Sir David Willcocks,
acclaimed conductor and inspiration to performers all over the world, took the podium again in Christchurch on Saturday, January 18, conducting a performance of Dream of Gerontius by Edward Elgar.

JENNY SETCHELL
talked to the great music maker.

It's 1932 and a windy day in St James Park, London. Choirs from Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, and the Chapel Royal are singing under the baton of the grandest man of music in England: the master of the King's Musick, Sir Edward Elgar. To the little choristers, Elgar is impressive in official garb: white flannel trousers and a dark tunic with a red sash signifying the order of merit. That he has a sword makes it even better.

At one end, transfixed by the charisma of the conductor, is a little boy, convinced that the man's eyes never leave his face; only later he finds that another little boy, on the other end of the row, has exactly the same impression.

The first little boy realises the encompassing power of the conductor's gaze. In time, he goes on to be perhaps the most influential, most acclaimed, and most widely known English choral conductor of the 20th century.

He is Sir David Willcocks, and at 83, still has something of the little boy about him and a bounce in his step. Although supposedly retired, he finds such pleasure in helping people enjoy music that he is prepared to fly 19,000km to conduct a work written by the man with the sword.

Sir David has conducted Elgar's Dream of Gerontius more than 50 times since first performing it in 1949 in Salisbury, using the same score (annotated by the original owner, Dr Walter Alcock, under Elgar's direction) that he will use in the Christchurch performance this Saturday.

"I try to do it as I think Elgar would have done it. I'm not one to wilfully alter what the composer asked for, but nearly everybody does some parts quicker than Elgar did. Of course, when Elgar conducted it, he was getting on in age and maybe was slower than he would have been as a younger man."

If anyone has a link with the composer, it's Sir David, who became organist at Worcester Cathedral 16 years after Elgar died, inheriting many choristers who had sung Gerontius under Sir Edward.

"They'd say, `Oh, Sir Edward always did this, or did that'. They were very nice about it, but I felt very much under his shadow." Another influential English composer - minus sword but no less impressive - was Vaughan Williams, a composer 38 years Sir David's senior, yet who treated the young Willcocks as an equal. "I worshipped him as a sort of father figure but he always treated one as an equal professional. He was a very modest man and very kind and encouraging; he loved working with amateurs"

I often said to Vaughan Williams, "Do please tell me if I am doing it exactly as you wished." He'd say, `I've written the music - it's up to other people to interpret it. And I want you to feel absolutely free to do as you wish'."

Benjamin Britten had the opposite approach, and told Sir David: "I want you to do it this way and that way; I've written in the score exactly what I want in every bar, the tempo, phrasing, the dynamics, the articulation - everything's there. If people don't do it like I've written it, I'd rather they didn't do it at all."

The music scene in New Zealand is different again, and one that delights Sir David, who is astonished at the talent. "That's partly why I like coming here, because I've met so many fine New Zealand musicians and admired their work. I love the spirit of music-making here. Every event is a big occasion. In England you rely on the fact that many people have done works before and it's just one more performance. I always feel here that people are less blase about things. People who sing in the choir feel that it's a wonderful experience, and they are grateful."

They don't come more grateful than Sir David. He considers himself helped "all along the way" from his years in the Westminster Abbey choir, through Clifton College, Salisbury Cathedral, Worcester Cathedral, and King's College, Cambridge, to his position as Director of the Royal College of Music, and Music Director of the Bach Choir until 1998. Sir David claims he was lucky to be at Kings College when recording took off between 1957 and 1974. Much early Tudor music was being recorded for the first time.

"I was very lucky that in Cambridge there were a lot of scholars editing Tallis, Gibbons, Byrd, and I was able to give first modern performances of music which had been lying in the libraries unsung for hundreds of years."

What about all his descants and carol arrangements that have made thousands of Christmas Festivals of Nine Lessons and Carols so memorable? Sir David says he was merely lucky to be first to write descants to favourites such as O Come All Ye Faithful - all other music directors afterwards had to find
other ways of decorating the tunes.

How about surviving the minefield of clergy-musician relationships?

Good fortune again, apparently.

"I've been very lucky - if only because each of my deans was unmusical but very supportive of what I did. Much better to have someone who knows nothing about it rather than somebody who tries to interfere and meddle. I was free to do what I wanted, which was lovely."

He counts himself lucky, naturally, to have been involved with many royal occasions. The music for the ill-fated 1981 royal marriage "was absolutely wonderful" and more recently the Queen's Golden Jubilee during which he conducted a choir of 1000 outside Buckingham Palace, with a large orchestra and military bands joining in.

"I wished it would go on forever. "It was lovely to see people happy."

This blessing-counting, twinkle- eyed, gentle man derives great pleasure from the community aspect of music.

"I love it. To share it with others is one of the greatest joys of all. I nearly had a life as a professional organist; I'd find that lonely because you spend hours in an organ loft practising - and I don't get the same joy from that as I do from making music with others.

"If I was remembered for having helped people to enjoy music more, and develop their natural talent, then I'd be more than happy."

If by this he means enabling, encouraging, and showing an interest in musicians in the same way the man with the sword and Vaughan Williams did, then he can be quite content.

As for luck, don't believe a word of it.