From Laurel and Hardy to Pavarotti
by Ronnie McCrae
Lulu.com, £10
Wrong Sex, Wrong Instrument by Maggie Cotton
Apex Publishing, £9.99
THIS is a first. For me, anyway. From Laurel and Hardy to Pavarotti, the autobiography of Ronnie McCrae, a percussionist with the Royal Opera, is to be had from the website Lulu.com. It’s an exciting and revealing story of a drummer’s career from its beginnings in Belfast to nightclubs in London and then a fine career playing in the pit at Covent Garden.
It’s a life little known to most of us. We simply pay our money to enjoy the opera. We can scarcely imagine the hours of study and practice; accumulating equipment and lugging it everywhere. Or appreciate working such irregular hours. Nor how unreliable the work may sometimes be. But what a gallery of characters you come across in these pages! And you see another side of the famous at work and at play.
Maggie Cotton, who came from a humble background in Yorkshire and became a leading percussionist in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, faced some prejudice as a woman in the 1940s in what was very much a man’s world. This forms an important strand in her autobiography Wrong Sex, Wrong Instrument. But this book is also a vivid and personal account of what professional life is like in a modern symphony orchestra. It’s very outspoken, and none the worse for that, and it will make you think again about the reputations of some of the famous.
I relished some of the comic gems. The great German conductor who admonished his British players by saying: “Your damned nonsense will I withstand twice or once, but sometimes, always, by God, never!” And the maestro who caused half the players to walk off after telling the first violins: “I wouldn’t make love to any of you as you all come too early.” And Simon Rattle’s likening an arpeggio clarinet part to “farting in the bath”.
There is a serious side, too, and you learn not only how musicians earn their living but also how important good management is and how truly important it is to have good union support always in place.
Robert Giddings
