Though especially associated with early music, I cannot let today pass without lamenting the loss of Christopher Hogwood, one of our finest conductors.
For me he was the man who taught me the difference between a good and a bad performance. Specifically, I remember, at a fairly tender age, returning a recording of Mozart’s C Minor Mass to a shop because the cassette had a nasty click on it. I had to stump up some extra cash for a different version, which, if I’m honest, I bought because I liked the cover. It was Hogwood’s electric performance with Winchester Cathedral Choir, a superlative cast of soloists and the Academy of Ancient Music. It didn’t sound to me like the same piece. It was so alive. This awoke in me both a sense of discernment between interpretations of the same work and also a passion for historically informed performance in general. In this passion, he was always the first conductor I sought out.
His association with early music wasn’t, however, the complete picture; he was a great supporter of contemporary music too. This extended both to commissions – by composers such as John Tavener, David Bedford and John Woolrich – and to innovative programming of more established twentieth century repertoire: Tippett with Corelli, Schoenberg and Handel, Webern with Bach. Not the tokenism which one too often feels when the obligatory modern work is sandwiched between Mozart and Beethoven, but a real passion to draw connections, to educate and demystify.
Bass and frequent collaborator David Thomas described his artistic philosophy yesterday: ‘He always said I want the music to speak for itself because it can, it’s good enough, it will’. None of the hubris of the conductor as interpreter, just an honest desire to reveal the composer’s deepest intentions. What composer, contemporary or otherwise, could want more?