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Yes Its True.......
Sir
Harrison Birtwistle (born 1934) has been often been described as the
'outstanding British composer of his generation' and was knighted in l988 for
his services to music. He has lived in Dorset for many years but it is not
widely known that in the mid l960s he was a peripatetic teacher (Fridays only)
of wind instruments at Clayesmore. This was a very small episode in what has
been and is a great career and OC journalist Hugh Thompson (59-64) thought it a
good time while memories still hold to try and get something on record about
this small footnote in the school and the Great Man's careers. He spoke to
'Harry' Birtwistle and asked two former students to put down their memories on
paper.
Sir HB "I don't remember an awful lot, I was still becoming established as
a composer and was teaching pure and simply for the money. My main job was at
Cranborne Chase Girls School and Clayesmore was very secondary. (HB was Director
of Music at Cranborne Chase from 1962-65) I'm afraid my memories are not very
positive, when I was there it was not a very happy school, rather grubby and
down on its heels. The headmaster (Burke) was not very impressive - the kind of
jolly sort of chap you might meet in a pub.. I quite liked Moore . There was a
bit of whiff of corruption about the place with all these long established
housemasters, I used to worry about the young boys who came every year and what
became of them.
I did buy a car off Spinney which almost immediately fell apart which was a
source of contention as he felt I had mistreated his pride and joy. It was a
Ford Prefect. (This story is lost in time and legend, there are those that say
Spinney moaned (and he could) that he hadn't been paid etc. Spinney was
notoriously fastidious and probably hated seeing his car used by a young family
of three children and all his good work being soiled).
As for the students, unlike at Cranbourne Chase, none sticks out, now you
mention it I do remember Sawyer I think he had his own instrument - one of the
problems was the instruments, few of the boys had any so we had to rely on the
ones belonging to the school which were terrible. I do vaguely remember trying
to change things and it coming to nothing. I also remember once asking the
Matron (Miss Deer) what all the sheets billowing on a line were and she told me
they were the sheets of the boys who had wet their beds the night before. These
are not great memories I'm sorry this isn't what you want to hear."
David Johnstone (57 - 62 ) writes
I arrived at Clayesmore in September 1957 & started to learn the Clarinet
with Walter Jenke but after about a year realised that due to a cycling accident
I couldn't manage the single reed without it hurting my top teeth. I then agreed
with Walter that if I could learn the fingering of the Bassoon I could switch
instruments.
This was achieved without too much trouble & I started to study the Bassoon.
I can't remember exactly what happened but I think Walter Jenke died & a
rather chubby young chap called Harrison Birtwhistle turned up & said that
he was now going to teach me the bassoon, only one problem though, he played the
Clarinet & didn't know anything at all about the bassoon or its fingering
but if I didn't mind he would try to teach me music.
Imagine my horror when scraps of paper were put in front of me with the feet
marks from several drunken spiders scattered over the page to be told play that.
Impossible & the scraps were torn up and thrown away. I wondered some years
later when I discovered that Harrison was now Sir Harrison, what those scraps
might have been worth.
It wasn't all bad news however. Harrison was also teaching music at the local
girls boarding school in Cranborne Chase & I used to get invited to play in
their Orchestra from time to time. Rather alarming as often I was given very
little warning & had to try to sight read for the rehearsal & busk my
way through the concert. On one occasion it was a Somerset Folk Song arranged by
Vaughn Williams with a splendid Bassoon Solo which nearly floored me but I think
we got away with it.
Gervais Sawyer(59 - 64) writes
I have thought quite a bit about writing something of my experiences with (Sir) Harrison Birtwistle, and the difficulty has been to remember it without all the subsequent colouration and prejudices.
To set the scene, I think that my background helps a bit. My father was a civil engineer and my mother a farmer. My brother, Hugh, and I were essential labour to the farm. Their musical interests were anything but classical, extending as far as Strauss waltzes. However, we knew and enjoyed most of the popular hymn tunes and a good many traditional folk songs. At our preparatory school, whilst we enjoyed the singing at the morning chapel, dayboys were not allowed to join the choir, this being the exclusive preserve of boarders. Instead I sang in my bath on Sunday nights along with 'Sunday half hour' on the Light Programme.
Arriving at Clayesmore, I was swept up in the musical world of Nick Zelle and Ronald Smith. Suddenly here was a whole musical world opened up for me. And so, in the choir I soon learned to read music and the possibility of learning an instrument presented itself. Robin Jones (56 - 61) was the catalyst for this. He got me started on the flute, which seemed a very attractive idea. The low running costs compared to those who were always desperate for reeds appealed to my miserly streak. Ronald Smith suggested that proper lessons were the way ahead, and so I met Harrison Birtwistle. At that time I was a bare five feet tall, so this smallish man with the twinkling eyes was not at all threatening. (In a world of giants like Mr. Henbest, you will understand). He worked on my sonority and talked with tremendous enthusiasm of Palestrina and Monteverdi. Only after leaving Clayesmore did I understand his enthusiasm, but at the time Clayesmore was stuck firmly in the great romantic period, not that I objected to the steady diet of Wesley and Stanford. (I knew no better!). Rhapsody in Blue was frowned upon.
Harrison Birtwistle taught at Wardour Castle girls school most of the time, and in due time he brought some girls to a school Christmas concert. This concert opened with a piece entitled 'Crescendo on Noel, Noel' and closed with 'Diminuendo on Noel, Noel'. It was unlike anything that I had heard, but well played, and by girls. Having access to the sheet music through Harrison I discovered that the second piece was the first played backwards. At the time, this seemed like a huge joke, but later I was to discover that this was but one of countless devices that could be explored in composition. Occasionally, Clayesmorians would play his music, but we were such bad players that we could not do it justice.
Harrison was dedicated to all his pupils. One of his new compositions was being performed at a live broadcast recital on Radio 3, so I duly met up with him at Broadcasting House. Geoffrey Gilbert was the eminent flautist charged with executing this new work, and a very impressive job he did too. Much of the work was very high, using those special fingerings that were light years away for me. I was surprised to see that Harrison was laughing with tears in his eyes during this. When I asked him why, he said that it was seeing the flautist's facial contortions during these high passages.
Harrison also took me to concerts at Wardour Castle. An opportunity to meet the girls - wow. I learnt that they were just as pleased to meet the boys! Harrison was a very fine clarinettist (Hallé orchestra no less) and played a piece with the girls. Now if there is one thing that a clarinettist dreads, it is the squeaky reed. (Scadding nearly died of hysterics during a school concert when this happened to Simon Perkins ) Harrison was not phased by this. He calmly stopped the piece and asked the audience to wait while he went to his room to fetch his trusty nylon reed.
To complete the story of Harrison and his dedication to his pupils, I must tell you the story of welding at Clayesmore. Chris Thornton(60 - 66), Jan Tory (61 - 64) and I decided that we really needed an arc welding set. Now these were expensive to say the least, but we located a large transformer at Clayesmore prep where at one time they had converted 240 volts to 110 volts for the old wiring system. This weighed two hundredweight, but Jan Tory casually put this under his arm and deposited it on the platform of the Hants & Dorset bus. Some very creative work involving wood - turning, formers, hammering, cable-wrapping etc. followed to produce a very good welding transformer. Unfortunately, we were a bit short on the money for safety equipment and rather skimped on the welding screens. The result was that I got a condition called arc-eye, which feels rather like having broken glass under the eyelids. With eyes bandaged for several days, I was pretty scared for my eyesight. When Sister Simms removed the bandages it was for me to see a visitor. Before me was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, with, as I remember, a soft Irish accent. This was Harrison's wife. Let me be objective about this. This was not rampant adolescent hormones reacting (I saved that for local girls) but the appreciation of more a mother figure.
Harrison clearly found that his commitments at Clayesmore, Wardour Castle and his urge for composition altogether too much and so Clayesmore lost its association with one of the foremost modern composers. My interest in 'New Music', sparked by him then was slow to kindle, but now forms an important part of my musical life. Please visit www.ioniansingers.co.uk and www.uskrecordings.com to see how much.
Howard Burnham (60-65) writes
I was not his pupil. The late lamented George Hamlyn (60 - 65) was. Oboe. I
recall George, in later years, saying: "I was pretty hopeless at the oboe,
and one day Birtie said, 'For God's sake stop. Let's listen to the cricket!' and
pulled a transistor out of his brief case. Good move, I thought."
Spinney sold Birtwistle his old Hillman (actually the black Ford Prefect JEL---
Ed.), I think, and was rather put out when the composer did not think he had a
bargain.
I recall all of us philistine Clayesmorians endeavouring to suppress sniggers at
the performance of Birtwhistle's Noel, Noel Crescendo and Noel Noel Diminuendo
which I think was performed by the more musically adept girls of Cranborne
Chase. I rather fancied the bassoon.
I think everyone thought him a bit of joke - certainly his music. Still he's had
the last laugh on Clodders...but personally I still think his music c'est pour
rire.
Hugh Thompson (59 - 64)