Abbey Road, the Beatles and the Symphony Orchestras

Abbey Road studios are situated in the genteel St. John’s Wood area a few miles from the centre of London, and were converted by HMV/Angel/EMI from a huge Victorian mansion into recording studios long before I entered the musical profession in 1945.

There is (or was) one very large studio and others accommodating only small groups. It is so well insulated that I doubt if it causes any annoyance to the private houses that surround it, although the parking of all the musicians’ vehicles well might.

I played in the large studio many times with various orchestras. It could house a large symphony orchestra as well as a choir. The conductors included Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Adrian Boult, Herbert von Karajan, Benjamin Britten, Klemperer and Artur Rodzinski also many famous soloists and they all seemed to be very satisfied with the acoustics as well as the end product, the recording.
I can only remember once glancing in the studios where the Beatles recorded. They were very sparsely furnished and small.

As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, an official once told me that it was only because of the huge profits they made from the Beatles and jazz groups that EMI was able to afford to keep the Philharmonia Orchestra going.

More on The Royal Festival Hall

I played at the Royal Festival Hall before it officially opened.   There was a conductor/entrepreneur named Leonard Rafter  who arranged for concerts to be given with a small orchestra so that visitors to the Festival of Britain who wanted to look inside the Festival Hall could judge the acoustics.  I was engaged as principal bass, and we played Mozart, Haydn, Rossini etc, pieces that did not require a large orchestra.

I did not play at the opening concert, however, but played there many times subsequently.

Personally, I didn’t like the acoustics at the time, I thought they were too dry, but I can remember some improvements being made later.

I commend the volunteers who are endeavouring to transform the Royal Festival Hall.   They can be reached here.

Getting to Know Gary Karr

My First Meeting with Gary Karr

In the early ‘sixties a recital given by Gary Karr, double bass, at the Wigmore Hall, London was being advertised. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend but a pupil of mine went and came back full of superlatives. Gary would have been in his very early twenties at that time.

Some time later, Eugene Cruft, my professor, asked me to play next to him at a television recording to be made at the BBC Television Studios. The Pro Arte Orchestra had been engaged and the soloist was Gary Karr.

After the rehearsal the whole orchestra plus the television crew gave him a resounding ovation and Eugene declared to me that he was amazed. Coming from him, that really meant something.

My Second Meeting with Gary Karr

In the mid-‘sixties I was principal bass with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that Gary was to play an arrangement of Paganini’s Moses Variations with us. He played beautifully, and after the concert we were chatting and he told me that he had been engaged to play the next day at a concert in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, about twenty miles away by ferry. We arranged that I would pick up him and his bass from his hotel the next morning, and, after breakfast at my house I would take him to the ferry.

My son, Nicholas, joined us on the way to the ferry. When we got there some very officious individual barred him from boarding the ferry (a huge boat) because of his bass. An argument ensued and meanwhile my son slipped away to phone the airport and discovered that a plane was leaving shortly from Vancouver Airport to Victoria, so we bundled Gary and his bass into my station wagon and I drove furiously to the airport; Gary caught the plane and was in time for his concert. Gary and I have often talked about this incident.

Getting to know Gary Karr more

By coincidence Gary and I both live in Victoria, British Columbia and are firm friends.  I recently listened to him play some arrangements he made of Japanese traditional melodies, and also when he played with the Victoria Symphony he was recalled many times. He played as well, or better than I could ever remember.

He came to a party at my house on my eightieth birthday  and he, on bass and some other musicians played “Happy Birthday”.   After this, my son brought out the champagne which certainly added to the festivities!

Pablo Casals, ‘cellist

I only played with Casals on one occasion in the late 1940’s when he played with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, London.

He was a slight, bald little man, very calm and collected, but the marvellous sound he produced seemed to be effortless.

His approach to the music was intellectual – he would bring out certain passages that I had never heard played before in such a manner.

Some years later I was asked to play at the Prades Festival, directed by Casals. Prades was a very prestigious festival and I was anxious to play there. Spain at that time was under the control of General Franco, and Casals, a Spaniard, vowed never to return to Spain whilst he was in power, so he lived in Prades, France, on the Spanish border. At the time I was under contract with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and was denied permission to play at Prades because one of the programmes included a symphony.
It seemed to me that my career would not develop under such constraints, so I left the BBC.

Nights at the Ballet

I had left the London Philharmonic in 1946 with a promise from them of being engaged for all their prestigious concerts.  My diary was comparatively empty and I was pleasantly surprised when one day Morris Smith the “fixer”*  for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden phoned me to ask whether I would be free to play a season as principal bass for the Royal Ballet. I immediately said ‘yes’ and I was engaged on the spot.

There were only the old chestnuts like /Swan Lake/ etc. and I soon settled in.  Later on we added Arthur Bliss’s /Miracle in the Gorbals/.  The conductors were John Lanchberry , Warwick Braithwaite and Constant Lambert.

Lambert was a fine conductor and musician.  His Rio Grande is one of my favourite pieces.   Unfortunately he was overly fond of alcohol, and when he arrived in the orchestra pit would attempt to climb on the rostrum from the violin’s side, then lurch over towards the ‘celli and would be helped up again, but once he was in position he was wonderful.  He had the knack of picking  the exact tempo, always anticipating the dancers in the “lift”.  He was a great favourite with the dancers.  Talking of the lift, I was getting some fresh air at the stage door when a friend of mine, one of the male dancers,  came up to me in a frenzy and said ‘Fat old cow, she won’t jump, I nearly ruptured myself’!’.    The female has to jump in the lift, otherwise the male has to bear all her weight.

I last saw Lambert in the sixties. It was on a Boxing Day and I had to play at a broadcast for the BBC with Lambert conducting.  He came into the studio and was sweating profusely and his hands were trembling from D.T’s.  What a pity!  That was the last I saw of him.

During the course of the season I became very enamoured with one of the principal dancers, “D”.  We became very friendly, and I must say I became extremely jealous when she was doing the “Hearts and flowers” stuff in Swan Lake.  Did I see the male dancer going too far up her leg in the lift?   I played resounding pizzicati  in the /pas de deux /and felt like Spartacus whose girl friend was being raped by a Roman in the next cell. The double bass is very important in these solos as it sets the tempo for the lifts and various pirouettes. At the end of the ballet I waited like a dog for a pat on the head when she came out on stage to make her curtsy, and would nod in my direction.  Afterwards, when she had showered and changed we went to the local pub, the “Nag’s Head” for a discussion of the night’s performance and then, to quote Pepys, “And so to bed”.  No shacking up in those days!  She chided me for being so jealous, but I think she secretly enjoyed it.

Margot Fonteyn was then the Prima Ballerina Assoluta and I’m afraid “D” wasn’t in her class.   I sometimes ran into her at the stage door and she always had a warm, friendly smile.

In 1964 I was asked to play with the Pro Arte Orchestra at a television show where Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev were appearing.  She was getting on in years but Nureyev seemed to inject new life into her.

Margot had been married to a very rich Panamanian politician, Roberto Arias, who had been shot by a rival and ended up being a paraplegic.  After his demise she continued to live on their estate in Panama in penury, and later on someone visited her, noticed her poverty and afterwards arranged a benefit concert for her in London.  She was then able to live comfortably, but she passed away at a relatively early age.

I don’t like to say so, but the ballet dancers ‘s pay was dreadful; at that time I was making more money as principal bass than she was.  It was only when television and films began to book them that they began to earn a reasonable salary.  The film ‘The Red Shoes’, starring Moira Shearer seemed to give ballet the fillip that it needed.

Going back to “D”; soon afterwards  I was asked to play at Glyndebourne Opera with Benjamin Britten, and there I met my future wife.  Cad that I am, all thoughts of “D” were forgotten.

*Orchestral manager.

Professor Lajos Montag

An afternoon in Budapest with Professor Lajos Montag, noted contrabassist

One day in 1964 the ‘fixer*’ for the London Symphony Orchestra asked me if I would play with them in Budapest, Hungary. The concert was to be in the famous Franz Liszt Akadamie. I had played  there a few times and always enjoyed my visits so I accepted and decided that when I was in Budapest I would try to make contact with Professor Montag whom I had never met before.

Montag was renowned as principal bass of the opera and professor of double bass at the Budapest Conservatory. He was widely known throughout Europe as an exceptional player

The orchestra had a seating rehearsal on the morning we arrived. Seating rehearsals never take a long time, the idea being only to ensure that the orchestra is comfortable on stage and also to test the acoustics so that adjustments in the dynamics of the music may be made by the musicians.

After the rehearsal I went to the entrance to the concert hall and found the professor waiting for me; he greeted me enthusiastically and suggested that we go to his apartment for a bite to eat, which we did.

Montag in those days appeared to be in his mid fifties. He was shortish, balding, with dark hair and was rather portly, but very energetic.

After a delicious meal he suggested that I might like to see some of his compositions for the double bass, many of which I had not seen before. This took a considerable time and he then asked me if I would like to hear him play, and I enthusiastically agreed.

He played with the German bow which is common all over eastern Europe.  In England, France and Italy most players play, as I do myself, with the French (or Bottesini) bow.  In my day the French regarded it as a matter of national honour that they played with the French bow, referring to the German bow as the “meat saw”, but I have noticed that now, even in France, the German bow is slowly being introduced. However, I was very impressed with his bowing technique and the sound he made.

His instrument was 3/4 size, about 50 years old and its shoulders were cut down to make playing in the higher registers easier.

I learned a lot from his approach to the instrument both musically and technically, and he influenced my own playing later to some extent when I had a chance to practice some of his ideas on playing.

I was amused when he occasionally fluffed a harmonic (which we all do occasionally), he would shout “kuss”, but his ability was dazzling and impressed me greatly.

I glanced at the clock; it was 5 p.m. so I reluctantly said goodbye, went back to the hotel to wash and dress for the concert, ate a light meal and then set forth for the Franz Liszt Akadamie.

* ‘fixer’, the person who engages the musicians.

Sergey Koussevitsky

Sergey Koussevitsky, double bass soloist and noted orchestra conductor.
b.1874  Tver, Russia d.1951 Boston, USA

I met Sergey Koussevitsky in the late ‘forties when he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, London.  It was his farewell tour and just before the concert he gave us all a red carnation to wear in his remembrance.

He was fairly tall, medium built and with thinning gray hair.  He must have been in his late seventies, but he was very energetic and alert, and was a great conductor, having a deep insight into the music and being able to draw out magical sounds from the orchestra.

Unfortunately one little mishap spoiled the programme.  In  Beethoven’s Symphony # 1. last movement,  he botched the lead in to the allegro and some of the violins came in raggedly.  He stopped and commenced again and led the orchestra to a brilliant finish, in fact, the whole concert was wonderful, except for this little slip.  Coincidentally  some time later Sir Adrian Boult conducted the same piece in the same venue and made the same mistake

When I asked him for some advice on  bass playing  all he would say was ‘ To get ze good tone you must grip bass hard’.  At the time I was not impressed with his remark but later on I found the wisdom of it.

In his solo days Koussevitsky had played the Bottesini Duets for Two Basses  with Victor Watson, principal bass of the LPO, and Victor passed on to me some valuable tips that he had gained from Koussevitsky that I have included in a CD recording I recently made accompanied by Mary Rannie, principal bass of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, Canada.

After his death  Koussevitsky’s wife presented his very fine solo bass to my good friend Gary Karr, the famous double bass soloist who  played it often in public and on some of his many recordings.  I can remember the glorious sound he obtained from it when he was the soloist at concerts that I also played with the Pro Arte Orchestra and when I was principal bass of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Maria Callas as I remember her

When I first met Maria Callas she was very plump, but later on she slimmed down to a very svelte figure. She always reminded me of a tigress at bay.

A very sensitive woman, she wore her heart on her sleeve.
She could be very temperamental too, and would often burst into tears if things were not going well at a rehearsal or recording.

At that time she was married to an older, dapper, aristocratic looking Italian gentleman named Menegheni who was present at her recordings.

I was in the Philharmonia Orchestra in the ‘fifties and she
recorded Rossini’s opera, “The Barber of Seville” with us at the Kingsway Hall, London. Tito Gobbi also sang and the conductor was Alceo Galliera.

Things went well until we came to the very difficult aria
“Una voce poco fa”. We made a few “takes” but none were “keepers”. Callas was getting more nervous and then she shuddered and had a sudden fit of tears.

Walter Legge, the Founder and Artistic Director of the
Philharmonia Orchestra was also in charge of the recording. He hurried out of the recording booth, put his arms round her and gently guided her into the booth followed by Galliera.

We waited for fifteen minutes and then she came back, much composed, sang the aria perfectly and then we all packed up and went home.

She also recorded songs and arias with the Philharmonia conducted by Tullio Serafin at Watford Town Hall in Hertfordshire. He would have been in his late seventies at the time and had a very confident air about him and, of course, he was steeped in experience and seemed to instill confidence in Callas; her recordings with him were a great success. Not once did she shed a tear, and I think for this Serafin must take a lot of the credit.

All of these recordings are now issued on re-mastered
CD’s. We, the orchestra members, however, never received any royalties or repeat fees for them because we were just paid by the session, and that was that.

Victor de Sabata and the ladies

I first became aware of de Sabata being a ladies man after this anecdote, told to me by Felix Aprahamian who was on the staff of the LPO at that time but was later a writer for the “Times of London” and also a noted musicologist.

The LPO booked de Sabata into the Hyde Park Hotel in Knightsbridge and Felix went round to see if de Sabata needed anything. De Sabata had forgotten his pyjamas so Felix went across the road to Harrod’s and bought him some silk pyjamas. When he got back he presented the pyjamas to de Sabata and asked him if he liked the colour. De Sabata replied , ‘Yes, but where is the woman!’.

On another occasion we were rehearsing the Verdi Requiem and de Sabata went over to the famous soprano soloist, an attractive woman with an ample bosom. De Sabata was pointing out the finer points in the score, all the while clutching her bosom in front of the orchestra. Naturally all the orchestra smiled, and one wag quipped that it was all asp and tit. I must explain that the soprano was famous for singing Berlioz’s “The death of Cleopatra”. Everyone knows Shakespeare’s play wherein Cleopatra commits suicide by clutching an asp (viper) to her bosom.

On another occasion Adolf Borsdorf, another member of the LPO staff accompanied de Sabata in a hired limousine to York Minster where we were to perform the Verdi Requiem. On the journey there was a motor bike in front with a girl riding pillion. She glanced back and de Sabata was fascinated with her looks so he asked to driver to follow the motor bike and said to Adolf, ‘You never know, it might be all right!’. Adolf remonstrated with him saying, ‘Maestro, you have a concert to conduct at York, we shall be late’. With reluctance the driver was ordered to drive straight to York. I was incredulous and very sceptical when Adolf told me this, but he repeated over and over again to me that it was true.

The next season de Sabata was amiable and all smiles. He had brought over an auburn haired actress with him to break the solitude.

Victor de Sabata and the critics

Although de Sabata was acclaimed by both the audience and the orchestra the critics really panned him, especially the right wing newspapers.

It really all started after Sir Thomas Beecham had formed the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Added to that there were one or two communists in the orchestra who didn’t go down too well in certain quarters. At that time it was being rumoured the Russians would march to the French North Coast thereby putting Great Britain in danger, and it was the beginning of the anti-Russian crusade that eventually led to the construction of the Berlin Wall.

Leningrad (as it was named then) was in dire straits, there was a shortage of beds and hospital supplies, so the London Philharmonic Orchestra members donated money for hospital supplies and a bed named after them which pleased the Russians but not the critics.

After one particularly damning critique it was proved that the critic wasn’t even at the concert!

De Sabata was most upset, he came for another season or two then quit.

I had to give an audition for Walter Legge, the Founder and Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra. I arrived at his house and played the Dragonetti Concerto. He was very pleased with my playing but didn’t think the Dragonetti was much of a piece musically. Afterwards he thawed out and we chatted for quite a while. I ventured to ask him if he would consider bringing over de Sabata to conduct the Philharmonia. He replied that he had offered him any fee, any programme, any location, any date and that he, Legge would go over personally in a private plane to collect him, but de Sabata refused. It is ironic that one critic wrote that de Sabata couldn’t be considered to be a world class conductor as he never appeared with the Philharmonia!

Some time later I was playing at La Scala, Milan, von Karajan conducting, and I was invited to a reception given for Arturo Toscanini. I happened to be introduced to de Sabata’s wife and daughter. His wife was, as usual with elderly ladies dressed in black, but his daughter was a beautiful girl, immaculately dressed and, I thought, very intelligent. I asked her why her Dad wouldn’t come to London as both the orchestra and the audiences loved him. She replied simply, ‘It is the critics’.