<<  -- 8 --  Bill Newman    AFTER ANTAL DORÁTI

'My great love is chamber music, but that suffered for a while. Amongst others I made a small tour with the Amadeus Quartet in the Brahms Quintet. With Henryk Szeryng, I played the three Brahms Sonatas, mainly. Then, I had my own Trio with Igor Ozim, violin and Walter Grimmer, cello. Old, old friends. The complete chamber works of Mozart and Schubert (Panthèon, previously, now BIS). I don't perform now because I think one has to make room for the next generation. Grimmer is the only one still playing -- mostly contemporary works with various groups.

'Ozim is a fabulous teacher, as everyone knows, with a long waiting list. A pupil of Max Rostal, who was living close by.' I remember Rostal, who founded the Amadeus Quartet. Something of an infamous character. 'He was difficult, I know. In his class I learnt a lot from him. When I first came to London in 1954 for a concert at the Wigmore Hall, I already knew Ozim through performing sonatas together. "Let's go and see Max and play for him." Apart from his methods, none of my piano teachers could put their finger on the analytical things that he knew and understood. Ozim was one of his very best students, and when Max retired to live in Switzerland, he became his successor in Cologne.' She also knew of Rostal's piano partner Colin Horsley from listening to his recordings.

'And Yehudi played with him.' I mentioned my Lord Menuhin interview -- one of the last he gave in London. 'I miss him terrribly. He conducted many of Toni's compositions, and when the Iron Curtain came down in 1989 I performed with him when the Philharmonia Hungarica -- the refugee orchestra -- went to Hungary for the very first time. After the Haydn Concerto, Yehudi leant over to me and said: "You must have missed Toni so much at this moment" (he meant as conductor!). It was so moving. Yehudi was a real friend to Toni, and they liked each other a lot. He called here, often, and when Toni passed on, he and Diana came here to select one of Toni's paintings for fond memory.'

At the same concert Lord Menuhin directed a performance of Doráti's Second Symphony, Querela Pacis, in the second half of the concert. His interpretation on video makes an interesting comparison to the composer's slightly faster reading with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (compared with Symphony 1) on BIS-CD-408. Literally, 'A Complaint of Peace' in music, Doráti hit on the title after discovering Erasmus's little book at the front of a window display in an Amsterdam bookshop.

The Philharmonia Hungarica, whom Doráti helped to form, recorded Bartók for Philips, and those complete Haydn Symphonies for Decca. Their demise was recently announced, and I spent time talking to Archivist András Kuster.

Ilse also referred back to the time when Menuhin's violin playing was going through a bad patch. It corresponded to the period when he and Doráti where performing Bartók's virtuoso Violin Concerto No 2. Following the final rehearsal, Toni turned to her and said: 'But wait until you hear tonight's performance!' It was a sensation. Afterwards, Menuhin told her: 'With Toni, I always feel so safe and secure.'

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