The Genesis of the Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition

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John Gilhooly . . . . . . . . 13 December 2010

Artistic & Executive Director

Wigmore Hall

36 Wigmore Street
London W1U 2BP

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Dear Mr Gilhooly

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On my way to the Hampstead Theatre last Saturday evening I happened to meet my old and distinguished colleague Gavin Henderson. He told me that the City of London International String Quartet Competition had been adopted by the Wigmore Hall, and that it was now the Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition. I was most interested to learn of this second metamorphosis of the Competition, and it occurs to me that it might be of interest to you to know some of the details of how it was started in 1978-9 as the City of Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition.

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The then Leader of the Portsmouth City Council, Richard Sotnick, had requested Dennis Sayer, from the City Chief Executive Office, and me, City Arts Administrator, to create a music competition, to coincide the following year with his term of office as Lord Mayor. Gavin, as Director of the Portsmouth Festival, had invited Yehudi Menuhin and Hepzibah, together with the Philharmonia Orchestra, to Portsmouth, and I had suggested to Richard Sotnick that we should invite Menuhin to the reception after the concert, and take the opportunity of consulting him about the projected competition. Menuhin immediately offered to give us his advice and his help, and became Artistic Director and Chairman of the Jury. Dennis and I also had enormous support from Ifrah Neaman. Our feasibility study involved many meetings with him and with Menuhin, and visits to Leeds and to Colmar to study their competitions. It was Menuhin’s suggestion that the competition should be quartets, because of the excellence of British teamwork, and there being sufficient competitions for solo instruments. Because the City wanted fairly mature players to compete, with a joint age of a maximum of 100 years, Menuhin offered a special prize for younger contestants. He also insisted that he should speak after the competition to all performers, winners and losers. I am thrilled to think that I played a part in this process all those many years ago...

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May I add my good wishes to the future of the Competition.

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Yours sincerely

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Peter Zander

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I never received a reply from Mr John Gilhooley. Three months later I thought I'd drop him a line. I got the following immediate response:

From: Andrew Fletcher [mailto:afletcher@wigmore-hall.org.uk]

Sent: 24 March 2011 15:21
To: peterzan.berlin@virgin.net
Subject: Response to your letter

Dear Mr Zander

Thank you very much for your letters to John Gilhooly of 13 December 2010 and 23 March 2011. I am sorry that you did not receive our reply to your first letter, in which Mr Gilhooly thanked you for the information regarding the provenance of the Quartet Competition. He was interested to read it, and we also picked it up on your online blog!

Many thanks for taking the trouble to get in touch and I hope you will be able to attend the next Competition at Wigmore Hall in 2012. More information can be found on our website: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/competitions/wigmore-hall-london-international-string-quartet-competition/2012-competition

With all best wishes

Andrew Fletcher

Andrew Fletcher
Executive Assistant to the Director

Wigmore Hall

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To which I replied the same day:

Thank you so much for your note, Andrew Fletcher, and for the relevant information, which I shall check out.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Peter Zander

And they all lived happily ever after, in the those dark Grimm fairy tales...

WE WHITE NIGGERS

I have received the following communication from Nick Weaver, Head of Pensions Services, Hampshire Pension Fund, administered by the Hampshire County Council, concerning my pension from Portsmouth City Council, for whom I acted between 1975 and 1979 as City Arts Administrator and, latterly, also as Director of the Portsmouth Festival. The amount currently paid is £72.75 per calendar month.

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“In the June 2010 budget, the Government said future increases in public-sector pensions {to cover inflation PZ} would be linked to changes in the Consumer Prices Index. (CPI) Previously such pensions were linked to increases in the Retail Prices Index. (RPI)” Thus costs linked to housing, “mortgage interest, council tax, buildings insurance, ground rent etc.” will no longer be considered. Furthermore, figures will be “calculated differently even for the same basket of goods”, which sounds fishy to me.

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The Government has thus resorted to basing its figures on only a part of the facts, conveniently leaving out other, equally relevant, facts, to its own advantage and financial benefit, a thoroughly dishonest ploy.

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“Most commentators expect the CPI to be between 0.5% and 0.8% lower that PRI, over the long term.”

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So I’ll get that bit less. In the future I wont be getting the same increase in the piffling pension as I am getting now. You can imagine some civil servant, cant you, poring over a vast array of figures, the cost of little apples, computer-aided, to save the government a few more pennies, to try and balance its bankrupt books.

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How mean can you get...

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And it’s a good example to demonstrate how the poor will get poorer, and the great divide will get wider. Disraeli wrote a novel, SYBIL, which I have never read. But its subtitle is TWO NATIONS. The powerful, privileged, rich at the top of the spectrum and the impotent, undeserving poor at the bottom. Those all-round ‘cuts’ of Her Majesty’s Government will exacerbate the great divide. And the Government’s threats to the public to knuckle down, to cooperate, to find work (where?) or else! i e lose the state’s financial support, will leave more children poor, and more children growing up in disharmony. Even more bulging prisons will have to be built to house the ever-growing delinquent and rebellious population. That’s what comes of lovelessness and cliquiness at the top and filtering down, of festering ambition and of egotism, and of paranoia, with just a dash of sheer stupidity thrown in. The British public are treated by those in power, by those who make the decisions, like white niggers of empire. Disposable. As Julian Assange, yes, he of Wikileaks, said in an interview over Skype with TIME Magazine, December 13, 2010: “The dead hand of feudalism still rests on every British shoulder;”And he goes on: “we plan to remove it.” Oh, would he could!!!

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Yes, and how many of those ‘white niggers’ have been sent to die, have been made to kill, in unnecessary, illegal, and entirely unjustifiable, wars? How many young men and young women have not come home alive, or have come home maimed? No wonder there is apparent need for those huge war memorials on the island at London’s Hyde Park Corner, to commemorate all the myriad dead of yesterday. And of today. And of the future. But do these monstrous high jagged, and these wide-stretched curved, rusty steel and stone memorials express bereavement and regret? Do they not, rather, seem to celebrate, nay to glorify, the killing, and the being killed, thus uniting the nation in celebration of its noble uniqueness vis-a-vis an alien, threatening world?

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A plea. Isn’t it about time for this country to start spending its money on its own people, on their individual needs, on the infrastructure for their social existence, rather than spending it on maintaining the supposedly high military standing this country has been enjoying world-wide, and which its politicians are enjoying at the top of the top table, on this, alas, permanently warring earth? The slogans of the marchers alliterate: ”Welfare, not War!” “Medicines, not Munitions!” “Arts, not Arms!”

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I have received the following communication from Nick Weaver, Head of Pensions Services, Hampshire Pension Fund, administered by the Hampshire County Council, concerning my pension from Portsmouth City Council...