Percy Pitt of Covent Garden and the BBC Book

of Covent Garden and J. DANIEL CJtfAMIER With an Introduction by SIR HENRY J. WOOD LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD CO. By the same Author FABULOUS MONSTER A life of the Ex-Kaiser 151. net PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BUTLER AND TANNER LTD. PROME AND LONDON THE BOOK THAT PERCY PITT BEGAN TO WRITE WAS TO HAVE BEEN DEDICATED TO HIS WIFE AND STEPSON. FATE DECREED THAT THE BOOK WHICH HAS ACTUALLY BEEN WRITTEN SHOULD BE DEDICATED BY THEM TO HIS MEMORY. AUTHORS NOTE It would be downright dishonest in me not to acknowledge, with many thanks, that all the real work in connection with this book has been done by Miss Chamier and Miss Beaufils. J. DANIEL CHAMIER. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION. By Sir Henry J. Wood . n I THE CHILD . . . . . .15 II THE SCHOLAR ABROAD .... 24 III THE STUDENT IN MUNICH ... 34 IV HAPPY DAYS IN BERLIN HARD TIMES IN LONDON ...... 44 V THE MAGIC CIRCLE .... 58 VI THINGS OPERATIC ..... 83 VII CO VENT GARDEN . . . . - 97 VIII RICHTER AND THE RING . . .122 IX OPERA IN ENGLISH . . . .142 X COMPOSING AND CONDUCTING . . 1 71 XI THE BRITISH NATIONAL OPERA COMPANY . IQ2 XII THE B. B. C. . . . . . .213 INDEX ....... 241 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Facing page Percy Pitt .... Frontispiece Percy Pitt as boy and youth . . .22 The Wartburg, Eisenach . . . .28 The Academy of Music, Munich ... 38 Henry Wood and Percy Pitt 55 Arthur Kalisch ...... 78 Nellie Melba . . . . . in Dr. Hans Richter . . . . .132 Giacomo Puccini . . . . .150 A caricature by Louis Wain . . .178 Percy Pitt addressing himself . . . 204 Percy Pitt conducting the B. B. C. Orchestra . 220 INTRODUCTION BY SIR HENRY J. WOOD Percy Pitt was a splendid friend and colleague, a fine, highly trained, serious musician and a dis tinguished composer, in his day a modern composer. We met first in that bygone age in which anti quarians have lately begun to take an interest, in the early nineties. It was in the office of Schulz-Curtius in Piccadilly Circus, and the moment was an impor tant one for me. I had just been engaged to do work I loved, because it was on behalf of a series of symphony concerts which Schulz-Curtius had started at Queens Hall and at which he introduced to London the great Wagnerian conductors of Bayreuth Levi, Strauss and Mottl. I had to look after and prepare the orchestral material for these concerts, letter the band parts, mark the starting places, insert the concert finishes for the various excerpts from the Ring I use those concert finishes still, rehearse the four Wagner tubas how the technique of tuba players has im proved since that day and do a thousand other minor, necessary jobs. I remember that I had to teach a tenor trombone player to play the bass trumpet and to go to Brussels to see Mahillon and get new instruments made. In all this work, exciting and absorbing because of our enthusiasm for the concerts, Percy Pitt was my helper, and he is thus II INTRODUCTION connected with the very earliest work I did for orchestral music in Queens Hall. I can remember the pride that mingled with our joy when Percy and I heard Mottl direct the Trauermarsch in Queens Hall with noble dignity, breadth and grandeur. We were exactly the same age and almost from our first meeting we were great friends. Soon afterwards Robert Newman started the Proms and I was conducting an orchestra in Queens Hall myself. Lane Wilson was our accompanist, but he threw up the job at the end of our first season and it occurred to me that Percy was the very man to succeed him. I wired to him and we lunched together at Paganis and talked the matter over. Percy was keen but a little diffident because he knew that he was not a fluent organist. But I wanted to have his fine musicianship and his enthusiasm behind me. c Ill pull you through, I told him, and straight away I took him to call on the alert and clever Robert Newman. Newman drew me aside. c Have you ever heard Pitt accompany he asked. c Yes, I answered. Have you heard him play the organ c Yes, I said again...Read More