Death of an English premiere conductor, 89

The death has been made known of the conductor and composer Elgar Howarth, a vital figure in the flourishing of English music for more than half a century. Gary was 89 and had been poorly for some time.

Rooted in the English brass band world, for which he composed many works, he was the last survivor of the 1950s Manchester School, comprising Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies, Alexander Goehr, John Ogdon and himself. Gary, an unassuming man and brilliant realiser of impossible scores, conducted the world premieres of four Birtwistle operas, and of Gyorgy Ligeti’s Le grand macabre. Trusted by composers and musicians alike, he just gone on with the job. I once saw him bring off Britten’s Peter Grimes in teeming Finnish rain at Savonlinna, complimenting the soaked musicians afterwards on their ‘sheer, bloody-minded pride’.

He held posts at Opera North for a few years, blew out the opening trumpet bars on Tippett’s King Priam and played one session on a Beatles album. Uncomfortable with media, he once spent a 1990s coffee morning with his colleague Edward Downes and me, talking about the unique ethos of Covent Garden that was being sacrificed to social vanities. He declined a royal honour, without fuss.

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