Flautist’s Reminiscences

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31784, 14 September 1968, Page 4

Flautist’s Reminiscences

First Flute. By Gerald Jackson. Edited by David Simmons. With a Foreword by Sir John Barbirolli. Dent 133 pp. Index.

In bis foreword to this short autobiography, Sir John Barbirolli mentions the similarity of his early years and those of Gerald Jackson. Both were sons of orchestral musicians—his Italian, Mr Jackson’s Yorkshire—and they began learning their instruments when they were very young and became professional musicians at an incredibly early age. Barbirolli also pays tribute to Gerald Jackson as a fine player of great integrity and sensitiveness. When asked, at the age of five, what instrament he would like to learn to play, young Gerald chose the piccolo. In a very short time he was ready to leave piccolo polkas, gavottes and “selections” so he graduated to the flute. By the time he was ten he was “first flute” in a small theatre orchestra conducted by his father. To most Englishmen, at that time, to follow music as a profession meant practically nothing. Perhaps now the musician has gained some social position, but in post-Victorian days in grimy Leeds, to be in music consigned one beyond any social classification.

“Eminently forgettable" Is how he describes the repertoire played in cafes, tearooms, the cinemas in those early days. But from freelance playing of this sort Jackson graduated to the big London Symphony Orchestras. Two problems immediately confronted him. Many of his colleagues in these big orchestras had been through the academies and knew the classical repertoire well. His knowledge was much more scrappy and rudimentary and had to be supplemented with his natural ability as a good sight reader. And he was surprised to find that his sound was rather too small when he played in the Queen’s Hall. To improve his professional grooming he watched the

bassoonist Paul Draper and was impressed with his undeviating concentration and approach. For nearly sixty years Gerald Jackson was to occupy the important position of first flute in many famous orchestras, reaching the dimax in the Royal Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham, the “Pied Piper” of all conductors. This happy period included a tour of the United States; lengthy recording sessions, for Beecham had his own recording technique and would go on rehearsing in the studio until he felt ready to record—agitated, impatient technicians or no; a season of opera at lovely Glyndebourne followed by the Edinburgh Festival. (Earlier in his career he had described the Three Choirs Festivals, often under Sir Edward Elgar, as “sheer murder" —so much work, so little time.) Jackson’s - thumb-nail sketches of various conductors make fascinating reading. Sir Henry Wood, founder of the “Proms” (an unparalleled schoolmaster who knew all his scores thoroughly), was fond of introducing new works and bis baton always seemed a yard long. Sir Malcolm Sargent--the pivot of the “Proms” for twenty seasons and the busiest and most professional of conductors — presented programmes of fiendish difficulty; his look, his querulous look, could trouble an orchestra. Sir Adrian Boult, the greatest rehearser of all conductors, knew every dangerous passage in every repertoire item and always started his rehearsals by attacking these; Boult conducted supremely the two symphonies of Elgar. From Sir John Barbirolli, music Simply oozed. Sir Edward Elgar was a portly person who always seemed very jolly and whose own music was so marvellous to play. A modest man with a delightful sense of humour and a good memory for amusing anecdotes, Gerald Jackson has written a charming book of musica' reminiscences that is a delight to read.