Pierre Boulez and what's his name - Great and less great Conductors I have worked with in the Roundhouse

At the Roundhouse we didn't only have rock concerts, we also had a fair number of classical concerts as well.   Which of course meant we had to work with the Conductors of the orchestras who were playing in those concerts.

Of those Conductors there are two who stand out in my memory, for very different reasons.  The first is Pierre Boulez, a Conductor and composer of great renown, the other is a man whose name I am afraid I have forgotten, for reasons that will become apparent as I write about him in this post.

Boulez was at that time (about 1973-1974)  the resident Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC decided in its wisdom that they would broadcast a whole series of modern music concerts live from the Roundhouse - Not sure why they made the decision to use the Roundhouse rather than one of the many "real" concert halls in London, but they did so decide.

Now we at the Roundhouse at this time had not had much experience with Conductors of classical music, nor with full size symphony orchestras.   Radio broadcasts we had often experienced before, and were quite comfortable with that medium, and the rather curious people who worked on radio in those days.

These tended to be lower middle class, remarkably gentle and civilized men, who generally wore tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows, smoked pipes and had a wealth of stories of their deeds during the second world war and Korean war of all things.  Very easy to work with, and very understanding of our technical needs as well as their own.  A marked contrast to the almost unbearable arrogance of the various TV people who worked in the Roundhouse on occasions.

Anyway, these concerts consisted of contemporary serious music, and to be honest I understood none of it.    Pure noise, and generally not very pleasing noise by and large, for me at least.  But apparently Boulez and a large number of radio listeners loved this sort of music...   Though the actual audiences who attended these broadcasts were depressingly small I found.

One of the more entertaining pieces that were performed in this series of concerts was a piece by David Bedford, called "With 100 Kazoos", and did actually have 100 Kazoos in it.  But for the most part the music they broadcast consisted of long passages of plinks, plunks and the occasional blare....  Not my thing at all.

But Pierre Boulez himself was a delightful man to meet and talk with, absolutely none of the "Maestro" bit that most such Conductors I have met insisted upon.   He was perfectly happy to be addressed as M. Boulez, or as my very democratic technicians insisted on calling him, Pierre.  This last scandalized the men from the BBC and absolutely horrified the musicians.   I was lucky enough to have quite a few conversations with him over the course of those concerts, about France, the arts scene in London at that time, and even Rock and Roll, which actually interested him.   A gentle and approachable man.   But as a conductor, he was totally involved in the music, knew exactly what he wanted the musicians to play, and how and so on.  A meticulous worker in his profession.  

Now to the other one I mentioned, he was a very different character in every possible way.   This was a fellow who had a dream.  All his life he had wanted to conduct a full sized orchestra in a concert hall.   And to this end, he had been saving and saving his money all his working life (I can't recall what he had done for a living, but it certainly had nothing to do with music), and now that he was retired, he set about making his dream come true.

He hired one of the two main symphony orchestras in London, I can't now remember which one, but it was either the London Symphony Orchestra or the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and rented the Roundhouse for one night.  Printed posters and tickets for this great, never to be repeated event, and prepared himself for this culminating and supreme moment in his life and invited all his family and friends to the concert.  He only had access to the orchestra for the day of the concert, so they "rehearsed" in the morning so that they could play the music as he wanted it played.

Luckily for him he had chosen a program of very standard pieces (Also can't remember what they were), so they were pieces the orchestra had played hundreds of times before, and could thus play them in their sleep.  Which as I said, was lucky for him, as he had simply no idea of how to conduct such an orchestra.

Anyhow, we were all enchanted by the fellow, loved the totally serious way he went about it all, the incredible and totally unfounded self-assurance he displayed, and the main fact, which was that here was a man making a life-long dream come true.   Even the musicians, a notoriously hard hearted bunch, went out of their way to pretend that they were taking his instructions and conducting totally seriously.   He was wrapped in a sort of soft cloud of people trying to make this event as successful as possible, purely out of the pleasure he was giving us all by making his dream a reality.

In due time, the relatively small, but larger than we had all expected, audience came in, seated themselves, and the orchestra sat themselves down.. and then the first Great Moment - he entered the stage, in full penguin suite, mounted the conductor's box, turned to his audience and solemnly greeted them all, and then turned to begin the concert.   He raised his baton... gave the beat, and off it went.

All totally successful, the music was competently performed obviously, he was in the seventh heaven, as he was utterly convinced that it was his superb conducting that had made the music sound so good... his audience enjoyed what was after all a very good concert by one of England's best orchestras, and we were all pleased for him too.

So, a total success in all respects.  And the man himself was over the moon at the realisation of that dream of his....  It had worked as well as in his most feverish imaginings he had hoped it would, so his money was well spent, and he went on his way, never to be seen in the Roundhouse again, a happy and fulfilled man.