Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Early music expert an inspiration to so many
ARESPECTED classical musician who helped provide the sound effects for films like Alien, nearly ended up in a Russian Gulag and played in many of the country’s leading orchestra’s has died at the age of 86.
Alan Frederick Lumsden was a self-taught multi-instrumentalist who had learned to play the trombone by the age of 14 and used money from his paper round to collect and play ancient instruments.
He went on to become a distinguished music professor and was so talented he was once filmed by the BBC playing pieces on 115 instruments for the Guinness Book of Records to raise money for charity.
Now students who have passed through Gloucestershire Academy of Music, which Prof Lumsden helped his wife Caroline found in their front room over 40 years ago, are mourning the death of the father of five.
The fourth of six children, born in 1934 to Archibald and Dorothy Lumsden, Prof Lumsden read history at Downing College, Cambridge, where he earned money by playing in the university dance band and by translating Russian music catalogues for Musica Rara, a London music shop that specialised in importing music.
He made several trips to Russia, selling clothes on the black market in order to pay for rare editions of lesser known Russian composers and bring them back from behind the Iron Curtain.
But on the last trip, he was caught by the Russian authorities and given a suspended sentence of three years’ hard labour in Siberia.
His aptitude for languages led him to train as a Russian interpreter during his national service. He became the official Russian interpreter at the Admiralty and was later employed by the BBC Russian service to give talks on music.
During the late fifties and sixties, he was a trombonist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and went on to play with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle, the
BBC Scottish Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia and many more.
His natural ability to change from one instrument to another meant he was much in demand as an ‘early music’ specialist, and in the late sixties he began to forge an international reputation, playing with Musica Reservata at the Proms and with David Munrow’s Early Music Consort.
A leading specialist in early brass and woodwind instruments, he was a founding member of the London Trombone Quartet, the London Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble and the London Serpent Trio, as well as an expert on the ophicleide (a brass instrument similar to the tuba), Russian music and 16th-century ornamentation.
He was a professor of sackbut at the Royal College of Music and professor of recorder and early music studies at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
While giving wind and brass lecture recitals around the UK, he stayed with music organiser Tony Hewitt-Jones and his wife Anita and met their daughter, Caroline, a violin student at the Guildhall School of Music.
They married in 1973 and had children Rebecca, Emma, Ben and Kate.
Throughout the 70s, Prof Lumsden toured extensively in Europe, Australia and America, mostly with the London Early Music Group but also with the London Serpent Trio, with which he provided the sound effects of the alien in the Ridley Scott film of the same name.
He also appeared on soundtracks for many other films and historical television productions, including Shakespeare plays, Doctor Who, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Devils and Life on Earth.
In 1981 the family moved to be near his wife’s parents and he helped her create Beauchamp Music Group, now the Gloucestershire Academy of Music, which started in their front room.
The group flourished and Prof Lumsden supported his wife in setting up the Gloucester Academy of Music and Performing Arts for those who wanted to specialise.
He juggled Musicland Publications Ltd with a full-time position as head of brass at Malvern College, adjudicating around the world, conducting orchestras and organising
He helped lay the foundations for the Gloucestershire Academy of Music VIV HARGREAVES
residential courses at Beauchamp House.
Throughout the 90s, he continued his early music research, creating more than 500 editions of early works under the imprint ‘Beauchamp Press’. The couple then spent 19 years running a thriving holiday gites business in the Charente Maritime in France until Prof Lumsden was officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2012.
They returned to Gloucestershire, where he continued to play tennis and table tennis at Frampton-onSevern clubs. He could still harmonise with the local Alzheimer singing group, play the recorder and enjoy concerts such as the Carducci Quartet’s annual Highnam Festival.
He spent the last year of his life at the Old Vicarage care home and leaves behind his wife of 46 years, “four deeply appreciative children, nine adoring grandchildren and a wealth of musical memories”.
Viv Hargreaves, GAM’s chair, said his vast musical knowledge, influence and support were crucial to the success of Beauchamp Music Group and he would live on through his music.
“He helped lay the foundations for today’s outstanding Gloucestershire Academy of Music, which combines high-quality teaching with a wonderful family atmosphere.
“The energy and enthusiasm generated by Alan and Caroline has spawned new generations of musicians, some of whom now teach at GAM, while others, including daughter Emma, have professional performing careers.”
GAM’s artistic director, Glyn Oxley, said: “Alan inspired and encouraged generations of young musicians with good humour, fiery intellect and incredible energy.
“GAM alumni working throughout the music profession at the very highest levels owe a debt of thanks for his musical wisdom. He also leaves a lasting legacy in an extraordinary number of early music masterpieces brought to light by him and carefully edited.”
A private family funeral will be followed by a thanksgiving memorial concert next year.