In July 1969 I was still playing in the Hallé Orchestra, but had recently done a trial in two Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and was due to leave the Hallé after seven years – at the end of the year. In my trial earlier in the month, Harry Ottway had been on fourth horn, Tony Catterick was playing third, and Denzil Floyd was of course second horn. All in all, July was an exciting month, what with Woodstock, and the Russians having docked two ships in space earlier in the year, and the Americans having landed on the moon. And Tony Jacklin won the open at Lytham St Annes, beating Bob Charles by two strokes, having been trailing him in the first two rounds by a similar amount.
The weather, however, was mixed. The month before was mostly fine, and I had spent my few free days fishing the little river Wye near Bakewell. June is a wonderful month for trout and – in idyllic surroundings – the days were welcome breaks from playing the horn.
July was also quite settled – in the south of England. In the north however it was indeed very mixed, with fine spells being interrupted by the most torrential downpours.
Mahler’s Second Symphony in York Minster was a highlight of that year’s York Festival. This particular day in July was the wettest day of the year in England and Wales, and the heavens opened. Most of the orchestra left Manchester in three ‘buses (the ‘ten minute bus, the passion wagon and the boozers’ ‘bus) in plenty of time for the rehearsal in York. The ‘buses got us all there in plenty of time. That is, nearly all of us.
In Maurice Handford’s time as leader of the horn section, the fourth horn player had been the lovely David Wise, a very fine all-round player and friend. Their relationship had ended I was told, in fisticuffs on the edge of the platform. Maurice had a reputation for awkwardness, and when he left the orchestra he naturally become a successful conducting protégé of Barbirolli. He once loudly shouted “you bloody fools” at the second violins in the City Hall Sheffield – during the concert.
A fine horn player in his day, Maurice had once lent me his old horn as mine had been stolen. Weeks later it was still lying forgotten behind the sofa in my flat when I moved to a new flat, and my landlady put it out for the dustbin men. He had often been somewhat miffed by his sometime ‘bumper’ a certain Barry Tuckwell, recently arrived from the Antipodes. This new arrival to our shores, when motioned by Maurice to play a particular tutti bit for him, had the habit of putting his horn down just before the passage in question, thus forcing Maurice to pick his own up a split second before the beat came down.
Maurice had gained his position as principal horn in rather an unusual way. The occasion was twenty years before the events that I am relating happened. There was a performance in the Free Trade Hall of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. The principal horn at the time was Denis Mason (who had been a prisoner of the Germans in Crete during the war) and Maurice – the third horn – was to play first Wagner Tuba. The former was nowhere to be found, but eventually discovered considerably the worse for wear in Cox’s Bar just as the concert was due to start. Cox’s bar was the home of a caged minah bird that was – on one occasion I was there – whistling something that I was told (by a friend and Boddington’s lover who knew about these things) was an aria from the second act of Ethel Smyth’s ‘The Wreckers’.
Maurice was asked to play principal in his stead, and replied that he would be pleased to do so if Denis was sacked before the concert started. The management had no option but to go into Cox’s bar and do the necessary deed. This was in 1949. Denis Mason died aged 49 on the 16th of July 1969, the year and month about which I am writing. His father Jock had died six days before that.
David Wise managed to join the Hallé orchestra without being auditioned by Barbirolli (some of us were not so lucky) and was for that reason called Cheeky Charlie – he had a winning smile – by all and sundry, including JB, who simply called him Charlie from that time on.
By the time this story took place he had been a successful freelance player in the north of England for some years, but continued to play with the Hallé when we needed extra players.
Which brings me back to the Mahler symphony, which requires ten horn players, six on-stage and four off-stage – to play ‘Der Grosse Appel’ towards the end of the piece. David was booked as leader of the off-stage band. The others were Ralph Hall, Paul Sawbridge and the dearly beloved and much missed John Butterworth (Butters).
Barbirolli was not a well man at this time, but much revered by this audience in York, as he was everywhere else. He was to do his last concert with the orchestra exactly one year later, in King’s Lynn, and sadly died soon after that.
On this very rainy day we all wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible, so as the rehearsal inexorably moved towards the famous off-stage call we were aware that David had still not arrived at the Minster. A few bars before the call was due to be sounded, I decided that someone would have to take his place. So I sunk down below the music stand, got down on my hands and knees and, dragging my instrument behind me, crawled underneath the raked wooden rises holding up the huge chorus, to where the off-stage band was rather apprehensively assembled. I got there just in time to make up a full horn section and somehow managed to play the call with the others. Then I crawled back again and resumed my duties.
At the end of the rehearsal we all got up and moved back towards the Lady Chapel, where our bags were. I found myself walking alongside JB. Just as we passed the door leading out of the South Transept in walks David. I do not think I have ever seen anyone as wet as he was. Holding his helmet, he was in his full motorcycle leathers, dripping from head to toe and shaking himself like a labrador newly emerged from the swimming pool.
Ignoring the obvious, Barbirolli merely looked him up and down and growled, “that was fine Charlie; just like that tonight please”. Another of those occasions where it is simply best to keep quiet.
The Dean had asked that the audience not applaud at the end of the performance. This was quite usual in churches at the time (another tradition was that the trombone and cymbal players had to travel from Manchester to Hull just to play the National Anthem before an all-Beethoven concert). At the end of this performance however, there was silence for what seemed to be some minutes, and then the Minster erupted.
