David Drew
British writer, editor, music publisher, recording producer

Annual Records 1953-55
William Glock, Dartington Summer School for Music, Darmstadt New Music Courses,
The Score, Messaien, Gerhard, Nono, Decca, EMI

22 June: Writes to William Glock, introducing himself, enclosing a recent article, offering to contribute a review to The Score, and commenting on Glock's recent series of talks for the BBC's Third Programme ('Studies in Music Criticism') with particular reference to the focal talk on Stravinsky.

July: To Darmstadt and the New Music courses, with Ian Kemp and the clarinettist, Georgina Dobrée. Friendly arguments with Swedish composer Gunnar Bucht, and the British composer Francis Burt (currently studying in Berlin with Boris Blacher).

September: returns to London and together with his Cambridge friend, the New Zealand composer David Farquhar, rents two rooms in the large and rambling apartment in St John's Wood belonging to Miles Tomalin. Miles's son Nicholas is a another Cambridge friend now on the threshold of a brilliant career in investigative journalism (one that will be tragically cut short). Miles is a former pupil of Arnold Dolmetsch, a gifted musician, a well-known writer and journalist, and a veteran of the Spanish Civil War (in which he fought with the International Brigade). A heaven-sent landlord, he scarcely raises an eyebrow at all manner of provocations - including the sudden arrival of a concert-grand lent by Francis Burt, and D's incompetent strummings thereon. (Later, John Ogdon's sight-reading of two formidably complex scores from Darmstadt will rock the entire apartment, without a murmur of protest from Miles).

Dennis Dobson introduces D to the poet and editor Geoffrey Grigson, with a view to a collaboration. An education in the twin crafts of writing and editing, it proves invaluable: for the next six years, musical journalism and commercial work for major record labels will be D's main source of income.

Liner-notes for EMI and other major record labels. Commissions from Robert Boas at the Decca Record Company lead to a two-year part-time engagement with Decca and its Publicity Department, where D's colleagues include Quita Chavez, and two key figures from the world of jazz and popular music: Alexis Korner, and Peter Clayton. Brochures for the upmarket Oiseau Lyre catalogue, with its emphasis on Couperin, Rameau, Charpentier, etc, make a welcome contrast to some of Decca's well-meaning imports from Scandinavia and the Balkans. With John Culshaw and his great opera projects there are personal links, but no professional ones. From the Decca period, the one tangible product will be a substantial reference book on the role of music in ballet (see 1958).

Other commercial work of the late 1950s: copious music journalism for national and Scottish press; articles and reviews for The Musical Times, Music & Letters etc, frequent broadcasts, particularly Anna Instone's and Julian Herbage's popular Sunday-morning programme, Music Magazine. Through Hans Seelig, is invited by the German-American conductor, music critic, and editor, Henry Levinger, to act as London correspondent of the Musical Courier.

An avid interest in American music of every kind is sustained by the music-library and record-library at the U.S. Information Centre in Grosvenor Square (librarian, Margaret Haferd), and by the repertory of visiting American dance companies.

July: Second visit to Darmstadt with Ian Kemp. As observer, attends the piano classes of Eduard Steuermann and Yvonne Loriod, and the composition class of Messaien. Listens uncomprehendingly to Adorno, and sympathetically to René Leibowitz. Meets Luigi Nono, Bruno Maderna, Krenek, Henri Pousseur, and young composers including Alexander Goehr and Harrison Birtwistle.

August: At the Dartington Summer School in Music, gives a talk on Messiaen. Glock - for whom Stravinsky remains the contemporary figurehead (and Messiaen understandably suspect) - has accepted D's offer of a Messiaen article for The Score. Until now, no major article on the composer has been published anywhere. Before long, D finds that the subject is too large for a single article, and Glock magnanimously agrees. Messiaen - A Provisional Study (I) is published in the December issue of The Score, together with D's Darmstadt review. By the spring of 1955, work on a second Messiaen article will have revealed a need for a third one.

September: David Farquhar has completed his composition studies with Benjamin Frankel and returned to New Zealand; his successor in the Tomalin ménage is Ian Kemp, down from Cambridge and already working at Schott-London with Howard Hartog and Walter Bergmann.

Music politics in the UK (i.e. London) are becoming increasingly complex and centralised. Since the previous September, The Score has established links with the International Music Association (I.M.A.), whose headquarters is a club in South Audley Street which for a while becomes a haven for indigent young composers and writers, and a home for Composer's Concourse, a forum established by Glock's close friends Elisabeth Lutyens and Edward Clark. One of the guest speakers at the forum is O.W. Neighbour, Deputy Head and future Head of the Music Library in the British Museum. Neighbour is known as a 'Schoenbergian", but his musical horizons ar very broad, as are those of his composer-friend Christopher Shaw. To Neighbour's musical judgement and advice D will be much endebted in future years.

June: D's publication of Messiaen II is held over; instead The Score publishes his review of Bernstein's Broadway musical Wonderful Town. Its inclusion has already provided an opportunity for D to help bring about an eventual rapprochement between Glock and Hans Keller, who until now has been highly critical of The Score and its editor (with whom he is not yet personally acquainted): Keller contributes an article on Bernstein's score for the film On the Waterfront. In a TV interview with Huw Weldon, Bernstein berates the music press but is complementary about the contributions to The Score.

17-21 June: In Baden-Baden for 29th ISCM Festival and specifically for the world premiere, under Hans Rosbaud, of the First Symphony by Roberto Gerhard. Glock and Francis Burt also attend. Blacher is there for his Orchester-Ornament (and is introduced to D by Burt), and Mátyás Seiber for his 3rd String Quartet (discussions with Seiber about Weill). The festival is dominated by the performance and reception of Le Marteau sans Maître by Pierre Boulez.

Summer: Third and last visit to Darmstadt. In August, attends the Aix-en-Provence Festival for The Daily Telegraph; excursions with Luigi Nono and Nuria Schoenberg.