April: These newsletters have become rather irregular for obvious reasons. Not much has happened though everything changed. A summer of isolation and relative inactivity had its appealing facets; a long winter with no music-making, no festivities and a much-curtailed social life was harder to bear. But work has gone on, and as in our case it has been mainly staying in touch with singing friends around the world, it has been its own reward. We now have to resign ourselves to the fact that the most we can hope for now is a smooth transition to a world in which covid-19 is less deadly; and as singers we have to accept that we will be at the very back of the queue.
Those of you who date back to the days when we ran the summer school here in Lacock or have been to the Corsham Winter School will know that my wife Deborah is a sculptor. The other day we were visited by a young Anglo-Armenian art dealer called Raffi Der Haroutunian, an admirer of Deborah’s work and keen to represent her. When he heard that I was something to do with music, he revealed that the composer Khachaturian was one of his godfathers. Khachaturian was a regular at his father’s Armenian restaurant in Kensington High Street, and when he heard that the infant Raffi was going to be christened the next day he blurted out ‘Well, I’ll be a godfather’, so was hastily added to those who had already been appointed. He died a couple of years later, unfortunately without bequeathing any royalties. It reminded me of when playing in a Robert Mayer Children’s Concert with the David Munrow group in the seventies I realised that my fellow passenger in the backstage lift at the Festival Hall was Sir Robert Mayer himself. Born in 1879, as a young man in Germany he had met Brahms. He lived for another ten years, remarrying at 101 and dying in 1985 at the age of 105.
More deaths, alas. Many of you will remember Roger Rees, an imposing figure with his resonant bass voice and standing well over six foot even into his nineties. He had a distinguished career in public administration in the north of England and was always willing to share his forthright views of the London government or ideas emanating from the London School of Economics, though always expressed with a sly smile. How typical to discover after his death that he had been quietly and anonymously supporting poor students at his old Cambridge college ( https://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/news/very-sad-news-mr-roger-rees-obe). Peter Harper was an eminent geneticist and a very useful tenor. He and Elaine were always especially valued on courses not only for their voices and excellent company but also for their wide knowledge of the natural world. I particularly remember a trip with them to the dramatic island nature reserve of Little Tobago a few years ago. He wanted to turn down his knighthood and was only persuaded to accept it for the prestige of his university department (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/15/sir-peter-harper-obituary). Alan Lumsden wasn’t particularly a Lacock figure but was a big influence in my earlier playing career and led an interesting life. I have put a personal memoir on the Lacock website (https://www.lacock.org/people/alan-lumsden).
I have had plenty of time for walking this winter, and keen to adhere to the ‘stay local’ strictures have spurned the charms of the Marlborough Downs and Cotswold valleys, instead trudging round the villages in our clay vale. Happily, the Wilts & Berks Canal, the Capability Brown landscapes at Corsham and Bowood and the Corallian and greensand escarpments are all within reach. After one ten mile stint I needed to extract a stone from my boot and found a convenient bench in the village of Whitley. I sensed that the locals were giving me a wide berth and a range of old fashioned looks, from the pitiful to the downright hostile. It occurred to me that my lockdown stubble, while making a young man appear virile, debonaire and à la mode, cruelly has the reverse effect after a certain age. A missing tooth can’t have helped. Only when I came to repack my knapsack did I see that my water, which I carry in an old plastic gin bottle from Madrid airport, had been standing on the bench beside me.
