Reginald Goodall – the holy fool


Goodall showed that as a Wagner conductor he has no equal. His control of the musical architecture is absolute. The huge span of the score was shaped as if in a single phrase. At the same time the music seemed to move spontaneously, by its own inner force, and with a glowing beauty of sound, an inevitability of rise and fall and a kind of natural momentousness of expression that will remain ideal.

These were the words of David Cairns writing in the Sunday Times in August 1987. The occasion was Reginald Goodall’s last ever conducting engagement, the Proms concert performance of Act 3 of Parsifal shown in the rehearsal photo above. Wagner’s saga of the holy fool somehow sums up Goodall; as David Cairns wrote he was a Wagner conductor without equal, he was also a champion of Britten’s music who conducted the first performance of Peter Grimes, yet he flirted with fascism and alienated himself from many who tried to help him during a career that lasted more than sixty-five years.

Goodall was born on 13 July 1901 in the cathedral city of Lincoln. At the age of 9 he entered Lincoln Cathedral choir school where he received the classic choral training that was central to English church music, and was also introduced to Wagner’s music by his visionary teacher, Dr G.J. Bennett, who had studied in Berlin and Munich. But scandal interrupted the English cathedral idyll. Goodall’s father, a solicitor’s clerk, was charged with forgery and sentenced to eight months in prison. The scandal meant that the young Reginald and his brother were taken by their mother to live with relatives in Springfield, Massachusetts.


Goodall left school in Springfield aged 15, and became a machinist in an engineering works. Relief from this tedium came from concerts by the Boston Symphony and Philadelphia Orchestras, the latter conducted by Leopold Stokowski whose approach to orchestral balance was an influence on Goodall in later years. In 1917 Goodall moved to Burlington on the western end of Lake Ontario in Canada, where his father had settled after leaving prison, and the young Reginald entered Hamilton Conservatory to study music. He graduated with first-class honours and aged 19 started his career as a professional musician as church organist and choirmaster in Dundas, near Hamilton. While there he was introduced to Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian Chant by the influential Toronto musician Healey Willan.

Goodall would probably have stayed in Canada for the rest of his career had he not met the visiting Sir Hugh Allen, who was director of the Royal College of Music in London and professor of music at Oxford University. The chance meeting resulted in Goodall returning to England to study at the Royal Academy, but his period there was not particularly productive, and it was his appointment as organist at the Anglo-Catholic church of St Alban’s, Holborn that was more important. The photo above shows Goodall with members of the choir, and during his time at St Alban’s he built the reputation of the choir in repertoire ranging from renaissance masterpieces including Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices, through Bruckner to Stravinsky and contemporary composers such as Jan Mul from the Netherlands. Goodall was also a virtuoso organist and his repertoire included Tournemire, Widor, Vierne and Dupré.

The reputation of the St Alban’s Choir rapidly spread, and in December 1934 the boys sang in the first public performance of A Boy Was Born by an up and coming young composer called Benjamin Britten. The occasion was one of the contemporary music concerts promoted by a trio of women, Iris Lemare, the violinist Anne Mcnaghten, and the composer Elisabeth Lutyens who featured herself in an article here recently. This early collaboration was the start of a working relationship between 'Ben' and 'Reggie' which was to bear important fruits.

Goodall’s pioneering work was not confined to choral music. He also worked with the amateur Bishopsgate orchestra where just one of his concerts included the first British performances of two works by German composers, a neo-classical divertimento by Max Trapp who was featured in my article Furtwängler and the forgotten new music, and Die Jahreszeiten from another composer featured here, Ernst Krenek. And that path takes us to Goodall the fool.

During the 1930s Goodall made several visits to Germany, the last in 1935 when the Nazis were in full control. On his return he extolled the virtues of Germany under the Nazis, and was vocal both in his concerns over the influx of refugee Jewish musicians, and in his criticism of the BBC for employing them. Goodall’s views may have been influenced by his wife who was a strict Roman Catholic, at a time when the Catholic press was taking an anti-Bolshevik and pro-Mussolini position. In September 1939 three important events occurred. On Sept 1 Hitler invaded Poland, two days later Britain declared war on Germany, and on Sept 8 Reginald Goodall joined the British Union of Fascists.

The outbreak of war had profound effects on musical life in Britain. Orchestra budgets were cut and musicians were made redundant. The Bournemouth Municipal (now Symphony) Orchestra was one of the casualties, with twenty-six players axed. The redundant players formed the core of the newly formed Wessex Symphony Orchestra, and Goodall was appointed principal conductor. The orchestra and its conductor went on to do some remarkable things including giving early performances of Britten’s Les lluminations and Violin Concerto.

At a time when concerts were few the Wessex Orchestra attracted leading conductors and soloists, including, in a remarkable crossing of overgrown paths, a young black conductor called Rudolph Dunbar. But even though Britain was at war with Germany Goodall continued to support the fascist cause. He campaigned for the British Union of Fascist, called the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck ‘disgusting’, and was actually arrested briefly for expressing pro-German views in public. Even after the war Goodall was unrepentant. He was recruited by Walter Legge to take part in a tour of to Germany in 1946. Some of the performers visited the site of the Belsen concentration camp, only to be told by Goodall, who did not make the visit, that Belsen was British fiction manufactured in a leading movie studio.


It is almost impossible to believe, but just one month after Germany surrendered the pro-fascist Goodall conducted the triumphant first performance of Peter Grimes, an opera composed by pacifist Benjamin Britten and with another pacifist Peter Pears singing the title role. Through the war Goodall had maintained the contacts with Britten started at St Alban’s, Holborn. In fact Goodall had conducted a remarkable chamber concert of works by Les Six in September 1942 when, in addition to Denis Brain playing the horn, Britten had played the celesta in works by Louis Durey, and by Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of Les Six. The first of the two Britten photos above shows the composer with Rudolf Bing and the baritone Edmund Donlevy who sung the role of Ned Keene in the first performance of Peter Grimes, while the lower shows Britten at a 1945 rehearsal of the opera with Goodall, the producer Eric Crozier and the designer Kenneth Green.

In 1944 Goodall joined Sadler Wells Opera, and this company inherited the first performance of Britten’s Peter Grimes when the Tanglewood premiere (it was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky in memory of his wife) was cancelled due to wartime transport difficulties. Britten specifically requested that Goodall conduct the first performance in preference to several other more experienced conductors, and the premiere on 7 June 1945 was a triumph, with both Britten and Goodall being lavishly praised by the critics.

Goodall went on to conduct The Rape of Lucretia for Britten’s English Opera Group. But the most definitely heterosexual Goodall found Britten’s next opera, Albert Herring, ‘prissy’ and the composer himself ‘East Anglican’, and their working relationship cooled. In 1946 Goodall joined Covent Garden as assistant conductor to music director Karl Rankl, and Goodall conducted Britten’s Gloriana in, of all places, Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia in 1953. Later the same year Goodall replaced Britten as conductor for Peter Grimes at Covent Garden, and the excellent reviews he received set him on a path that took him from a footnote in musical history to legendary Wagnerian.


Based on the success of Peter Grimes Goodall was given four performances of Walkure on tour. The first was in the suburbs of London, and a glowing review from a young Andrew Porter in Opera magazine started Goodall on the path to being recognised as a Wagner specialist. But despite this acclaim he languished at Covent Garden for more than a decade coaching and occasionally conducting, and spending his holidays at the Festspielhaus in Bayreuth .


It was not until 1968 that Goodall really achieved recognition as a conductor of Wagner. The breakthrough came when a centenary production of The Mastersingers in English by Sadlers Wells Opera was rapturously received by the critics. The legendary English National Opera Ring Cycle of 1973, together with the EMI recordings completed in 1977, finally confirmed Goodall’s reputation as one of the greatest living interpreters of Wagner. Tristan followed in 1979 with Welsh National Opera, and with English National Opera in 1981. My photo above shows Goodall taking a curtain call at the 1973 Ring with Rita Hunter (Brunnhilde) and Alberto Remedios (Siegfried). Goodall's stature was recognised in 1985 when he was knighted for services to music.

On 4 April 1986 Sir Reginald conducted Parsifal for English National Opera. Earlier in the day he had been upset by the news of the death of Peter Pears, and the last act of Goodall's life started to unfold. That Coliseum Parsifal was the last full length opera that Goodall conducted. As described at the beginning of this article he went on perform Act 3 of Parsifal at the Proms the following year, a concert staging that marked the end of Goodall’s career. He lived for four more years in declining health, and Reginald Goodall, the holy fool, died on 5 May 1990 at the age of eighty-eight.

Conductor's are notorious for their political naivety. But hopefully Goodall will be remembered not for his foolish politics, but for a recorded legacy which is infused with humanity. His Wagner discs are best known, but his Bruckner and Britten are also essential listening.

* We are very fortunate to have an excellent biography of Goodall, from which this articles draws with full acknowledgement, and from which the accompanying photos are reproduced for review purposes. Reggie, the Life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas (Julia MacRae Books ISBN 1856810518) is a model musical biography - well researched, objective, and very readable. The 1993 book is now, sadly, out of print, but is relatively easy to find from book dealers.

Now read Wagner - I don't get to hear anything else
All photos are reproduced with full acknowlegements from Reggie, the life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas. Source credits, when known, are in descending order photos 1 Clive Barda, 3 and 4 Hulton Deutsch and 5 The Observer. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Civic Center said…
Your bios of semi-obscure musical characters are astonishing, Pliable. Though I'm not much of a Wagner "Ring" fan, I remember hearing the Goodall recording of "Das Rheingold" decades ago and thinking, "Oh, that's how it's supposed to sound. Got it!"

As for political naivete, it's much easier to see who's on the right and wrong side of history after enough time has elapsed. I wonder how the many supporters of Bush and Blair and their grotesque Invasion of Iraq are going to look like years down the road. For instance, the following is a recent quote from an article praising the election of Sarkozy in France by Martin Peretz, the editor of "The New Republic" magazine in the United States:

"The third [change he is looking forward to seeing] will be the initial experiment among the western powers in dethroning the cult of multiculturalism. Majorities have a right--even an obligation--to preserve their own ethics, norms, cultures and histories. They have a right to define the qualifications for membership in and even admission to their societies. This will be the struggle of the 21st century. And not just in France."

Goodall may have been naive, but others like Peretz don't even have that particular excuse.

And the stories about Goodall and Britten are fascinating. Charles Mackerras went through something similar. I wish somebody would finally write a great biography of Britten to replace that inadequate tome by Humphrey Carpenter. How about you, Monsieur Pliable?
Henry Holland said…
While I can understand Goodall being a total idiot politically, what I can't fogive is his tempi in Wagner. I struggled through his Tristan and it's absurd how slow he takes the music. At a couple points, it simply unravels because of the fascist nutter's tempi. Awful, rivalled only by the appalling Bernstein recording. I strongly suspect that in Goodall's case, it's "the Gramophone effect" i.e. hype from British critics.

I hope he enjoys his stay for eternity in hell for his comment about Bergen-Belsen, however.
Graeme said…
I have just listened to the recording of Mastersingers. Empirically, it might be on the slow side but it feels right and just and you can sense the performances unfolding. It is music drama. Goodall conducts it as if it is a symphony, looking for the long-term structural links and the performaces he elicits from alberto remedios and co are truloy remarkable.
Anonymous said…
Henry Holland wrote, "While I can understand Goodall being a total idiot politically, what I can't fogive is his tempi in Wagner."

You should read the John Lucas bio of Goodall - very illuminating on the tempi question. There was a reason for it, and it wasn't by any means a matter of artistic choice. Read the book for the full story.

In his late years, RG did acknowledge that some of his tempi had been "a bit slow".

In 1984 he returned to WNO to conduct their production of Die Walkure as a "stand-in" (?) while musical director Richard Armstrong was on an engagement at Covent Garden. All reviewers agreed that his tempi then were much brisker than when he conducted it for ENO.

This production saw the very last time he conducted a complete Ring Opera, when WNO had one of their regular weeks at the Birmingham Hippodrome. John Lucas' wife Anne Evans, who was singing Brunnhilde, recalled that he was in a foul mood that night and that the prelude to Act II consequently had a malignant ferocity that she'd never heard before. As some say, way to go.
Abersnecky said…
I saw one of the four 1954 "Walkures" in Manchester. It fielded both Konetzni sisters, and Edith Coates as Fricka, though I can no longer recall who the Wotan was. That may be one of the reasons I've always wondered, since Goodall's emergence at the end of the sixties, what Andrew Porter might have made of it. The second act seemed very long indeed, but the outer acts went much better. The string tone was fairly dry. though the three double-bassess of the previous evening's "Freischutz" had been augmented to five. But I have to say, nothing like as gripping as the "Tannhauser" he conducted in Manchester for Covent Garden a year or two later, when there was no doubt a considerable Wagnerian was in the pit. I once told a friend who'd been Sylvia Fisher's concert manager about the Manchester "Walkure". A pre-war Garden man, and a Wagnerian, he almost swooned at the mere mention of Hilde Konetzni (who in 1954 was rather pear-shaped: she and Anny negotiated Leslie Hurry's sets with skill, certainly, but...). He had, he said, never seen a Sieglinde who moved as gracefully as she. But the name Goodall raised no interest at all.
It could be that even among Wagnerians Goodall's reputation was a bit slower to establish itself than is currently thought.
May I point out that since this piece was posted, the biography of Goodall by John Lucas has been reissued in paperback by the Boydell Press under the new title, "The Genius of Valhalla". More here: http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=8906
Unknown said…
"...hopefully Goodall will be remembered not for his foolish politics, but for a recorded legacy which is infused with humanity."

The smart listeners will do just that.

This notion of incorporating the worker with the work infuriates me. The product is what is in the public eye. Its creator is merely a footnote which is dissected by an envious follower.
Anonymous said…
"Some of the performers visited the site of the Belsen concentration camp, only to be told by Goodall, who did not make the visit, that Belsen was British fiction manufactured in a leading movie studio."

I find this unforgivable.

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