The Daily Telegraph

Julian Smith

Baritone who became Director of Chapel Music at Winchester

-

JULIAN SMITH, who has died aged 89, was an outstandin­g baritone singer, teacher and choirmaste­r.

In his early profession­al career he was a soloist for such leading conductors as Sir Thomas Beecham and Otto Klemperer, and shared concert platforms with Isobel Baillie, Alfred Deller, Peter Pears and Janet Baker.

His engaging personalit­y and commanding presence made him the ideal presenter of BBC Schools’ Music programmes in the 1960s. Later, as Director of Chapel Music at Winchester College, his 1991 CD of Mozart’s Three Salzburg Masses was picked by The Times as one of the top recordings of the year.

Julian John Hamling Smith was born in London on December 8 1929. Something of a prodigy, he was a chorister during the war at King’s College, Cambridge, under Harold Darke, whose setting of In the Bleak Midwinter is now a classic. Smith remembered singing a solo early in 1944 with General Montgomery listening intently in the congregati­on.

He went on to Dulwich College, where he opened the batting for the 1st Xl for three seasons. In 1948, during a big match against Tonbridge School, he was caught on the boundary having scored 94: the bowler was the future England captain, Colin Cowdrey.

With a Higher School Certificat­e in German, Smith was posted to Vienna in 1949 for National Service as a translator in the Intelligen­ce Corps. Apart from being hauled off a train once in the Russian sector, there were few alarms and many rich musical rewards.

One evening he and a friend were deliberati­ng gloomily about who should have the single ticket they had acquired for a sold-out concert when an elderly gentleman stopped to inquire the cause of the problem, disappeare­d and returned with a second ticket. He was Wilhelm Furtwangle­r, the conductor whose concert it was.

Smith read Music at Edinburgh University, spending his vacations singing in the chorus at Glyndebour­ne, and turning pages at the Edinburgh Festival for pianists such as Myra Hess and Gerald Moore. He was a soloist himself in the Usher Hall.

In 1953, however, he turned down a scholarshi­p

to the Royal College of Music to accept a full-time post at Winchester College teaching music, initially with one free day a week for lessons in London with Roy Henderson and Elena Gerhardt. He was an acclaimed Papageno in the Chelsea Opera Group’s production of The Magic Flute, the cast including Ilse Wolf, Roger Norrington and John Shirley-quirk. He gave regular recitals on BBC radio, and sang for many years at the St Endellion Festival in Cornwall.

At Winchester he invited local primary school choirs to lead the annual festive Mayor’s Carols which he conducted, and encouraged a tradition establishe­d by Sir George Dyson in the Winchester and County Music Festival, bringing village choirs together to sing great works – often coaching the choirs himself.

In 1979 he became Director of Chapel Music and the Quiristers (choristers), named in William of Wykeham’s foundation of 1382, and in 1981 they won a national television competitio­n

As well as regular broadcasts of BBC Choral Evensong, Smith developed for the Quiristers an exciting secular repertoire: operas, European tours, concerts and recordings, including the Churchill Memorial Concert at Blenheim, and the European premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem in Vienna with Placido Domingo and Lorin Maazel.

Smith’s many pupils now prominent in the music world include the tenors Charles Daniels, James Gilchrist and Ben Hulett, the bass-baritone Ashley Riches, and the conductors Simon Halsey and Peter Phillips, founder of the Tallis Scholars.

He is survived by his wife Fiona, and by a daughter. A son predecease­d him.

Julian Smith, born December 8 1929, died February 22 2019

 ??  ?? Smith: trained the ‘Quiristers’
Smith: trained the ‘Quiristers’

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom