| Biography | Richard "Bob" Walton, who has died aged 89, was one of the outstanding British orchestral trumpet players of the 20th century. In 1932, aged only 19, he was appointed by Thomas Beecham to the principal trumpet chair of the newly formed London Philharmonic orchestra, and he held the same post with three other major orchestras over the next 50 years.
The three generations of professional musicians in his family included his maternal grandfather Joseph Freeman, an orchestral trumpet and cornet player in the midlands and the north of England. Freeman was an exponent of the slide trumpet, which preceded the modern valved instrument and perpetuated the techniques and tonal purity heard in the times of Purcell and Handel. Walton also produced this clear, undefiled sound, and was regarded as exemplary, both as a performer and teacher.
Born in Manchester, he had as father and grandfather cellists in the Hallé orchestra. The family moved to London in 1918 when his father joined the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. A minor injury gave the young Bob the excuse to give up the violin for the trumpet, upon which he gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in the late 1920s to study with Ernest Hall.
His brothers John, a double bassist, and Bernard, a clarinetist, subsequently joined him in the London Philharmonic, but, soon after the outbreak of war, they all (like many male orchestral personnel) enlisted in one of the bands of the brigade of guards - in their case, the Irish guards.
After the war, Beecham was busy recruiting the new Royal Philharmonic orchestra, with which he proposed to fulfil a heavy recording schedule. Clement Atlee's 1945 Labour government set much store by the arts, and the new forces minister, Emmanuel Shinwell, was persuaded to release Walton to again become Beecham's principal trumpeter.
He held this position until 1956, when he transferred to Walter Legge's Philharmonia orchestra, from where, in 1963, he joined the BBC Symphony orchestra as co-principal, staying until retirement in 1982. He was also professor of trumpet at the Royal College of Music from 1949 to 1982.
Only towards the end of Walton's career did interest develop in the solo trumpet repertoire, particularly from the baroque and classical periods. His reputation was therefore founded in the classic romantic literature of the 19th century, the music of Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss and Elgar, and the more technically demanding innovations of Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett and William Walton (no relation). All in this latter group worked with him in their compositions for chamber ensemble - with Stravinsky, Walton recorded The Soldier's Tale. He also played for all the great conductors of his day, such as Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Arturo Toscanini and Rudolph Kempe.
In the 1970s, he also earned great respect from composers and conductors of the Pierre Boulez era at the BBC, when, guided by the enthusiasm of William Glock, great encouragement was given to avant-garde music. After a particularly tiresome day working with the fastidious Boulez at the Round House, in north London, Walton rose from his seat - on such occasions an electrifying hush descended, such was the awe in which his respectful but sharp declamations were received - saying, "I feel like putting my trumpet in its case and quietly leaving." Boulez could only reply, "Why go quietly?"
No technical challenge found Walton wanting. Indeed, throughout his career he maintained a practice schedule of at least 1 hours a day. In many ways, he was the archetypal "gentleman trumpeter". Always immaculately dressed, rather like a rural doctor, he was a father figure to successive generations of British trumpeters: gentle, dry wit and polite composure in awkward situations earned him great affection.
He carried his trumpet in a leather hold-all, which also contained tools and gadgets to meet any eventuality - he could fix anything from rabbit-hutches, zip-fasteners, leaky boots, oil lamps, bicycles and alarm clocks to chair legs and other domestic paraphernalia.
While working at Glyndebourne in the early 1950s, he camped with his wife and four children among the adjacent hills. They came upon a primitive and dishevelled cottage near Alciston, Lewes, which, over the following years, Walton painstakingly transformed into the idyllic home to which he later retired.
There, he continued to lend moral support to younger colleagues, and assisted in his daughter Sarah's pottery. He married his wife Margaret in 1939, and they raised three other children - a second daughter Gabriel, and twin sons John and Adam. Adam died in 1964, and Margaret in 1997.
Richard 'Bob' Walton, trumpeter, born February 23 1913; died September 2 2002
(This obituary is written by Crispian Steele-Perkins and taken from The Guardian website, 2002) |