Christopher Hyde-smith
Flautist who impressed Stravinsky and Britten and played a flute solo in Lawrence of Arabia
CHRISTOPHER HYDE-SMITH, the flautist, who has died aged 88, performed the captivating flute solo in David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and played for Stravinsky, Bernstein and Britten.
Much of his work was with orchestras, notably the London Mozart Players, of which he was principal flute and chairman, under the conductor Harry Blech, with whom he appeared in more than 2,000 concerts. In 1966 they were in Athens performing the Symphony in Three Movements by Stravinsky, but the elderly composer was unable to climb on to the conductor’s stool. As the orchestra and audience waited, workmen emerged and sawed a few inches from its legs.
Other notable performances included concertos with the Berlin and New York Philharmonic orchestras, and flute quintets with the Delmé Quartet. With his first wife, the harpist Marisa Robles, he recorded Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp.
Tall and handsome with a military bearing and languid charm, Hyde-smith approached his instrument with what Gramophone magazine described in 1971 as “real artistry”. A year later the magazine noted: “He may not be the world’s most publicised flautist, but he is among the very few who are in the finest category.”
Christopher John Hyde-smith was born on March 11 1935 in Cairo, the elder of two sons of Lieutenant-colonel John Hydesmith. “There was almost no work to be done, so they played polo all the time,” he told the British Flute Society journal, Pan. His mother was Grania, née Göschen, whose forebear, George Göschen, later Viscount Goschen, was a 19th-century Chancellor of the Exchequer.
At the 85th birthday party of his grandfather, who had served in the Boer Wars and both world wars, Hyde-smith was introduced as “the distinguished flautist”, to which an elderly lady replied: “Tell me, my dear, what do you actually do to floors?”
The family expected him to follow into the military, but his passions were music and show-jumping, which he briefly considered pursuing professionally. After the war his father bought him a simple-system flute in Hamburg for 40 Players’ cigarettes.
At Eton he avoided sport by eating soap to make himself ill. He was allowed to play flute with the Slough Philharmonic, but received a double beating after ordering all of Beethoven’s orchestral scores from Boosey & Hawkes on the school’s account.
His teacher at the Royal College of Music was Edward Walker, who, when asked about technique, replied: “Just pick up the flute, put it to your lips, old boy, and blow it.”
His National Service was with the band of the Irish Guards in London. On his first appearance he found Rossini’s William Tell Overture on the music stand, but nobody
had warned him about transposition. “It was for flute in D flat and I had to transpose the whole thing up a semitone. It was a complete nightmare,” he said.
From college Hyde-smith joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra before moving to the Northern Sinfonia. He also played with Britten’s English Opera Group and in 1959 was in the orchestra for the West End production of Candide when Bernstein flew in to watch.
His solo debut was in 1962 performing Mozart’s Flute Concerto in D major with the LMP and Blech at the Royal Festival Hall, where a Daily Telegraph critic noted that “he showed a cool, limpid tone and phrased the music neatly”. A year later he met Marisa Robles when they performed Mozart’s Flute and Harp Concerto. They were married in 1968 and formed a trio with the violist John Underwood (later Frederick Riddle), giving several premieres including William Mathias’s Melos for flute, harp and percussion.
Hyde-smith was an old-fashioned gentleman rarely seen without a jacket and tie. He was a regular visitor to Abbey Road studios where on one occasion he was aghast by the noise from another room. He had no idea who The Beatles were and declined their offer of a drink.
In 1983 he was founding chairman of the British Flute Society. He returned to the Royal College in 1964 as professor, teaching there until retirement 36 years later.
Hyde-smith’s marriage to Marisa Robles was dissolved and in 1985 he married the pianist and harpsichordist Jane Dodd with whom he recorded the flute works of Bach and Handel. She survives him, with their two daughters and a daughter and a son from his first marriage.
Christopher Hyde-smith, born March 11 1935, died February 25 2024