Baton charge
SARAH JANE CHECKLAND visits the conductor Vernon Handley
THIS was to have been a particularly
busy month for Vernon Handley. The
skilful rhythm of his baton had been
chosen to mark two major commemorative
concerts.
The
first
was
a
celebration of Sir Thomas Beecham a
week last Friday and the second, a 50th
anniversary of Elgar’s death
next
Thursday. Handley was all ready to don
his tails for Beecham when fate struck in
the form of mumps.
¥
Borne home to the 'rolling woodlands
of the Wye valley, he was told by his
doctor to lie low until tomorrow, when
he might start some tentative rehearsing. Instead, although “feeling rottenTM
and still with a temperature, he was up
and about last week, able to nip down
to Bristol to visit his first wife.
He would not reveal why he defied
doctor’s orders and rewarded his second
wife Victoria for her excellent nursing in
this way. Suffice to say that such
determination will most probably get
him to the Royal Festival Hall, the
rostrum and Elgar on time. With luck he
\will
also
manage
1o
persuade
the
librarian of the London Philharmonic
drchestra 1o surrender the scores,
currently held back for fear he might
infect them.
Handley, 53, is more like a man
mountain than the regular image of a
i
conductor.
et
i
e
Although
nick-
technique from Sir Adrian Boult, the
great champion of Elgar. “When he was
getting older I did a lot of rehearsing and
recording for him.
For a
number of
years we were very close.” From Boult
he learned not
to give the audience the
cheap thrill of flamboyant conducting
activities range trom shooting birds (one Hoffnung cartoon shows Boult
(both with 1intent to kill and to conducting with his wrists in handcuffs).
photograph), playing with his children, “Music isn’t mime.' You shouldn’t
people that they
Fand, five (named after a piece by the audulently convince
ave heard what they E'ven’t”, Handley
British composer Bax) and Finian, three
(named after the giant), and sawing yew says.
Handley’s great break came in 1970
trees to make handsome furniture for
his home. When at work in his study, he when he took over an important
often breaks through the idyllic silence London Symphony Orchestra concert
of the valley "singing and hollering at after André Previn fell ill. Since then he
the top of my voice, imitating the has recorded some 30 LPs, all the work
of English composers, and he conducts
oboeTM.
y
Superficially, he seems an unlikely 60 to 70 concerts a year. Last year he
was made associate conductor of the
chap to be/conducting Elgar, perhaps
London Philharmonic, and next year he
our most reflective British composer.
And when he says, “I adore the becomes principal conductor of the
Ulster Orchestra.
composer.; Wonderful!” he makes his
Yet Handley could never be termed
hero sound more like Elton John. Yet
Handley regards himself as a true soul- an establishment figure. He may get
mate of Elgar, for two reasons. The first letters from admirers alf over the world,
but *“‘there are some people in the music
is that they were both self-taught.
“From
the age
of eight”,
says establishment to whora I have never
Handley, “when 1 taught myself theory
of music, I had no wish to play an
instrument well, but I had a fierce desire
to hedr music in my head.” Although it
was philology he studied at Oxford, he
spent all his free time practising
“throughout the night”. When he came
down he worked as a nursery gardener,
bricklayer and petrol pump attendant
during the day, and as a conductor of
amateur orchestras and choirs in the
evening.
Whereas Elgar made ends meet as a
named “Tod” because of his toddling
manner of walking, he is no twinklebandmaster for a county mental home,
toes.
His) jowls are heavy like a - Handley was “kept alive one year by the
bulldog’s, whether he has mumps or not;
Women’s Institute”. His first prohis hair crew-cut to resemble a receding. fessional engagement came in 1960,
treeline.
conducting the Bournemouth SymOn a normal day, Handley says, I phony Orchestra.
wear them all out at home”. His
The other reason for the affinity with
willowy
Elgar is Handley’s conducting technique, which is quite the opposite from
his hearty personal image. As he says:
“The majority of conductors get a sense
of power. I get a sense of terror.
Conducting for me is not the imposing
of my will on an orchestra but the
discovery with them of a work”’.
Handley
learned
much
of
his
been introduced.” He gives short shrift
to “jet-set musical care~rs that are little
to do with the work, more to do with
PR
After Thursday’s coOncert he will
return home across the Severn Bridge
with Victoria and the children. Victoria
(**26, ori1s it 27? I can never remember”’)
says she is happy to be an ‘*oldfashioned supportive wife”” and tells
how she fell in love “when I was in his
youth choir. Sounds seedy, doesn’t it?”
Although they both come from
Guildford, Handley regards himself as a
mixture of Welsh and Irish, and Wales
is now their home. “The further west I
get the better. I spin to the west because
of the Welsh and the Irish in me,” he
says, and adds: “We are also near Elgar,
Vaughan Williams and Holst country”.
“The furter west the ber"