Principal Trombone, LSO

Part II: 1957-1987 - Denis Wick

By Harold Nash

Denis Wick"When I joined the LSO, it wasn't really a proper job at all. There had been what was called 'the big split' when the Sinfonia of London was created. Most of our best work including the film sessions, together with many of the older members, most of the wind principals among them, went to the new orchestra. This left the LSO with a rather empty diary and in fact, if I hadn't had a lot of deputising work with the CBSO while they found my successor I'd have had a very hard time indeed during my first year. At first I was absolutely horrified by the terrible standard of conductors. All sorts of conductors who shouldn't have been there were foisted upon us and made the job much more difficult than it needed to be. The ones that did impress me were Josef Krips, Stokowski and Antal Dorati. Working with Dorati was the biggest kick up the backside that the orchestra ever had and it really began to play very much better. Conductors make such a difference to the way orchestras work. I managed to cope with the awkward ones by smiling and looking intelligent! When I was at a vulnerable age I had enough ability and gumption to hold them at bay by doing the job and relying on experience gained in the Bournemouth and Birmingham orchestras: you really need to have served some kind of apprenticeship. Musicologists then, and to some extent now, don't give the aspiring orchestral player enough repertoire to make him feel experienced and the fact that the National Centre for Orchestral Studies exists is, in a way, an admission of defeat by the colleges of music in not providing what they should provide."

Did your business interests become a kind of antidote to playing?

"It worked both ways. I felt that I didn't need to worry about a particular thing like a high entry, or a solo, or whatever, but on the other hand my pride, which we all have, made me concerned. Latterly, when things became much harder I had to work twice as hard to get the same result and I thought: 'What on earth am I doing here? I don't need this aggravation.' It becomes very tempting to think: 'I've had enough!' And that is what happened in the end. Playing in a symphony orchestra is an extremely limiting kind of musical life, and your moments of glory are very few. But, sitting there turning it on in a Mahler symphony ... I'll miss that. In a way though I've kind of killed that by spending a year doing a lot of second, bumping-up and sharing programmes. I needed some kind of catharsis to get it out of my system, and I did. One gives up a lot to do a job like the LSO. You've got to stay in shape and it needs a lot of muscle plus a great deal of thought. And in the end, you are a craftsman more than an artist. I see colleagues who have made careers in other branches of music and seem to get great satisfaction out of what they do, particularly in education. They get as much out of conducting a tenth rate wind band concert as they might playing a Mahler symphony. The number of concerts I can remember playing where it was really magic are so very few."

It's been almost a year since you officially relinquished your position as Principal Trombone with the LSO, yet Ian Bousfield's appointment has only recently been announced. Have the management been dragging their feet?

"With any self-run orchestra as busy as the LSO things get left. They could have handled it a lot better, particularly with regard to Eric Crees, who had been holding the fort for a long long time. He had been doing as much first trombone as me for the last six or seven years. It was decided that they wanted to have someone else playing first trombone. The fact that they have chosen Ian is good for the orchestra, he is an extremely accomplished player and what he is short on by way of experience, if he is, he is bright enough to get together very quickly."

LSO Trombone Section - 1957
London Symphony Orchestra trombones and tuba in 1957.
(Denis Wick, Chris Davenport, Tony Thorpe and 'Tiggy' Walker (tuba).)

When you joined the LSO, you inherited a section from another generation; did you get along with them?

"In the beginning it was fine, but over a period of six years relations deteriorated a bit. Both were good players, but not in those particular seats. Chris Davenport had a marvellous high register and was really a fine first trombone player but he was doing second and that wasn't the right job for him. The bass trombone was Tony Thorpe. He was best known for his eccentricity and the fantastic series of yarns which kept everybody amused for hours on end. His real expertise was playing fast, loud, and high! Although they were not ideally suited to the job, both were sensible enough and good enough musicians to adapt themselves to what they had to do. The trouble was that by that time the orchestra was heavily into high quality recording work and what would pass for casual concerts would not do for the microscopic ear of the recording studio, and so it was decided that something ought to happen and they both departed. Paul Lawrence, who had been in the Hallé and London Philharmonic orchestras, joined us on second trombone. He was an archetypal second trombone; no aspirations to play first but with a very good sound and an excellent ear. He fitted in very well and everybody said how much better it sounded. Not that anyone could criticise Chris Davenport's actual technical ability on the instrument, it was simply that he had been first trombone for so long that the sound was a bit light for playing second. Somebody with a really big, rich sound could make the section sound twice as good. Tony, too, could do some things very well, but not others. I'd known Frank Mathison from the Birmingham days and so I told him about the vacancy. He said he was very interested, did a good audition, and got the job. Throughout these changes Tiggy Walker had remained on tuba but unfortunately, about a month after Frank arrived in March 1963, he died. Tiggy was a marvellous colleague and a great character. He often said that he owed his success 'to false teeth, Bass's bitter, and sixty a day'. Sadly it was the sixty a day that got him in the end."

The vacant tuba chair was filled for the next five years by Alan Jenkins from the Hallé orchestra until his departure in search of the greener pastures of the New World.

"Paul had always wanted to play tuba, and practised in secret to become a tuba player while still playing second trombone in the orchestra. When Alan left, he did play tuba in the LSO for a while and could have done the job very well, but the LSO, being the way it is, wanted to have a top notch player, someone they could say was a virtuoso. John Fletcher was negotiating to go to the LPO and he somehow managed to organise it so that Paul became their favourite candidate and so Paul went to the London Philharmonic and John came to us. Just before this time Paul had fallen ill (with chicken pox caught from one of his children I believe) and we were due to go to the Leeds Triennial Festival playing some music that was tied to lots of other things and it was almost impossible to get one person who could do it all. In desperation I thought of Peter Gane. He was then in his first year at the Manchester College of Music and he came along at very short notice and played like a genius. For that reason he was brought into the orchestra although his appointment was not ratified until Paul's extended trial period with the LPO was completed Even then it was insisted that Peter did an audition. After about jive years with us he developed a kind of semi-paralysis of the lower lip muscles. I still don't know the full story, and don't think he does. He stopped playing, made an attempt to come back, had two more tries, and then decided it wasn't for him. During that period we had all sorts of people coming in to deputise, and of those, Eric Crees was the most versatile, and the best musician, so he was given the second trombone job. At the time I was getting quite a few outside dates, and occasionally went away to look 'intelligent in some foreign town, so Eric began to do quite a lot of first playing and after about four or five years was appointed Co-principal."

Do you regret staying in the one job for so long?

"To stay in one job for thirty years is probably too long. Moving to another job gives you a new lease of life and more respect because people ~ always think that the new person coming in to a job is better than the one already in i4 even if they're not When you are young yet established in a job, you are very much exposed to the public, gaze and there are always tempting offers. In retrospect I think it's a good idea to move. Finding a new set of colleagues or new things to enjoy makes life more interesting, and it is so easy for people to think of you as part of the furniture when you've been there a long time. After a while people don't offer you other jobs and you don't feel you wan t to apply for vacancies. I have thought of setting up my own wholesaling business, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and that is what my business knowledge amounts to. When you think about business in the real sense you can become so unstuck, and have more to lose. My weaknesses in business have been in trusting people too much and that's probably engendered from working so long with musicians. Musicians in general are nice people and will go out of their way to help you. In business, it is not always the way it looks."

The Official Secrets Act prevents me from mentioning the new Eurobone on the test bed at Edgware, but there seems not to have been a D Notice slapped on the news that you've started work at the Birmingham School of Music.

"The greatest thrill is to work with young people, to make them realise what music is about and to make them do it better. The big kick I get now is the conducting I do. I have a youth orchestra in Essex and although it would be stretching the imagination, even mine, to think that I could ever make it to big time professional conducting, I do know how it works and what the results are. The wonder of playing in a good orchestra for the first few years of your professional life is something you can never recapture. That was absolutely marvellous!"

‹‹Part 1

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