Colin Anderson

Colin Anderson has been a very keen concertgoer and record collector for more than thirty years. He started young! Indeed he was eleven when Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals made a tremendous impression – thanks to a music master at Erith Grammar School playing records (LPs) to his class. He was Mr Palmer, who Colin discovered, years later, to be the father of singer Felicity Palmer. The Saint-Saëns, quickly followed by Colin Davis conducting Mozart, opened the door for Colin to the hitherto unsuspected world of classical music and was soon listening to a serendipitous collection of LPs – The Planets (Bernard Herrmann, Decca Phase 4), Mahler 1 (Giulini), Debussy’s Images (Munch), Alexander Nevsky (Reiner), excerpts from Swan Lake (Rozhdestvensky) – before upgrading to the complete performance on 3 LPs – and, thanks to Decca’s reissue programme on The World of the Great Classics, was developing a still-active appreciation of Ernest Ansermet.

An avid reader of Records and Recordings, and then Gramophone, and listening to BBC Radio 3, Colin harboured ambitions to write on music. It took a while, but Colin now contributes to Gramophone, International Record Review, International Piano, Fanfare (and notched up numerous interviews and opera reviews for the now-defunct What’s On in London) and has written booklet notes for Decca, Danacord, BBC Legends and Naxos. He also edits The Classical Source website (www.classicalsource.com).

CA 1:   January 2008 Editorial for Classical Source

An Avoidance of Cliché’   By Colin Anderson 

“At this point in time”
“Celebrity”
“For the 21st-century”
“Lessons must be learnt”
“On stage”
“Worst case scenario”

Just six examples of words and phrases that we are bombarded with on a daily basis – through various media, not least broadcasting. Once somebody starts something, so it goes around. Trendy! All of the above are superfluous and irritating, and have been rendered meaningless – but still they get trotted out with a breathtaking lack of imagination.

Well, Classical Source doesn’t follow the herd – so you won’t read any of the above (or other numerous examples) – except for this month! This seems the “exactly right” thing to do!

Before I “tick boxes” to avoid “systemic failure” and charges of Classical Source not being “fit for purpose”, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. (A once-a-year sentiment!)

 CA 2:        June 2007  Classical Source Editorial:

‘Royal Festival Hall Restored’

By Colin Anderson

It has taken longer and will be more expensive than first planned, but the Royal Festival Hall, closed for nearly two years, is about to be re-opened. Not that the South Bank has been quiet! For the associated orchestras – Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, OAE and London Sinfonietta – it has been business as usual in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, which found perhaps hitherto unsuspected performing space to accommodate a full orchestra. The acoustic was perfectly fine, too. And the programming took imaginative turns it may not have had the RFH refurbishment never happened.

Acoustic is key to the transformed yet still familiar Royal Festival Hall. There have been ‘acoustic tests’ over recent weeks to which the public has been invited; and the press had its turn on May 29. My first impression was very favourable – and I liked the sound of the old place! Its tonal faithfulness and clarity were always welcome, but it depended where you sat and musicians themselves had reservations. Now, heard from the top level to the stalls level, the sound now seems consistent; it has warmth, clear detail and carries very well. Furthermore the redesign of the platform looks especially handsome. As we walked through the auditorium, Vladimir Jurowski and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were rehearsing Rossini; given the relatively small forces and the use of ‘period’ instruments, there was no lack of impact in all parts of the Hall. It will be interesting to hear a piano recital in the RFH (Brendel is there on 14 June) and the full ‘wallop’ of a large symphony orchestra should be thrilling. The Philharmonia plays Mahler on the 12th and the LPO brings Prokofiev on the 13th. The OAE has a 21st-birthday concert on Saturday the 30th.

This augurs well. The opening Gala concert on 11 June offers a varied programme shared between the resident orchestras to really ‘test’ the RFH and there’s plenty that will follow the first night. On the weekend leading up to the 11th, there’s a jamboree of free events. The Royal Festival Hall is a special place – for many reasons (I’ve loved the Hall since 1975, an LSO concert with the recently deceased Rostropovich conducting) – and is set in an area rich in fine views and many attractions. Two years without the Hall has flown by, which is partly a tribute to the bustling activity of the QEH. This first taste of the future is a very positive one and makes the opening of the RFH and the years thereafter something to keenly anticipate.

 CA 3 :       April/May 2007  Classical Source Editorial:

‘Too Much Mahler ... And Not Enough Overtures’

By Colin Anderson

I write as a lover of Mahler's music, but also with concern at the number of times his symphonies turn up in concerts, certainly in London, the Fifth especially. Are we, listeners and performers, in danger of taking this once-unfamiliar and complex music for granted?

But concert-hall repertoire, for the most part, is relatively narrow ... so many fine pieces are only available through recordings and broadcasting. With the latter, though, one notices a wonderful commodity that is in short or no supply: silence. Classic FM even starts music while the presenter is talking! Might such 'presentation' influence those who chatter, and applaud into silence, when in the concert hall?

But 'continuous noise' is now the order of the day – whether one likes it or not. Go into certain hotels, shops and banks and the same old pop-music spews out – the customer is given no choice; yet it ís a pointless 'accessory' when so many people have their own sources of 'entertainment' – as those all-too-sharing 'personal' ear-pieces relate!

Imagine standing in a bank queue (HSBC and Halifax, say!) while a pop-song wails out (for that is the only music known to the producers it seems) in conflict with those people also queuing who are 'listening' to something similar through an iPod. (It happens!) At least in Boots or WH Smith ís, to name two further offenders, one can make an early escape and not buy anything.

Those who have become desensitised to sound wouldn't miss the pap that such retailers foist upon us (or indeed the racket that broadcasters often underpin trailers, programmes and even news with); but, for anyone musically sensitive, it is a scourge, "a danger to the health" as Daniel Barenboim identified in one of his BBC Reith Lectures last year.

Complain and the responses are revealingly bland. However, there are groups standing up against such irritations –  one is called "Pipedown". Neither this writer nor Classical Source has affiliation to this organisation: we’re just glad it ís there!

As for the overtures … some concerts still include them (by the ‘usual’ composers) although it’s quite common today for a concerto to begin the evening (there is something very unsatisfying about a soloist playing ‘cold’ like this). But it’s also that certain beautifully crafted pieces hardly ever appear now – to name four: Sullivan’s Overture di ballo and the overtures to Hérold’s “Zampa”, Nicolai’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and Rezniček’s “Donna Diana” – each a terrific <I>entrée</I>. Hopefully such gems, and others, will return to our concert halls. Demand one, if the programme has an obvious ‘hole’ in it, when you ‘shell-out’ your ‘hard-earned’ for an expensive seat plus booking fee!

C: colin.anderson 2008