The London Bach Society

From the leader’s chair

Alan Loveday (1928-2016)

The death has been announced of the violinist Alan Loveday, aged 88.  Alan was one of the most gifted violinists of his generation and an early exponent of period style playing. No one could fail to be anything other than deeply moved by his performances of key Bach obbligatos played on his ‘little fiddle’ and his recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with the Academy of St. Martins directed by (Sir) Neville Marriner (pictured above) made in the early 1970s serves as a benchmark for many to this day.

A New Zealander by birth, Alan Loveday’s place in the history of the London Bach Society is as a founder-member-leader of Steinitz Bach Players in 1968, along with oboist Tess Miller, trumpeter Michael Laird, violist Duncan Druce, cellist Jennifer Ward Clarke and violone/viola da gambist Adam Skeaping. His leadership and performances with the orchestra in its crucial early years raising listeners’ awareness of how Bach might have heard his music and had it performed were manifested most significantly in his exquisite playing of the violin obbligato in the aria “Erbarme dich Gott…” (St. Matthew Passion Part 2) sung by Janet Baker at the annual Lenten presentations directed by Paul Steinitz in the Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great.  In later years Alan’s performance of one of the Bach solo violin Partitas at a Steinitz/ LBS Bach cantata concert reduced a packed QEH on London’s South Bank to tears of joy and high emotion…with Paul sitting on the concert platform alongside the other instrumentalists eager not to miss a single note.

A key player in our orchestra’s early development, we remember Alan Loveday with much gratitude. Margaret Steinitz

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 Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016)

Another very sad loss. Composer, conductor and educator, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies passed away on 14 March 2016 aged 81. He had been ill for sometime, yet showed his typical courage and determination to continue to work until the end.
Sir Peter was a true pioneer, imaginative, creative, controversial, challenging in the musical demands he made on his singers and players. He was the original enfant terrible. His iconic group Fires of London (formerly the Pierrot Players) rolled back the boundaries of contemporary music and the live concert experience in the 60s/70s, touring the world with their staged performances of, among other instrumental and theatre works, Max’s (as he was fondly known)  Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot that set the seal on his composing career ahead. Audiences came to know the group simply as ”The Fires” and they  attracted some stellar instrumentalists to make sense of the very complex Maxwell Davies scores – Jennifer Ward Clarke, Duncan Druce, Judith Pearce, Stephen Pruslin and Alan Hacker among them, the group ably managed by the late Louise Honeyman. Any new Davies world première was anticipated with alacrity for its potential to be controversial and since those days they have never provoked indifference.

Our own contribution was to give the first London performance of Maxwell Davies Veni Sancte Spiritus at the  South Bank’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in  November 1972, which BBC recorded, and which was given with the composer present.

Latterly Sir Peter has continued to champion the importance of high quality musical education, a lifelong commitment of his, when it is not only financial cuts that threaten, but the very inclusion of music as an integral part of the curriculum… and he did not mince his words on this, cuts to arts funding in general and other Davies priorities either!  At least he is no longer suffering and his music will surely live on.   Rest in peace. Margaret Steinitz (Artistic Director, LBS)

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Nikolaus Harnoncourt at Barbican with Margaret Steinitz and Sir Nicholas Kenyon

Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)

The death has been announced of the distinguished Austrian conductor and chamber musician Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He was 86.  Harnoncourt was a pioneer of period style performance, especially of the music of Bach, and the last of the remaining  great 20th century Bach interpreters who rolled back the boundaries and gave us the composer’s treasury of vocal church music in its original form . The complete Bach cantatas recording project (Telefunken 1970-1991) he shared with the Dutch harpsichordist and conductor Gustav Leonhardt remains one of the most important and historic ever on disc, opening our ears to the emerging new sound world at the time, not only of the period instruments themselves, but of period style performance in its fullest sense. Nearly a quarter of a century later these recordings still cut the mustard and inform the listener.

When Paul Steinitz was planning the last phase of the London Bach Society’s own public cycle of Bach’s cantatas in the mid-1980s, Harnoncourt was invited to be one of the Patrons of the special Appeal launched to complete our project and he accepted with alacrity. The warm encouragement that accompanied this was typical of the man, a genuine servant of music.  By his side was his devoted wife and accomplished violinist Alice to whom he was married for over 60 years;  his daughter is the celebrated mezzo soprano Elisabeth von Magnus.

There will be many tributes made from across the world, reflecting the breadth of musical interests Harnoncourt pursued. Ours is one of sincere gratitude for his dedication to the music of Bach, a true kindred spirit. Margaret Steinitz

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