My Music in London: 1945-2000 - Softcover

Amis, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0955158001 ISBN 13: 9780955158001

Publisher: Amiscellany Books, 2006

Synopsis

This book has an unusual structure. It begins with a review of the first concert given by the Amadeus Quartet and ends over fifty years later in 1999. What lies in between is a review of the post-war period in music mostly in London as seen and heard through the eyes and ears of one person. It is not a comprehensive review or a history. During these years, John Amis had various jobs: critic, broadcaster, administrator, concert manager, lecturer, singer, and he was a constant opera- and concert-goer. John met or worked with nearly all the important and less important (though not less interesting) musicians of our time. From 1948 to 1965 he was London Music Critic of "The Scotsman" and a contributor to other newspapers and journals - and from 1988 was Music Critic of "The Tablet". He appeared for some eighteen years in the BBC programme "My Music". Part One consists mainly of reviews of those golden times when the gods had names like Callas, Flagstad, Heifetz, Horowitz, Beecham, Bruno Walter and Klemperer. These reviews, mostly written on the night, tell their own story of the times.

Amis covered the premieres (absolute or British) of such works as: "Britten's The Turn of the Screw", "Let's Make an Opera", "Chinese Songs", "Winter Words" and Noye's Fludde"; "Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage", first and second symphonies and Piano Concerto; Walton's "Troilus and Cressida", Cello Concerto and second symphony; Constant Lambert's "Tiresias", Janacek's "Kat'a Kabanova", Messiaen's "Turangalila" and Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron". Part Two deals with the last decades of the twentieth century and the author's time spent lecturing, travelling, writing and listening to music; and a few other topics. Events provide pegs for slices of life and profiles of, for instance, Messiaen, Tippett, Britten, Milhaud, Poulenc, Copland, Enesco, Tcherepnin, Ireland, and many others.

About this title

Review

"...a huge achievement...you write marvellously...crammed with
musical sweetmeats".
-- Joanna Lumley

"Amis makes us feel exactly what it was like to live through it
all...a part of musical history". -- The Tablet 16 September

"in the current classical music world no-one to touch John
Amis...an ideal present". -- Musical Opinion Sept/Oct 06

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

MOZART FESTIVAL:
Sir Thomas Beecham at Glyndebourne 25.4.49
John Christie and Sir Thomas Beecham are now near neighbours in Sussex,
and, like good neighbours, they decided to get together for a little
music-making, Beecham with his Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Christie's
Opera House at Glyndebourne. The first of three miniature festivals took
place this weekend, devoted to the works of Mozart, an appropriate choice
on the eve of the conductor's seventieth birthday.
This is perhaps the right occasion to express thanks to a great conductor
who has spent a lifetime making music in a wonderful way. Beecham is a
difficult man to thank, and perhaps the best way to do so would be for the
State to give his orchestra a substantial grant so that it and Beecham
could devote more time to Mozart and other of his favourites and less to
Tchaikovsky.
For Beecham has spent too much time recently peddling the latter composer's
over-played works in large London cinemas.
When Sir Thomas comes on to the platform these days you may think he looks
nearly his age, but once he starts conducting the years drop from him. I
have scarcely ever seen such an exhibition of exuberant conducting as we
had on Saturday night during the finale of the Symphony No. 34 in C. And
every three or four bars there was a furious shout exhorting the players to
more lively attack. But the gestures and shouts were only the trappings of
the most superb performance.
It is hopeless to try to describe Beecham at his best in Mozart or to
explain how he obtains his results, but part of his secret must surely be
the extraordinary care he takes in marking the parts. If you were to look
at any orchestral part of a Mozart work which Beecham has played for years
you might have difficulty in discovering the printed notes because of the
profusion of phrasing marks, dynamic markings, and other nuances. His task
on the platform at the performance is to see that he gets what is written
in the Beecham parts, plus the mood, energy, and the elegance of the
gallant style.
The wind, brass, and percussion do not come in for much of the extortion
for they are mostly famous men in the orchestral world and often
distinguished for their solo and chamber music playing. There may be better
single woodwind players in other orchestras in this country, but there is
no team capable of such fine ensemble playing. No, it is the strings which
come in for Sir Thomas's particular attention The performance of the slow
movement of the famous Eine kleine Nachtmusik was quite ravishing, owing to
his encouragement.
Apart from the two works I have already mentioned, there were superlative
performances of the Symphonies numbered 39 and 29 and the overture to The
Magic Flute. Gioconda de Vito is a fine violinist but seemed to me unsuited
stylistically for Mozart, whose G major Concerto she played.
The rest of the orchestral programmes included performances of portions of
the Haffner Serenade and the Divertimento No. 17 for strings and two horns,
K.344, which sounded, I regret to say, unrehearsed.
The next two festivals take place in May and June. In May we are promised
three concerts of Haydn, and included among the attractions is Mr Christie
himself performing on the hurdy-gurdy in a Divertimento for two instruments
of that noble species.

HS: Sir Thomas Beecham was born in Lancashire in 1879 with a golden
(eponymous) pill in his mouth and bought his way into conducting with the
help of his father's money. What pleased him often pleased others and we
owe him a debt of an even greater size than the debts he incurred pleasing
himself and us. He had a public persona and a private one. The private
person had some intimate friends, not too many I would guess; he was, for
example, friendly with his orchestra and with people like myself on the
staff but not chummy. After many years as his assistant conductor, Norman
was always Mister Del Mar; likewise I was Mister Amis, both to Sir Thomas
and to the horrible second Lady Beecham, Betty. By this time Sir Thomas was
easy-going and rarely lost his cool; I saw lapses of temper three times
only: once when an American company issued a Beecham record album with an
advertisement on the back for Toscanini (who had once called Sir Thomas a
clown, `punchinello'); once at Eastbourne when he couldn't open a door
(`stand clear, dearest, I am going to break the door down') which opened
easily enough once it was seen to be a sliding door; and once, before the
whole Royal Philharmonic when he decided to dress down myself and the
general manager, Charles Cannon, for some slips up of the orchestral
personnel fixer lady. He made a show of it for the benefit of the players,
gradually worked himself up from cool to hot in sixty seconds, even though
everybody knew where the fault lay - it was a political move.
I found that there was a kind of glass or perspex wall between Beecham and
world. He didn't want people to know that he worked exceedingly hard at his
scores and the preparation of the orchestral parts. Very British that, like
the schoolboy who makes a century at the match but professes never to go to
net practice. And talking of British, Sir Thomas was proud of being
British, no matter how many times he excoriated the British. I think he was
also a shy man and that is why he summoned up his public persona wit to
protect himself.

Edition details

• Publisher: Amiscellany Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0955158001
• ISBN 13: 9780955158001
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 229