Hugo D'Alton article from 1973

[Jim Garber]

I just came across this blog with this scanned and linked article from 1973 BMG, an interview with Hugo D'Alton, teacher of Ali Stephens.

The interviewer should have checked the spelling of Embergher but I do like his description of HD taking him out to the garden to demonstrate the projection of his 5Bis.

Lots of curmudgeon-ness (is that a word) in this article. Read his comments on Bach's Chaconne.

I combined it into one pdf for download here.

[Martin Jonas]

The interviewer should have checked the spelling of Embergher but I do like his description of HD taking him out to the garden to demonstrate the projection of his 5Bis.

Thanks for that, Jim. That appears to have been one of his party pieces -- see the interview with Alison on mandolin.org.uk (Link):

"Hugo was a very charismatic and eccentric character. His wife Micky was an angel so she helped me feel more comfortable at their house. Hugo always referred to me as “l’ill Ali” (Sue Mossop was of course “big Sue”). His constant questioning of standards and sound and tone was extremely difficult to cope with but has definitely left its mark in a good way.

Any praise was always tempered: e.g. “That was a good strong performance. For a girl”. And he was constantly disappearing to the end of the garden to see if he could still hear me. If he couldn’t then I had to play louder!"

Plenty of curmudgeon-ness there!

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Yes, I had read that and it sounded like Ali did quite well in spite of HD, tho this episode you linked to touched me:

He had a total fixation with making me strong, in every sense. To this end he frequently exploded in a fit of rage at me. I’d slam the mandolin in its case and storm out of the house shouting back at him. He’d stand on the doorstep and shout after me down the street “If you leave this house young lady, you’re never coming back” and I’d storm off shouting back “ I never want to come back”.

Then a fortnight later, after radio silence, I’d turn up on his door step and he’d open the door and say “it’s l’ill Ali, come in” and we’d carry on as if nothing had happened. Then, after a few hours I’d ask why he’d shouted at me and he’d say “it’s a tough world out there. I need to make you strong” (??!!)

[margora]

I have a more or less complete run of BMG from the late 1940s until the magazine's demise in the mid-1970s. Classical mandolin, such as existed at the time, was routinely covered. I've seen the d'Alton interview before, therefore. There is also an amusing interview with d'Alton from Mandolin World News during its fairly brief history.

d'Alton's comments on the Bach violin works are, to say the least, ridiculous, even allowing for the fact that at the time of the interview there were very few performers on modern violin who played them really well. Now, of course, there are many who play them perfectly, as well as many who play them perfectly on baroque violin. We can be grateful to d'Alton that he at played these pieces in public and thought about how they might be performed on the mandolin within the very limited historical knowledge available at the time to him (that said, I don't think there is much in his comments in this regard that is useful today), thereby continuing a tradition started in the early 20th century by Munier, Rocco, and Raneiri.

On the other hand, his comments on the Bach violin works are no more ridiculous than some of his other opinions, say, his views on the "authentic" mandolin versus the "un"-authentic modolin, i.e. Gibson, as expressed in the Mandolin World News interview.

[Shelagh Moore]

I have a record of his somewhere (Beethoven Sonata and Hummel if my memory serves me right) and did bump into him once... yes, an idiosyncratic character indeed.

[Henry Girvan]

Hello,

The last part of the article headed "In my early days I tackled many violin exercises..." actually comes from a different interview in the "BMG Magazine" which was headed "Close-up on Hugo D'Alton" which I will try and attach to this.

For a short time the "BMG Magazine" became "The Guitarist" but that did not last long and the "BMG Magazine" reappeared only to go out of print a while later. The British BMG Federation had a news column in the magazine and when it stopped we started to publish our own members Newsletter which we still do now.