Did you know Britten? It's just beginning to dawn on me that we have a member here who has probably met and talked shop with some of the major British musicians of the century. Is this a fair representation? I'd love to hear more.
Walter Ramsey
I did not know him well, sadly and I met him at a time when he was (a) already suffering quite badly from the poor health that was finally to claim him at so early an age and (b) struggling against pretty heavy odds to complete his final opera
Death in Venice. He took a considerable and generous interest in my work at the time and offered no small encuargement to me, which not only delighted but somewhat surprised me, for I would have thought that quite a substantial proportion of the music that most excited me at the time would not have been his glass of nectar at all (Mahler being perhaps the most notable exception in terms of common ground although, even in those days, Mahler was by no means as widely performed as he is now, especially in UK). I remember especially his extraordinary ability to speak in long and well-constructed sentences as though he had written them beforehand yet at the same time sounding (and obviously being) entirely spontaneous in his expression.
Best,
Alistair
Topic: The Music dictionary...