Enlivening though much of it was, my period as a London drama critic was no more than an interlude in my journalistic career.. The more I devoted myself to it, the more it seemed a sideline from which I might never escape. My desire to return to full-time music criticism preoccupied me, though I knew it might mean quitting The Scotsman as my workplace. Music criticism was my metier, and I increasingly wanted back to it.
Suddenly I received three simultaneous opportunities. From Edinburgh came a letter from Christopher Grier, The Scotsman’s staff music critic, saying he had done the job for sixteen years and had had enough of it. He was coming to London to try his luck on a freelance basis, with a weekly column on The Listener as his starting point. I wrote back to him instantly, asking if this meant that the Edinburgh job - the one for which, since my schooldays, I had always yearned - was now open. He replied that it was, and since nobody yet knew about it, there were meanwhile no contenders.
He said he would consult Alastair Dunnett, The Scotsman editor, on my behalf and, almost by return of post, Dunnett wrote asking if I would like to be Christopher’s successor in Edinburgh. Those were the great days when serious British newspapers had staff music critics - something that is now a rarity - and I was on the point of saying yes when two further offers came my way.
The first was from Holland, proposing an extension of my old job as sleeve note editor for Philips Records in Baarn. Not only was I offered an enhanced version of what I had done previously but a house to go with it. Would I like to fly over for a few days and take a look?
But in London, too, things were happening. The leading music agent Wilfred Stiff, a nice man for whom I had interviewed musicians and written profiles of them, asked me if I would like to join him on a full-time basis. Some careful weighing up clearly needed to be done. My visit to Holland proved inviting, but the job, I thought, could probably have been handled from London. Was a house in Holland - perhaps for life - be enough of a temptation or would it be an anchor round my neck? I had worked in Baarn before and liked it, though with reservations. I wavered, and said no.
I also said no to Wilfred Stiff, because I did not really want to work for an agent, despite the attraction of his offer. It was The Scotsman, and my native Edinburgh, for which I opted, and for which I worked for a further 25 years.
It was the right decision. Musically they were the best years of my life, and though they ended in disgruntlement and two editors who gave me great displeasure, they were great while they lasted - the acme of what a newspaper music critic’s life should be like, with opportunities for travel of a sort I had never anticipated and offshoots, such as writing about food and wine, which suited my lifestyle.
So I said yes to Alastair Dunnett and, so long as he and his eventual successor Eric Mackay were in charge, I never regretted my decision.
8 November 2014
Suddenly I received three simultaneous opportunities. From Edinburgh came a letter from Christopher Grier, The Scotsman’s staff music critic, saying he had done the job for sixteen years and had had enough of it. He was coming to London to try his luck on a freelance basis, with a weekly column on The Listener as his starting point. I wrote back to him instantly, asking if this meant that the Edinburgh job - the one for which, since my schooldays, I had always yearned - was now open. He replied that it was, and since nobody yet knew about it, there were meanwhile no contenders.
He said he would consult Alastair Dunnett, The Scotsman editor, on my behalf and, almost by return of post, Dunnett wrote asking if I would like to be Christopher’s successor in Edinburgh. Those were the great days when serious British newspapers had staff music critics - something that is now a rarity - and I was on the point of saying yes when two further offers came my way.
The first was from Holland, proposing an extension of my old job as sleeve note editor for Philips Records in Baarn. Not only was I offered an enhanced version of what I had done previously but a house to go with it. Would I like to fly over for a few days and take a look?
But in London, too, things were happening. The leading music agent Wilfred Stiff, a nice man for whom I had interviewed musicians and written profiles of them, asked me if I would like to join him on a full-time basis. Some careful weighing up clearly needed to be done. My visit to Holland proved inviting, but the job, I thought, could probably have been handled from London. Was a house in Holland - perhaps for life - be enough of a temptation or would it be an anchor round my neck? I had worked in Baarn before and liked it, though with reservations. I wavered, and said no.
I also said no to Wilfred Stiff, because I did not really want to work for an agent, despite the attraction of his offer. It was The Scotsman, and my native Edinburgh, for which I opted, and for which I worked for a further 25 years.
It was the right decision. Musically they were the best years of my life, and though they ended in disgruntlement and two editors who gave me great displeasure, they were great while they lasted - the acme of what a newspaper music critic’s life should be like, with opportunities for travel of a sort I had never anticipated and offshoots, such as writing about food and wine, which suited my lifestyle.
So I said yes to Alastair Dunnett and, so long as he and his eventual successor Eric Mackay were in charge, I never regretted my decision.
8 November 2014
Interesting to hear the name Wilfred Stiff again although I have a less enthusiastic memory of him than CW. Like Sir David Webster who went on to run The Royal Opera House and many others of that era, Stiff had no training in arts management. He learned on the job and went on to have a distinguished career.
ReplyDeleteHis last post, though, was taking over the near-legendary London-based artists' agency, Ibbs & Tillett, then run by the redoubtable Emmie Tillett from its base in Wigmore Street. At one time, Ibbs & Tillett controlled a huge portion of music in Britain, thanks partly to its virtual monopoly of the then thriving Music Club circuit.
But by the early 1970s Mrs. Tillett had become a virtual dinosaur resistant to the changes which were taking place in the agency business worldwide. For more than a decade several of her younger staff had put forward proposals for change, almost none of which were adopted. So the agency faced an exodus of talented, enthusiastic managers. Christopher Hunt, Jasper Parrott, Terry Harrison, Martin Campbell-White and Robert Rattray are just some who departed to found their own more boutique agencies specialising in career management rather than merely acting as booking agents, or to start revitalising others.
Wilfred Stiff was therefore brought in at a time when the agency was careering downhill quite rapidly, only to end in a nasty bankruptcy soon after he retired. Unfortunately, with his patrician manner, he himself was too much one of the old school to make the necessary changes.
I had known the agency for many years before I found myself in Stiff's office one summer going through the vacancies for soloists I had for the following two years for the Hong Kong Philharmonic. For one series of three concerts, I needed a dramatic soprano. Wilfred proposed an artist with whom I had worked before - and I was interested. However, I was aware that the singer had been going through a period of considerable vocal problems. All these were at an end, Wilfred assured me, and he was booking her into some prestige dates again. Given that we were looking so far ahead, I decided any gamble was worth taking. I signed a contract.
Nearer the time, my concerns reappeared. Being so far from other musical centres, I decided we needed a cover, an artist prepared to come to Hong Kong and stand-by - just in case! I also realised I had to inform Wilfred. It would hardly be ideal for the confidence for his artist to see another well-known singer attending rehearsals.
This was absolutely unnecessary, was Wilfred's comment. I would be flushing money down the drain. He spent a lot of time on the phone assuring me his artist was in great form. So I persuaded myself not to engage the excellent cover I was about to contract. This was a major error on my part. For although the rehearsals were to go splendidly, come the first of the concerts the singer quickly broke down. She was obviously unable to take part in the other two concerts and so we were forced into some programme changes in the absence of a cover.
It was all my responsibility and my fault. But I did feel after the event that Wilfred's considerable career in PR aligned to the desire for a good commission from 3 concerts had helped him go further in persuading me than might otherwise have been the case. The relationship between agents and concert promoters is a rather delicate balance given that each depends on the other. In this case, it did seem too many other factors had come into play.