Gervase de Peyer was one of the finest musical interpreters during the second half of the 20th century, on any instrument. His numerous recordings from the 1960s and 70s, including the Brahms Sonatas with Daniel Barenboim, the 1960 recital with Cyril Preedy, the Weber concertos with Colin Davis, as well as the 1960 Mozart Concerto with Peter Maag, have set benchmarks for subsequent performances and recordings. His live performances were always major events, full of his admirable musicality, dexterity and panache. He was a major influence on my own development as a musician as he was for many others of my era and subsequent generations.
The first time I saw his name was in the record department of Sherwin’s music shop in my home town of Hanley, a few months after I took up the clarinet, probably early in 1962. I had spotted his famous 1960 recording of the Mozart Concerto but was uncertain how to pronounce his name. When I went for my next lesson with local amateur Joseph Round, I made a rather uncertain attempt at pronouncing his name, but Joseph quickly said "Oh, Gervase de Peyer!" Joseph then explained to me that Gervase, along with Jack Brymer, was one of the two pre-eminent clarinettists in the country, if not the world at that time. Some months later, when I was in Birmingham for a lesson with John Fuest, (principal clarinet CBSO), Gervase's two recordings of the Mozart concerto were discussed and John said that one was better than the other, saying that he thought it might be the earlier one, recorded in the late 1950s and which was now available on a low-price label, Decca "Ace of Clubs", so I bought that one. In around 2008, I eventually found a copy of the later, 1960 recording for a pound or so in a charity shop in Bookham, Surrey. Gervase emphatically believed that the later recording was the better one, as most musicians would agree.
I first met Gervase at a lecture recital he gave in Manchester, financed by Barratt's music shop, early in 1964, and my old friend Nigel Keates gave me a lift from Stoke for the event. He played a variety of short pieces including the Weber Concertino. Nigel and I chatted briefly with Gervase after the recital and he even offered me a cigarette, so presumably he smoked at that time. After the event we chatted with one of the representatives of Barrett's music shop and the subject of Jack Brymer came up. He mentioned Jack’s son Tim, saying that Tim had no interest at all in Jack's fame as a clarinettist and the only time that he showed any interest at all was when Jack put on a bowler hat to perform Acker Bilk's hit "Stranger on the Shore".
Our next meeting was in Belfast probably towards the end of 1967, when he came over to play a concerto with the Ulster Orchestra, where I was principal clarinet and my section colleague was Christopher King. I had been the first clarinet soloist with the orchestra in February of 1967, performing the Mozart concerto twice, as well as playing the last movement at numerous children's concerts, but Gervase was the first "big time" clarinet soloist to play with the orchestra. After the rehearsal, Gervase stopped behind to chat to me and Chris. He played both our instruments and mouthpieces, commenting that he thought that my mouthpiece was "a bit better" than Chris’s. I thought "what do you mean, a bit better!" At that time in my naive way I thought that my mouthpiece, a pre-war 1010 mouthpiece with an enormous tip opening, picked up at Barratt's music shop for ten shillings, was the best that had ever existed, and much better than Chris's. After our chat, Chris’s first wife Alison came to pick up Chris in their battered old Mini but Gervase asked if he could have a lift to his hotel and Alison duly obliged. Chris commented that the little Mini had now carried the most eminent passenger it was ever likely to have.
The following year, 1968, Gervase came over yet again to appear a soloist with the orchestra but also to conduct a concert. His concerto was the Nielsen, to be conducted by our assistant conductor at that time, Alun Francis, who had been a fellow student at the Royal Manchester College of Music. Alun asked if I had a recording of the Nielsen concerto that he could listen to and so he called by to pick up my recording played by Stanley Drucker. Alun asked if Gervase was likely to play this concerto any quicker and I simply said, "he couldn’t!" Drucker’s recording is a very famous one, made with the New York Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein, in just one take and at a quick pace. What I really meant to say to Alun was not that Gervase couldn't but that he wouldn't, for purely musical reasons.
The concert which Gervase conducted included Beethoven’s First Symphony, the beautiful Dvorak Nocturne for Strings, and the Dvorak Wind Serenade. Because Gervase was around, I must have felt the need to play my clarinet part very positively and, after one of the rehearsals, Gervase gently admonished me for playing too strongly, saying that the piece would be moving along quite happily and then there would be a strong clarinet attack. Our principal cellist, Maurice Meulien had some difficulty with a notorious cello passage in the last movement and discussed it with Gervase. I didn't hear the answer but after the rehearsal Maurice asked me, somewhat critically, "Is it going quickly enough for you Peter?" Gervase was surprisingly reticent as a conductor, not seeming to have the forceful, strong personality that was there as a clarinettist. Maurice Meulien, who in 1970 went on to become co-principal of the LSO and colleague of Gervase, said that he was a great clarinet player and should stick to what he does best.
In 1969 Gervase came over to Northern Ireland again to play the Weber 2nd concerto and I was able to have a short lesson with him on that occasion.
We didn't meet again until sometime in 1972 in the brief period when I lived in North London after leaving Northern Ireland but before going off to Bretton Hall College of Education at the end of the year. I asked if he would be kind enough to give me another lesson and I visited him at his palatial new house that had belonged to the well-known painter Dame Laura Knight, who had died in 1970. The lesson was held in the studio at the top of the house which was at that time still in the condition that it had been in as an artist's studio. There was a family connection between Laura Knight and Gervase's family, the artist having painted Gervase as a young boy "in the buff". In the weeks leading up to this particular lesson I had been making my first forays into the refacing of mouthpieces and Gervase checked one of my efforts, finding it a little uneven, "heavy on the thumb side", i.e. long on the left-hand rail when cutting it. The facing measuring gauge that he used appeared identical to the one used by Brian Manton-Myatt, head of clarinet design at B&H from 1925 to 1954, and I suspect that Brian had it made for Gervase, though he later lost it. At this time my mouthpiece facing work was done entirely without measurement I'm ashamed to say, though things moved on later of course. At this point in my life I was still hoping to make a career as a professional player and I asked Gervase for his honest opinion of my abilities. He said that he thought I was good enough to hold down a playing job but was not going to achieve soloist level. Keith Puddy, ex Hallé Orchestra principal clarinet and now London freelance player, made a short but very respectful visit during that lesson.
I had another lesson with Gervase when he was married to the young singer Susan Daniel and the lesson was held in the bedroom of the flat they were sharing. He suggested listening to the great singers and violinists for musical inspiration, rather than other clarinettists. This was an example of Gervase’s knack of making significant points in just a few words.
In the mid-1970s Gervase appeared as soloist with the amateur Epsom Symphony Orchestra, playing the Rossini Introduction Theme and Variations, which was in the first half. Gervase's embouchure problems were troubling him by that time and he missed the final top C and settled for a G instead. I wasn't interested in listening to the second half of the concert and so I went around the back to have a chat with him. He was passionate about building a career as a conductor and we discussed the programme that he was planning for a South Bank concert with Susan Daniel. He also mentioned that he was getting rather tired of playing the same old solo clarinet warhorses and wanted the fresh challenge that conducting could have offered him.
Joanna and I joined a packed Wigmore Hall audience in May 1981, for a de Peyer recital which included the recently completed Horovitz Sonatina, written especially for Gervase and Gwenneth Prior. It made a very great impression on us all. I'll never forget his face just before he started the last movement, but then he was never short of courage. He was still playing his B&H 1010s at that time. The instrument he used in that performance is now with us here in Effingham.
In 1984, John Brightwell organised a recital and masterclass given by Gervase at Sevenoaks School and Joanna and I went along. Bill Kenchington, who was professor of clarinet at the Royal Marines School of Music, Deal, also joined us on this occasion, though I know that he was not an admirer of that style of playing. John Holmes, who was at that time teacher of clarinet at Tonbridge School, took part in the masterclass, playing a movement from the Horowitz Sonatina. In 2010, John was appointed to the eminent position of chief examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. After the recital, I met up with Gervase and his very attractive lady companion who I initially took to be Susan Daniel, since I did not know that the relationship had ended. The first thing I said to her was "I once had a clarinet lesson in your bedroom!" "Where, in Paris?" replied the lady, rather taken aback. At that point I must have realised that I had made a mistake but fortunately Gervase made light of the matter. The lady was of course his wife Katia, who did perhaps look a little like Susan Daniel.
I felt flattered that Gervase remembered me. John Brightwell must have mentioned that I was then producing clarinets and that John’s star pupil Emma Johnson was using them. Gervase was very keen to try some instruments as soon as possible and so asked me to get in touch with him when I next had some to try. The following March, 1985, I had a small batch of instruments ready, made in conjunction with my old friend and colleague Tony Ward, so I contacted Gervase and took them up to his ex-Laura Knight home in Highgate. By this time, the studio had been completely redecorated and was looking much smarter than when I first visited in 1972.
He tried the instruments and seemed very happy with them; the only note he commented on was the A-flat/E-flat but, when I mentioned that the hole was somewhat larger than it was on a 1010 and therefore should be more full in sound, he seemed perfectly happy. After we had concluded our business Gervase and Katia took me out for a meal before I made my way home, feeling very satisfied and happy of course. He went inside one restaurant to look at the menu and decided that was not what we were looking for and so waved cheerily at the proprietors saying "no offence!" as we made our way out. It was only a small matter but I admired the way he handled it. During our meal he talked of his career, giving me the impression that Katia was also hearing some of these stories for the first time. He was particularly proud to have played for Sir Thomas Beecham, though he didn't give any details. The only small negative aspect of that day was that I had been following a television drama series and the concluding part was broadcast that evening and I had forgotten to record it; I never did find out what happened.
Gervase became a regular visitor during the next 22 years and we spent many hours together. His biggest regret was the problems he had with his teeth, which certainly had a major negative impact on his capacity to play the clarinet in tune and with the sound quality he had in his head. He had a punctured palate, which meant that air escaped through holes in his palate. Roy Jowitt, who was co-principal in the LSO with Gervase from 1967 until Gervase left in around 1972, mentioned that Gervase used to put little bits of cork into the holes. He had also lost some teeth and was therefore obliged to use a denture. He had more than one of these, and on one occasion, at a concert in Richmond-upon-Thames, he used a different denture in each half and asked Joanna and me which seemed to work better. He shared that concert with a pianist, probably Gwenneth Pryor, and violinist Norbert Brainin, who was leader of the Amadeus string quartet for many years. As we waited for the concert to start it was announced that one of the players had been delayed and I said to my companions "It'll be Gervase: he spends his life late!" One of my friends was delighted to able to get his programme signed by him.
Over the years, we spent an immense amount of time adjusting the tuning of his instrument to try to compensate for the difficulties he had playing in tune. Over time, the instruments suffered as a result of being constantly adjusted in one way or another, when difficulties were being highlighted by the particular pieces he was involved with at the time. He eventually bought two more B-flat instruments, the first around 1989 and the second in 1994, though he was always very happy with the original A clarinet and never replaced it. In 2022, the A is being played by Mark Simpson, on loan from Katia. At another concert in Richmond-upon-Thames, he was giving the performance on one of the new instruments and mentioned this to the audience and gestured for me to stand up. Unfortunately, I was not sitting in the main body of the hall but hidden away down the side but in any case I felt rather embarrassed and so I didn't stand. Eventually Gervase said to the audience “You are out there somewhere aren’t you Peter?” To which I replied "Perhaps", loudly enough to amuse the audience anyway, and Gervase then pointed out where I was sitting. I really should have behaved much more positively but my innate shyness came to the fore.
Clarinets cannot be made to play perfectly in tune. All that a maker can do is to minimise the discrepancies, so that a player does not have to make excessively large embouchure adjustments when, for example, moving from a note that inevitably has to be a little flat, to another that has to be somewhat sharp. If none of the notes are very far away from the ideal, then that is all that a designer/maker can do.
For a performer to play a clarinet in tune there are three basic requirements. Firstly, a good ear for the exact pitch of the note to be played, for without that, all is lost to a greater or lesser degree. Secondly, a flexible embouchure, in the fullest sense of that term, so that the player can bring each note to where the ear requires it to be. The third factor is the one already mentioned, an instrument that is reasonably well in tune. I will not attempt to consider all aspects of the embouchure in this piece but refer readers to the wonderful book called simply "The Embouchure" by Maurice Porter, published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1967 and reprinted in 1973 and 1980. The problem that Gervase had was that when using a denture, a lot of the flexibility to reshape the inside of his mouth when moving from note to note was lost, this flexibility being absolutely vital to all wind instrument players. I lent my personal copy of this book to Gervase in 2006, but sadly he lost it.
In the late 1990s, Gervase decided to record a set of five CDs of clarinet and piano music with the recording producer Chris Craker, the pianist being the ever-patient Gwenneth Prior. Gervase told me that he had hoped to get these CDs released on a major label and I believe that he tried to get Chandos interested, because they had previously released some of his early 1980s recordings, but they were not sufficiently interested this time. He also tried to interest EMI and told me of a planned meeting with an EMI executive but the executive called it off at the last minute because he preferred to go to meet Dudley Moore at the airport! At the rescheduled meeting Gervase took along a cassette player with some of the recordings set up to play. Unfortunately, either he or Chris Craker set up the cassette player incorrectly and the machine was not checked before the meeting. So, at the appropriate point, Gervase pressed the play button and something completely unrelated emerged. Following these abortive attempts, Gervase had no alternative but to release the CDs himself on his own label called Radiant Mastery. Sometime later Gervase called on us to give us a set of the CDs and to play some of the recordings to see what we thought. It is always wise to be very careful when dealing with the egos of great players but, on this occasion, almost certainly at Gervase's request, I did offer one or two observations which thankfully he took very well. We played The Flight of the Bumblebee and very enthusiastically pointed out at the appropriate moment "that's the sting!". Clearly, his immense musicality and interpretative gifts were still vibrant. I'm afraid that I was bold enough to say that although I understood what he meant and that his dexterity was as impressive as ever, I questioned the tuning. His immediate response was to say that Chris Craker thought it was okay. Most of these CDs were recorded on my clarinets but I believe that a few were recorded on his Rossi instruments, though he is holding one of my instruments on the covers of the CDs. The best of these recordings are very fine indeed, demonstrating Gervase’s interpretive instincts yet again. The fourth CD of the set, An English Lilt with Irish Tilt, featuring works by Stanford, Hurlstone, Bax and Benjamin is particularly worth hearing.
Before another Wigmore recital, probably in the early 1990s, the subject of tuning had come up yet again. I think on this particular occasion it was the pitch of the third register, which was never high enough for Gervase, on the B-flat clarinets anyway, the third register on all A instruments is always more comfortably up to pitch. Roy Jowitt had left a Boosey & Hawkes 1010 mouthpiece with me which had a somewhat oversized bore and I lent it to Gervase, explaining as thoroughly as I could, the positive impact this would have on third register tuning but also the negative impact around the break. I intended him to use it as something to experiment with but not to perform on. Unfortunately, there must have been something about it that he liked because he played this Wigmore recital using it. I remember the agonies that I suffered at that concert because of the flatness around the break. I remember speaking to Thea King a few days later and she echoed my sentiments. At the time I blamed myself for suggesting that he take the mouthpiece at all but, on reflection, he had a tendency in later years to play the break flat anyway. This was essentially because he was particularly looking for the sound quality he wanted in that area but, because of the denture problem, it negatively affected the tuning.
Joanna and I were married in April 1989 and my oldest and closest friend from my home village, Anthony Allman, flew over from Canada to be my best man. We were enjoying our day together when I received a telephone call from Gervase saying that he was no longer using my clarinets but was now a "Yamaha artist". Well, that spoiled the day! Nevertheless, we went up to the Wigmore Hall for his recital on the Yamaha instrument. A little while later Gervase invited us to attend one of his concerts at a hotel near Box Hill, where he was the resident artist for a few days. Those performances were given on the Yamaha clarinet and I remember being somewhat comforted by the fact that he played the break flat on those instrument too. This Yamaha excursion didn't last long and he soon came back home to my instruments.
Gervase experimented with another make of clarinet some years later, and again he did not handle this in a very diplomatic manner. Anthony Michaelson was the owner of a small British company making high quality home audio equipment. He had been a student of Keith Puddy at Trinity College of Music at around the same time as my wife Joanna. He was a fine clarinet player and supporter of large bore English instruments and seemed to like the idea of getting involved in their manufacture. In 1995 he got in touch and decided to acquire a pair of my clarinets. Being the sort of wheeler dealer he was, we ended up swapping a pair of my clarinets for a set of his finest amplification equipment. The idea of a collaboration between us was quickly abandoned. He later sold the clarinets but we are still enjoying the hi-fi all these years later. He was an admirer of Gervase and must have made contact. Gervase later said that Michaelson enjoyed being in touch with a player of his level. I was on holiday with my family in Devon in July 1999 and had heard that Gervase was playing and talking on the five o'clock Radio 3 programme "In Tune". Just after five o'clock I went to my car to switch on the radio just in time to hear Gervase being asked about his instruments. The interviewer, Sean Rafferty, was surprised to hear him say that was playing clarinets made in Chile though, this being the BBC, the maker's name, Luis Rossi, was not mentioned. Sean Rafferty said that he assumed that he was "playing on an old friend". Despite this I remained sympathetic to Gervase because of the great player he was. A few months later he brought the Rossi clarinets to me and I tried them briefly and thought that they were fine instruments. Years later, Gervase had them worked on by a technician who lived someone near his American home in Alexandria, modifying the bottom expansion I think. Sometime later he asked me if I'd be interested in trying them again. I replied that I would be "mildly" interested, which seemed to annoy him somewhat and he never brought his Rossi clarinets to me again.
Gervase had experimented with mouthpiece facing curves over many years, usually making them extremely open at the tip, excessively so in my opinion. I know that he felt that the bigger tip openings gave him more flexibility to help him get around his embouchure problems. He visited us a short while before his 80th birthday concert at the Wigmore Hall in London in April 2006 and he asked my opinion as to which mouthpiece he should use. I suggested that he use one of my mouthpieces with the most open facing that I produce, rather than any that he had modified himself, which I believe he did. He offered Joanna and me tickets for the concert but we had already arranged a short family holiday in Bournemouth and so sadly could not attend. He had given us tickets for his 70th birthday concert and indeed his 60th birthday concert, which was in the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. I remember that at the 70th birthday concert I was honoured to sit next to composer Berthold Goldschmidt and greatly enjoyed chatting with him during the interval. Gervase played the Mozart clarinet quintet that evening and, in the gap between first and second movements, Berthold Goldschmidt said that he couldn’t understand why the clarinet suddenly sounded different than it had done in the earlier pieces, and I pointed out that Gervase had changed from B-flat instrument to A. Our little chat had not gone unnoticed with the members of the audience around us who turned around to suggest that we should stop talking so that the performance could proceed. I mentioned this to Gervase after the concert and he was also surprised that Goldschmidt didn't seem to appreciate the significance of the change of instrument.
My last clarinet conversations with Gervase were probably in 2007. I remember one long chat where he commented on my patience. Anyone who knows me well will know that I am not by nature a patient man. I can persuade myself to be so if I really must. Over the years I had to be patient when teaching young and sometimes lively school children and also when dealing with difficult clarinet customers. Sometimes, after particularly fraught sessions, my wife Joanna has had to deal with my frustrations when I have persuaded myself not to show anything of this to my visitors. My patience eventually ran out when, talking for the umpteenth time about tuning problems, he said "what about a longer bell?" I knew that this was absolute nonsense and that the bell impacted on tuning on the bell note itself and not on any adjacent notes. Gervase disagreed and I really didn't fancy the idea of trying to make a longer bell, which was completely out of the question anyway and so I completely lost patience and put the phone down. He rang back the next day, saying that he'd been talking for about five minutes before he realised I had cut him off. Anyway, I’d calmed down by then and did manage to explain to him about the bell and he accepted the point.
The last time I saw Gervase was when Joanna and I went to visit him and Katia at their home at Tower Bridge in the summer of 2015. Sadly, Gervase did not know us at all but gave us a friendly greeting. Katia did most of the talking, though Gervase seemed perfectly content and looked on benignly. Early in the conversation I was kneeling or bending over to speak to Katia and Gervase brought a chair over for me. Roy Jowitt's name came up and Gervase responded and I had to tell him that Roy had passed away around three years earlier at age 73. At some point, Katia offered to give us some reeds, but Gervase gently made it clear that he had not yet finished with clarinet reeds.
It has been one of the major joys of my life that I have been able to associate with great musicians like Gervase. This has been a true honour, especially considering my modest background and limited talents, and I am eternally grateful. It was a truly sad day when I received the email from Katia informing me that Gervase had passed away, following what should have been a straightforward operation. It was a great loss to the musical community.