or her) trade when very young and on the job so the arm has its own mind and can bring a singer into line automatically when they stray. Also, his ideas on operatic production. I remember he got an offer from Bayreuth quite early on but told them he would only accept if they gave him his own new production. That closed the door to him for about 40 years! He later admitted that had been a mistake but that was typical of his personality. His father had been a Po...

I am rather fascinated by this figure having come across him early in life and being impressed especially by hos recording of the overture to 'Russlan and Ludmilla' which was the first I had ever heard at the time. Later, my Bolshoi conductors Mark Ermler and Gennady Rozhdestvensky filled me in on the Dobrowen-lore that still esxisted in the annals of the Bolshoi orchestra, viz how his name was originally Barabeitchik, how he was Lenin's favourite pianist, how there was a Barabeitchik in the percussion section of the orchestra for a long time after Issay had emigrated (a brother?), etc. Then on reading Ingmar Bergman's autobiography, 'The Magic Lantern' I was amazed and touched to learn that Dobrowen had been a formative influence on Bergman who had assisted him on operatic productions in Stockholm. I knew that Dobrowen had produced as well as directed opera but was delighted to learn that he seems to have been an xcellent stage director as well as c...

  Israel Baker I worked with Israel Baker for a short while. He had been one of the youngest members of the NBC Symphony under Toscanini and as you know, recorded chamber music with Heifetz but did most of his work in Hollywood. He was a sweet guy. I got him 2 engagements to play the Schoenberg Violin Concerto, one in the UK and one in Germany. Because of UK Work Permit rules, his performance here was cancelled on the grounds that he was not an 'International Artist.' the one in Germany went ahead. Had he performed FIRST in Germany he would have been allowed to play here. Managgia!!!

  Yesterday, I met a woman at a stone-setting who had been researching her family and discovered she was descended from a Portuguese Jew in the Netherlands whose name was 'Belmonte.' She told me that the Belmonte family later changed the name - to Schoenberg which of course is a literal translation of Belmonte into German and that Arnold Schoenberg was a member of this family.

  Another conductor I had at SFO was Elyakum Shapirra, another competent but underwhelming artist I'm afraid. I believe when he went to see 'the boss' Adler hid under his desk. I asked Ronald Adler if that could be true and he said quite possibly because conductors only ever wanted to see him to ask for more rehearsal time. I had a meeting with Adler in which I told him Stockhausen was about to embark on a 7 - opera cycle and might he be interested in having one, to which he said 'Mr. Slotover, you don't understand. This is the Wild West.' I liked him, I must say.

  I liked Wolfgang Rennert personally very much. He was an interesting man - not a great conductor but very routiniert. He was genuinely interested in production being the brother of Guenther Rennert and was one of the few conductors to make a point of attending every production rehearsal. I got him to Covent Garden also for 'Arabella.' He was in love with Kiri as everyone was. He studied with Clemens Krauss. I wish I had asked him about that. Klemperer had an awful and not very funny thing to say about him. He didn't like the producer Rennert's productions and when he attended a performance conducted by W. Rennert asked if they were related. On learning that they were brothers he said 'The father must have had a poisoned sperm.' Very unfair. Guenther's productions were excellent in my experience. I still remember his 'Fidelio' at Glyndebourne with Gre Browensijn, Richard Lewis, Kim Borg and Mihaily Szekely as Rocco and Gui conducting. That...

  The Favorita was mind-blowing with Barbieri, Gianni Raimondi, Bastianini and Ghiaurov. I remember Ghiaurov had a pedal note at the end of act 1 I think it was with the full orchestra, chorus and other soloists going full blast with Ghiaurov's voice coming through all. 

  Stockhausen took a sabbatical to live in Marin with his girlfriend Mary Bauermeister when he broke up with Doris, his first wife. Up to then he described himself as having exercised only one arm - the rational part of his mind. the new girlfriend and without doubt the life in Marin/San Francisco made him realise the irrational side of his mind - the world of feeling and imagination. So San Francisco has quite a lot to answer for because entre nous not everything he imagined was very interesting. I'm thinking of pieces like 'Musik im Bauch' based on a dream his little daughter had or to be truly honest* half of his operatic cycle 'Licht.'   He told me about his visit to Disneyland. Although he went on the rides etc. (he said Space Mountain was not funny) his real interest was in the fact that underneath the surface was an entire other city. A typical Stockhausen comment.

  I played Erich Kleiber's 'Benvenuto Cellini' overture recently and really was bowled over. Such incredible legato and cantilena! I wonder if this is by any chance anything to do with a remark Lamberto Gardelli made to me. He said that Erich Kleiber had learned how to conduct Italian opera from Egisto Tango in Copenhagen. Tango was about 25 older than Kleiber. He premiered The Wooden Prince and Bluebeard's Castle in Budapest and had a considerable career in his time. Gardelli's career followed Tango's in that he was an Italian with close links to Budapest and Scandinavua. He took Swedish nationality after the war because he said he had been persecuted by the Fascists before and during the war and then by the Communists in Italy. So perhaps he heard this claim of Tango's directly from him. I read a biography of Erich Kleiber once and was impressed by two instances which demonstrate his obsessional nature; Before every performance he would ...

 After his success with 'Boris Godunov,' Covent Garden offered Andrei Tarkovsky 'Der fliegende Hollaender.' I was representing him by that time. He asked me to find him a designer and I introduced him to Carlo Tommasi who had designed a brilliant Frau ohne Schatten for WNO. They met on Ingmar Bergman's island and got on like a house on fire. Tragically Tarkovsky died before he could start rehearsals. For many years Tommasi's set model stood in the corner of the production room at ROH. It may still be there today for all I know.

    "That Rowicki character" was how some orchestra manager used to refer to Witold Rowicki, the distinguished Musical Director of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. I liked Rowicki even though he was responsible for me spending a night in a Polish jail. It happened like this. I was in Berlin and two days later I had meetings in Stockholm, so not wanting to stay any longer in Germany I decided to go to Warsaw for an evening, never having been there. I thought while there I should look up Rowicki. So I called the British Embassy and asked if I needed a visa to go to Poland. They said it was no problem; I could get one on arrival at the airport. So I called Rowicki and he was happy to invite me for a drink at his place that evening. When I arrived at Warsaw airport the immigration official asked me for my visa. I said I had been told I could get one on arrival. He then asked me if I was there on Business or Pleasure so like  an idiot, I said 'Business.' He asked...

    Abbado and Muti Massimo Bogianckino, Sovrintendente of La Scala needed to come to London and contrary to his usual practise, took an all-inclusive flight/hotel deal and found himself staying in a tower block hotel in Cromwell road. Having no commitments that evening he decided to watch the football World Cup final which was won by Italy that year. He had never watched a football game in his life. His only comment was 'Now I know who Abbado and Muti are.'  

    Rachmaninoff. These days it's Rakhmaninov but the composer preferred the former transliteration. Yuri Simonov was rehearsing one of the London orchestras in a City church and afterwards, a little man in a dog collar came up and introduced himself as Chad Varah. he was as you may know the founder of the Samaritans. The orginal Samaritans' telephone was still there at the church. Varah was very sweet and entertaining. He told the story of how as an 8-year old he was taken to a Rachmaninoff recital at Leeds Town Hall. After the last piece he called out 'Play C sharp minor.' At first Rachmaninoff ignored him but Varah persisted. Finally with a baleful look, Rachmaninoff sat down and played the Prelude in C sharp minor as he must have been asked to on too many occasions. A footnote: Gennady Rozhdestvensky told me that as Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, Rachmaninoff was the first to stand in front of the orchestra and not more or less behind them with his ...

I first became aware of Reginald Goodall as the first conductor of 'Peter Grimes' of course. Then his name used to appear on all Covent Garden programmes as 'Conductor' listed below 'Music Director' and 'General Administrator,' Despite this, he rarely actually conducted anything so he was something of an unknown quantity. When Sadlers Wells Opera decided to mount 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg' with Goodall in 1967 it became clear that here was a truly great Wagner conductor. If you don't believe this there is a recording to prove it. I have never been a fan of 'Meistersinger' but when conducted like this, I am. The rest as they say is history. Goodall's performances of the Ring, Parsifal, Tristan and Fidelio at the ENO, WNO and Covent Garden plus some concerts followed.  Goodall was a shy man. I love the story about Goodall and Carlos Kleiber meeting in the street. Goodall relates their exchange as follows; CK. 'Ah, Herr Goo...