You get a good peek at life’s rich tapestry with the Friends of the Music. Anybody thinking this is just a fringe group for esoteric old music should look again. On 25 April a large group of Friends gathered to eavesdrop on a fascinating conversation ranging over topics as diverse as bomb disposal on Penang Island and expertise in transport policy. If anybody is wondering what this was all about, it should be explained that adapting the BBC’s well-known Desert Island Discs formula, we had landed our popular lay reader Handley Stevens as a castaway on some distant atoll, and demanded to know what eight pieces of recorded music he had taken with him. We were following a career which began in the Foreign Office, then moved on to distinguished service in the Department of Transport in Whitehall before ending with a final period at LSE. Paul Robinson (our choir tenor) was charged with the role of interviewer, and proceeded, expertly and with great charm, to draw out details of Handley’s life-before-Hampstead as the biographical background against which his love for music has developed.
One of Handley’s earliest musical memories was singing Sunday School choruses: he burst into a spirited rendering of one of these. We’ve never had a castaway sing before – it was terrific. (Next time I hear him intoning the Responses and Collects so beautifully at Evensong, I shall remember affectionately where it all began.) After a long run as a treble, recalled by Britten’s Ceremony of Carols, Handley began playing the oboe (a good excuse to hear a Handel oboe concerto) but then the discovery that he was blessed with an excellent tenor voice opened up the world of choral music to him. Once his career permitted, he joined the Bach Choir, and we were treated to a feast of choral nuggets, ranging from Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast to service music by Howells and Bruckner. But it was not all sacred music. Another musical world opened its doors when Handley was offered the task of taking Minutes for the governing body of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Sensing this might lead to good things, he accepted with alacrity, and he and Anne became acquainted with the operatic repertoire. The last two discs, extracts from Bach’s Mass in B Minor and from the last Act of Strauss’s Rosenkavalier, vividly summed up the rich musical life which has complemented the rewarding Civil Service career: it was a delightful evening.
The final ingredient in the enjoyment of the occasion (and another feature of life with the Friends of the Music) was the excellent supper laid on by Elizabeth Beesley.