The Brian Wright Years

BRIAN WRIGHT formally became Music Director of the Goldsmiths Choral Union in 1973.

Now halfway through his fourth decade in this post, Brian can look back on a time of exciting growth in the choir's development. What sticks in the mind of many GCU members is Brian's enthusiasm for large-scale works done well. All of us have enjoyed performing the Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts and Te Deum, the Britten War Requiem and the Verdi Requiem. But Brian has revealed himself as a persuasive champion of the choral music of Liszt, from the grandeur of the Missa Solemnis and the oratorio Christus to the simplicty of the Missa Choralis. To these achievements can also be added Brian's mastery of Sir Michael Tippett's The Mask of Time, which the choir performed in 1988 in the presence of the composer. This is a major work of impressively broad vision, though the jury is still out on whether it can be considered a classic yet.

We also cherish the incisive, disciplined quality of Brian's reading of Messiah and the B Minor Mass. How can you make a choir of 150, 200, or even 500 sing with the unanimity and flexibility of a chamber group of 40? Brian knows.

Brian Wright’s biography reveals the extent of his talent and reputation as an orchestral and choral conductor. But he has also played a major role in the long history of GCU. In GCU’s Golden Jubilee Brochure, published in 1982, Brian recalled his early years with the choir. This is part of what he wrote:

My association with GCU started in 1968 when I received a letter, forwarded from the Guildhall School of Music, from someone with the unlikely name of Frederick Haggis. He invited me for a chat and, in the time-honoured way, hinted at something to my advantage. I was just 22, and unbelievably Freddie had seen me conduct my very first concert back in 1961 with a small combined schools group in which his granddaughter was performing. He had watched my progress through college and thought I might be the one to help him rebuild the choir.

Freddie was very aware that GCU had grown old with him and that, with the formation of choirs like the LSO Chorus, he couldn't offer the members the sort of prestige programme from independent promoters that they'd come to expect. The choir had dwindled to an active membership of about 80, with only one tenor on the books.

Despite a sixty-year age gap, Freddie and I gradually developed an extremely good relationship, but at times it was quite a battle between the hot-headedness of youth and the deliberation of age. As those who knew Freddie well will testify, every decision he came to was made over a very long period. For two Christmases, I came in as a professional tenor but, unbeknown to the membership, Freddie had asked me to understudy those concerts. In 1967, he'd had a slight heart attack before a carol concert and had to hand over to pianist Hubert Dawkes, who for many years brilliantly led his team of accompanists. In the first instance then, I was Freddie's insurance policy.

By the spring of 1970 the re-vamped St. John's, Smith Square, was opening. I suggested it would be an ideal venue for the choir and Freddie asked me to conduct half the programme, including Bach's Magnificat. I brought with me modern ideas of Bach vocal techniques which startled some people, but we had a fine orchestra, including, I remember, John Wilbraham as first trumpet, and it was a success.

The following December, I again understudied events, but problems were brewing over the carol concerts. James Blades said that he felt he could no longer sustain doing two concerts in one day and these would be his last concerts. Hubert Dawkes' fine partner, Eric Harrison, had sadly died that year and Hubert had problems over a replacement. Freddie felt he didn't want to cope with the changes and asked me to take over the Carol Concerts in 1971.

Hubert, understandably, decided also to bow out, so I was faced with fixing a new team to work with Richard Popplewell, the organist. This actually wasn’t a problem as I was sharing a flat with a marvellous young pianist, Roger Vignoles, who was working as a coach at Covent Garden. Roger suggested Antony Saunders as a partner, a choice of genius, and the team was completed when, after the first concert, Chris Bowers-Broadbent took over from Richard who was ill. In 1971, I also took some rehearsals for Freddie's well-remembered 85th birthday Gerontius, and conducted the first of several Rossini Petite Messe performances. But I mostly remember that awful first moment of walking out to a full Festival Hall for Carols and having to talk to the audience!

Together with the indispensible Fay Richardson, who was the GCU's secretary at the time, we set about other things. Amazingly, it fell to me to look after the printing of handbills and programmes. More importantly, I oversaw the first re-auditions for many years and a start of new recruitment. There was an amazing look of astonishment on members' faces when two "real" tenors started singing, the redoubtable Garrick and Capps. In 1972, we went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the first time and I took over the Festival Hall Messiah. How the members sweated over re-learning that with me with countless extra rehearsals in a horrible little hall in Glebe Place! But little did they realise it was a life-or-death struggle as the hail was reviewing the standard of all annual performances with a view to sharing popular works between more promoters.

Freddie's performance was of course of the old school. He'd learned Messiah in Victorian times and despite using the original small orchestration, he still preferred a grand piano to a harpischord for the continuo.

1973 saw two significant events. The BBC reported favourably on a performance of the St John Passion, and the choir started being offered some extra work again. In addition, on Freddie's retirement, and largely due to the organising work of Bill Johnston, GCU became self-governing. Looking back over the programmes since then, many performances stand out. Among these are the two Peter Pears concerts, the St. John Passion and the War Requiem, the Brahms and the Verdi Requiems, perhaps particularly the one in the late-lamented Alexandra Palace when we all literally counted nine in the pause before the fugue in the "Sanctus", while listening to sound disappearing slowly into the distance. If the Berlioz Grande Messe and Liszt’s Christus were personally most successful, my proudest achievement with the choir was undoubtedly the Beethoven Missa Solemnis in 1979 – and on only one orchestral rehearsal!

Reproduced from Goldsmiths Choral Union's Golden Jubilee Brochure,
first published in March 1982.

Brian ended his article by offering a positive assessment of his first decade as Music Director, saying that the choir had grown again from its low point at the start of the 1970s and hoping that Freddie Haggis would be pleased that the friendly, social atmosphere he had created was still there. Choir members had much to treasure, not least Brian himself, who on a personal note wondered: "Where would I be if my wife Sue had decided to join, say, the London Phil?"

Today, more than a quarter of a century after penning these reminiscences – an interval during which the GCU has passed through the crises of changing its rehearsal venue and suffering financial constraints and membership losses that have forced it to scale down its concerts and has come out the other side – Brian can again be sanguine about Goldsmiths Choral Union and its prospects. We travel more, we take part in more collaborative events, and a recent, profoundly generous gift from an anonymous donor has ensured that for the foreseeable future, the GCU can promote at least one major concert with orchestral support every year. The GCU is still in business, putting on performances in prestigious London venues. The last three sentences from Brian's 1982 essay still ring true:

I don't think the musical and social fundamentals of the choir have changed much. GCU is still a community venture with all the best attributes of a local choral society. Members still come to enjoy themselves and to work amazingly hard, but in the knowledge that ... they are flying high and competing with the very best in this most professional musical city in the world.

Freddie Haggis's legacy, embodied by the Goldsmiths Choral Union and nurtured by Brian Wright, lives on.

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