h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm involved in a concert in Dublin next Saturday, put together as a memorial to John Beckett (St Ann's Dawson St, 8 pm if you're around).

I'll be singing in the choir and playing in a viol consort, and accompanying singers and violins and a recorder (Mrs R).

John taught me the art of continuo playing in the 1970s and 80s. He ran a Chamber Music class (medieval to baroque) and soloists lined up to take their turns. I sat at John's left hand; he handed me a bass part which I played on the viol while he played the harpsichord, then at the end he stretched out his hand to take the part back. He hardly addressed a word to me, but everything I needed to know was shown in the way he played the continuo line (identical to my string bass line) with his left hand. Singers and instrumentalists all had their turns, while I played the whole evening, since (in baroque music at least) everything is accompanied by continuo, consisting of harpsichord (or equivalent) and bass viol (or equivalent). After the class we would go to the pub across the road from the Academy (Kennedy's) and John would pontificate outrageously on everything under the sun.

He also taught a viol consort class, another evening of the week, which I attended. When he left Dublin to work for the BBC in London, I took over the consort class and still teach it.

Every year from 1973 to 1983 he ran a series of concerts in February, devoted to Bach Cantatas. We have reassembled the choir and orchestra, almost intact, and will perform two of his favourites, Cantatas 30 and 150.

John died in February this year, on his 80th birthday. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Beckett

I have to say, that there's not a lot in what you say that gives me the impression that you liked him very much.

He was am opinionated old curmudgeon and we all loved him dearly. Curious.

He worshipped Bach and couldn't abide Handel. He had bad words for Vivaldi too ("a cliché, callously used") and for even Corelli, the messiah of the baroque style. After all, Bach had admired Vivaldi and Corelli. A quirk.

But on the plus side, John Beckett was both brilliant musically and unconditionally affectionate and loyal personally. His group Musica Reservata, that made standard-setting records of early music in the sixties, finally broke up over management issues. John apparently remained immovably faithful to the mismanager.

His sense of humour doesn't come over well in print, but its ponderous delivery was a part of it. He spoke with something of an Oxford drawl, which is curious because his twin sister, to whom he remained close all her life, had quite a broad Dublin accent.

A man of contradictions.

Glancing at the Wikipedia article on John Beckett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._Beckett I saw that it has been tagged with "This article may contain original research or unverified claims."

The paragraph headed "Assessment and character" is marked "The neutrality of this section is disputed." Quite rightly. I put in the assessment of his relationship with choirs and orchestras, from personal experience and talking with a member of the orchestral. This kind of thing is not acceptable in Wikipedia; they only accept opinions and assessments that have been published somewhere else, preferably by a university or other reliable house, where facts are presumed to have been checked and vetted against legal implications.

Where does h2g2 stand on this? I hope that we can put original research up here -- after all, it is "write what you know" with emphasis on the local.

So now I'm going to remove the offending paragraphs and post hem here instead. W's loss, our gain; though I entirely see Wiki's point.

Like many conductors who are wonderful with choirs, John's relationship with orchestras was (by comparison) slightly stand-offish. They saw little nuance in his arm movements, which tended to be extra large; and while orchestral players prefer to be shown things by gesture in the course of rehearsing, John’s method was to mark each player’s part, in great detail, in soft black pencil (having completely erased all previous markings) in advance of the first rehearsal, and then to give further instructions verbally. Reading his handwritten music, especially his continuo parts, which were thick with chords, was just as difficult as reading his handwriting.

When recording, John nearly always delivered the goods on the first take. Very often the best buzz of all was to be had in the final rehearsal. Despite a confident exterior, he was not at his happiest in public performance, appearing to scowl at the musicians when conducting. This did not prevent him, when a performance went particularly well, from repeating an entire Bach Cantata at one of the Sunday afternoon concerts.

I don't see any reason to remove them from Wikipedia, R. Let them stay for as long as possible. Wikipedia is far too bland for my liking.

My attempts to make Wikipedia factually correct by trashing astrology have all been carefully removed.

Point is, to defend against personal opinions being presented as facts (such a temptation!) they made a rule: no original stuff here.

Put back your debunks with full cites and they might stick; otherwise you can challenge the cred of the cites given by the proponents of astrology.

That's encouraging -- the concert has a pretty prominent mention, with a photo, in today's Irish Times (The Ticket, entertainment section). Now we just need to rehearse tonight and tomorrow morning and afternoon, and find two people to sell programmes.

Well it had a well filled audience and got a great reception. A success all round.

More Beckett memories kept coming back; I'm whacked now and can't recall them, but I'll put them here for the record, as they return. Now I've got to go and sing another concert, with the Gaudete Singers (including Gnomon who has joined this term along with Mrs G). Nice programme, Palestrina and Pärt, but I haven't much voice. I yodel somewhere in the middle register, so it'll be mostly falsetto tonight.

One thing has resurfaced. I mentioned above that John despised Handel, Vivaldi, and even Corelli. What he disliked was the appearance of any application of formulas: Bach, Purcell, Jenkins, Byrd, his favourite composers visibly worked things out for themselves . . . and yet John also adored long-standing tradition, for instance: "Some people make their own wine, but I like to drink wine that has been made by people who have been doing it not merely for years, but for generations." He would put emphasis on each syllable of that word.

One thing he had was a Strong Sense of Duty. Every band has had the experience of outnumbering their audience at some time; bad management sees to that. One time we played a concert in Castleisland in Co Kerry on I think five viols. Jenkins, Byrd, Holborne, maybe even some Purcell . . . not what would bring in the punters in their droves. The concert was in a freezing church, the bus driver was approximately half the audience, but did John cancel? He did not abate the programme by one item.

Afterwards we went across the road for pints in a lovely warm crowded pub and it was all "If we knew you were playing we would have gone, surely".

I remember a thing John said to us in the choir: "Some people put expression marks into chorales, but my idea of a chorale is a good-hearted mess".

Last night Jeremy Timmis told me he had also said "I take all chorales at (I hope) the same tempo". Interesting.

Daughter El has to write a chorale this evening as an exercise for her musicianship class tomorrow morning. She'll probably do it while watching the Toy Show.

That's one thing that you can't (let her) do. Writing a chorale needs concentration. Could she write a limerick while watching TV?

I don't know, because she doesn't watch TV much. Besides Top Gear and Doctor Who, she really has no interest in it, but will sit through the Toy Show in case there are good bits, and because her cello teacher's daughter will be reviewing some of the toys.

In that case she might make a good fist of a chorale. I am of the generation that couldn't study with music on; our children couldn't study without music on. But to write harmony with other sounds impinging would be hard; Mozart liked it, but he also wrote a lot of shite.

... and quite a bit of good stuff.

Gewiss. But a lot of the time he phoned it in. Spent his nights playing billiards.