Author: Harvey

With this new-found energy and excitement for Harvey, I became acutely aware that we were hardly ever playing anymore.  Records and scores had been thrown away, and I was left alone – books and reading filled his mind and body. Harvey became hungry for knowledge, and his studies at Theological College were all-absorbing.  His being… Read more

Our wonderful visit to Austria was a prelude to a time of dramatic change for Harvey – and consequently for me, too. We can now see how Christmas & New Year in Vienna opened up pathways leading to a decisive cross-road for my young player. (One reader of this diary has already witnessed a ‘resurrection’).… Read more

Harvey was becoming increasingly frustrated, working in the Bank.  He found the world of finance lacking a great deal in ‘musicality’.  Can music mix with money? In September 1968, with adolescent impetuosity, he wrote directly to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, ‘out of the blue’, and secured a ticket for the world-famous New Year’s Day Concert… Read more

In spite of all, it wasn’t long before Harvey found ways to exercise his musicality again…… With his sister Carole, he joined the choir at Dorset Gardens Methodist Church in Brighton, and in October 1966, he witnessed an extraordinary event which left him shaken and upset. The Annual Labour Party Conference was in full swing… Read more

Now some interesting adventures began for me, even though my player was so confused, with his mind and body so contorted. In an attempt to get Harvey’s mind and heart off his failures and disappointments, his father, Leslie, suggested he might like to go on a trip to Salzburg, Austria.It was a German Language &… Read more

Crucifixion Our second academic year at the Royal Academy of Music started well enough. Harvey was very pleased with his performance of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ at Queens Road Methodist Church, Watford, on Saturday 25 September 1965.  At his mother Gladys’s suggestion, he brought together singers and orchestra players (including friends from the London Philharmonic Choir, local… Read more

There is just one more page about my first year at the RAM with Harvey. It’s all about the crucial aspect of ‘performance’, and the enormous range of music-making which opened up for us during this year. (The Duke’s Hall, RAM, where orchestra and choir rehearsal were held) Harvey was required to take me to… Read more

By far the most significant impact made upon Harvey during his 2 years at the RAM, and beyond – in both body and soul – was his relationship to his teacher of Theory & Harmony, Eric Fenby OBE.  If my last diary entry was about practical matters and performance techniques, today’s thoughts are more about… Read more

On 10 September 1964, Clarence Myerscough, a young professor at the Royal Academy of Music (that institution I know so well) came to W E Hill’s door with one of his newly-acquired pupils, Harvey Richardson! Now my diary recollections become more detailed and intensive. (Bear with me if I get a bit technical!) (Clarence Myerscough)… Read more

I think it was Hans Keller (one of my previous owners), and before him, Oskar Adler, who said that it is important for composers to be aware of the ‘background’ to their work as much as the ‘foreground’. So, I now want to play a Prelude – an Overture – in order to fill in… Read more