Having written about the London Concert Orchestra, I should definitely write about the other orchestra in my life of which I was Music Director for 25 years: the National Symphony.
This orchestra had a glorious past, being one of the oldest freelance bands and the orchestra of choice for the great British films of the war and post-war years. As a matter of interest, the other British orchestra used for those post-war films was the Sinfonia of London. The NSO was led by David McCallum who was the father of the actor of the same name and played Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Generally, these films were conducted by Muir Mathieson. I met both the conductor and soloist of Brief Encounter, the film having been shot in early 1945 and one of those famous NSO war films. Mathieson came to the Royal College of Music when I was a student in the 70s to conduct an orchestra playing film music in which I played the piano; and Eileen Joyce, who had played the solo part to Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto in the film, was great friends with my great-aunt and played in her trio with Marie Wilson (ex-wartime leader of BBC Symphony).
The orchestra was always a very happy one as, by the time I conducted them, they had a force of nature by the name of Anne Collis in charge, and she treated the whole enterprise as one of great joy. She claimed she had been the first female musician into the Royal Philharmonic and I wouldn't be surprised. You wouldn't dare deny Anne anything! She was a percussionist and is responsible for the NSO being the only orchestra in the world to have a Tacet (do not play) sheet printed for the percussion section in the string piece Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. At a concert, she had neglected to pay close enough attention to the running order and played an enormous cymbal crash for Carmen's Toreadors March as I brought the baton down and everyone else played the Mozart!
The National Symphony was the direct competitor for the London Concert as the NSO was the house band for Victor Hocchauser, but the LCO was owned by Raymond Gubbay. Both Raymond and Victor were concert promoters in London from the 70s. My first appearance with the NSO was on the 30th April 1988, a week before my first appearance with the LCO, and I managed to juggle these two rival promoters and orchestras for nearly a year, before I got the call from Raymond to choose.
The NSO was a very different orchestra in those days. It was a very happy, family affair and if, occasionally, things went wrong, it wasn't a big deal. I remember starting Ravel's Bolero at the Royal Festival Hall without the 2 solo saxes, each of whom had 16 bars of solo, and one who had the Eb clarinet solo as well: that's 48 bars of nothing apart from a rhythm. My fault probably as I should have noticed, but equally, so should the orchestra manager! There is no room here to tell you how I solved the problem of having started the piece, we played it in its entirety and the audience never noticed the missing instruments. You will just have to buy my autobiography, "Sit Down, Stop Waving Your Arms About" published on 28th April 2023, where I recount the story. Pre-order here
Every year, the NSO and I cross the Atlantic (this year 11/9/23) on Cunard's liner Queen Mary 2 and next year will be the 15th anniversary. The friends I still have in the orchestra cross with me and after Anne's early death (and there's another extraordinary story in the book), Justin Pearson, the remarkable cellist and human being, has taken Anne's passion to another professional level. I return fairly regularly to them being careful not to conflict with the LCO. Though both work with Katherine Jenkins, it's kept quite even-handed!
I am so lucky (and privileged) to have been so closely aligned to two such great, yet very different orchestras.
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