Recollections, Horns, Handley and the Heavens - My Life In Music

Growing up, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn the French horn, and after a few years’ practice I ended up playing in the county youth orchestra. The conductor was admirably adventurous, introducing us to works such as Hindemith’s Nobilissima Visione, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Shostakovich’s rarely-heard Symphony No. 12 (‘The Year 1917’). This last in particular made a huge impression on me. We’d already tackled the popular No. 5, but somehow this later work, with its unmistakable air of a rousing propaganda film, had a much bigger impact. Another highlight from those days was Vaughan Williams’s beautiful, pictorial ‘London’ Symphony.

Father Christmas shortly saw to it that two reasonably-priced box-sets materialised under the tree. Rudolf Barshai’s complete Shostakovich set helped me get acquainted with the middle and later symphonies - though I admit to having bounced off the early ones… Likewise, the peerless Vernon Handley’s Vaughan Williams box (now sadly discontinued, but mostly still available separately) was a fantastic introduction to his nine great symphonies. During my teens those two composers were my firm favourites, and I scorned my mother’s prediction that as I got older, I would start to see the appeal of earlier eras.

And yet… no horn player’s shelf would be complete without Dennis Brain’s Mozart horn concertos. His clarity, agility and unfussy tone were my inspirations when learning and performing the concertos myself. The quintet for piano and winds K452 grew on me over the years, too - and much later, I ended up performing it in a Presto shop concert with some colleagues.

Attending concerts as an audience member rather than a performer is a relative rarity for me, but I vividly remember a thrilling performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 by the CBSO in the Symphony Hall, with Simon Rattle physically springing into the air as he gave the downbeat. I immediately went out and bought the Solti recording - the only version that came on one CD, letting me listen to it all in one go!

At university it became apparent that the horn would have to take a back seat to my studies, and my youthful aspiration to an orchestral chair quickly faded. In its place, my childhood as a church chorister resurfaced; through a choral scholarship I became drawn to church music as a side career. The chapel choir’s repertoire featured many time-honoured favourites, and The Sixteen’s A New Heaven was a near-perfect match, including all the anthems I most enjoyed singing.

Shortly after graduation I moved to the West Midlands (the very nice Mr O’Reilly had kindly offered me a job at his lovely music shop…) and started putting down new musical roots. Today most of my singing happens at Birmingham Cathedral, but periodically I also sing at the Oratory of St Philip Neri - unswervingly devoted to Renaissance polyphony and florid plainsong, and possessing a fabulous acoustic. New York Polyphony’s Roma Aeterna, in which the all-male group performs works by Palestrina and Victoria in low keys, sums up this style of music at its finest - as tightly-knit and dynamic as a string quartet, as rich-toned as a brass band.

Although my father is a devoted Wagnerite, for many years I struggled to see the appeal. At some point, though, I realised I really should try it out. Pierre Boulez and Patrice Chéreau’s quasi-industrial setting for the Jahrhundertring perfectly blended tradition and modernity, and for the first time I found myself captivated. Although all four operas have their moments (Donald McIntyre’s Abschied to Gwyneth Jones in particular), I felt that Das Rheingold worked perfectly by itself and it’s become my favourite by far.

In the last few years - perhaps in response to the pandemic’s isolations and life-hiatuses - I’ve become quite a fan of plainsong. There’s something about its minimalist, self-effacing quality that I find deeply appealing. I’m young enough to have missed out on the period when Gregorian chant briefly cut through into the mainstream, hitting the charts and inspiring a whole raft of meditative, relaxing compilations - but I’ve picked up copies of some of those breakout recordings over the years, and they’re as much a part of my regular cycle of listening as the Romantic masterworks. 

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