Road tragedy: British conductor is killed

Mike says:

I`ve been a violinist in the Kuopio Symphony for a long time. I was heartbroken when I read the news. Franky Boy, as we knew him, was a regular here in the 90`s, what wonderful memories. Tough as hell when he started, but definitely mellowed over the years. Wonderful humour as well as being a great conductor and musician. How well he understood the different instruments. It was a real pleasure to sit and listen as he rehearsed the wind or brass for example. He demanded six hour rehearsals which made him unpopular with some, for me it was heaven. Between the two separate three hour rehearsals was the oh so important two hour lunch break! He had in Kuopio his regular ‘lunch club’, and the fun we had. He had so many stories: “Did I ever tell you this one?” he would ask. “No!” came the sarcastic reply as we would listen for a third time! Also very amusing during rehearsals. He looked many years ago at our then principal second violin: “Your job” he said “is to lead, not mislead!” I could go on.
His farewell concert to us in 2001 will be remembered for ever. The glorious second symphony of Rachmaninov. What a wonderful week and what a fantastic concert. The entire string section played the whole symphony using only one finger! And what a wonderful result.
He made one more appearance with us in 2012 doing Bruckner`s eigth. Such was the high esteem in which he was held, the orchestra used its entire years supply of extra players for this one concert.
Sadly he will not now be back in October as was planned, for the Enigma Variations.
I personally Frank will miss you like hell. We all will.

amazonian says:

I listened many times to Shipway conducting the São Paulo Symphony at the Sala São Paulo (the orchestra’s hall). He was a fine conductor, sometimes a bit heavy on the melodramatic and favoring slower tempi (and he surely had “airs de grandeur”, as someone said here quoting Colin Davis).

But he could make the orchestra sound great in his favorite English and late-romantic repertoire (the last is not my favorite, btw — I have never heard his Alpine Symphony for BIS with the SPSO, much-appreciated in general, and much criticized by some for its slowness, as R. Strauss descriptive pieces usually make me sleep).

It was a bit puzzling to read in the Amazon thread someone quoted here that he was bad-tempered and difficult with the musicians. Here in Brazil, his obituaries stressed how much the São Paulo SO musicians liked him — he was the orchestra’s best-loved regular guest conductor, some say. The musicians always gave him some foot-stomping at the end of his concerts, something few other guest conductors usually got (I can remember Osmo Vanska, Eiji Oue, John Nelson and Gennady Rosdestsevensky getting the same applause).

He didn’t have a fixed position with the orchestra, as someone has asked, but he always did one or two concerts every year for the last ten years or so. Maybe that has something to do with Henry Fogel admiring him — Fogel is a consultant to the São Paulo Symphony in hiring foreign conductors and soloists.

I have always wondered why he seemed to be so little known and acknowledged in the musical world, at least in its Internet version. I hope these snippets of information help those who would like to know him better. He will certainly be missed and mourned here in São Paulo — I post below a link to a webpage the SPSO has assembled with an eulogy and some videos of his rehearsals and concerts — only in Portuguese, at least for now.

http://www.osesp.art.br/portal/imprensa/bancodenoticias.aspx?chave=166

David says:

I was a fairly average violinist who had the good fortune to get a place in the 2nd Violins in the Forest Philharmonic at the end of the 70s having been an avid attendee at their concerts throughout the 70s. Many memorable moments for me including a fabulous Rachmaninov night at the RFH with Chura Cherrkassky playing the Paganini Variations and a very memorable rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 6th at the Walthamstow Assembly Hall. Frank would occasionally single out a player for some attention but it always had the desired effect of improving the result. On one occasion, Frank stopped a performance (I forget what it was) as he was unhappy with something, turned to the audience and apologised and explained that the error was entirely his fault and we started again. An extraordinary character and so sad to hear he died in this way. RIP

Gary Carpenter says:

The performance Frank Shipway stopped in Walthamstow was The Planets. A very distinct memory.

Gordon Davies says:

Obituary in The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/11066356/Frank-Shipway-obituary.html

Frank Shipway, who has died aged 79 following a car accident, was a British conductor whose dynamic personality inspired his orchestral musicians to create music of a quality they had scarcely imagined; he could also be a tyrant in the mould of Herbert von Karajan, one of his mentors.

For many years Shipway’s power base was the Forest Philharmonic Society in Walthamstow, east London. This community orchestra has an outstanding reputation and is made up of professional people — doctors, lawyers, accountants — augmented by a smattering of full-time musicians.

Shipway, an irrepressible showman, taught the orchestra to think big, engaging top-flight soloists and arranging concerts at the Festival Hall which, to the astonishment of the critics, sold out. His unforgiving demands on the musicians drove many to new heights — his accounts of Mahler and Strauss were statesmanlike, authoritative and invigorating — while driving others away.

He would walk offstage mid-rehearsal to calm his temper; stop a performance to glare at a cougher in the audience; and send a secretary to check on absent players. Behind his back he was known to some as “Frank von S***way”, while others suggested that the FPS emblazoned on the orchestra’s blue and gold banner above the stage stood for Frank “Pushy” Shipway.

Alec Forshaw, in his memoir 1970s London, recalled of playing with the orchestra: “For those without thick skins the sectional rehearsals could be an unsettling experience, where [Shipway] would unerringly pick on the weak and nervous to play on their own.”
[…]
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Shipway worked at Glyndebourne for only one season; his appearances with professional British orchestras were limited to out-of-town concerts; and Sir Colin Davis at the Royal Opera House rejected the opportunity to engage the cape-wearing maestro, arguing that Shipway would always be hindered by his “air de grandeur”.

On one occasion the members of a Belgian orchestra went on strike in protest at Shipway’s dictatorial style. “I cannot have friends in the orchestra,” he once explained in a television documentary — adding that, for a true conductor, the orchestra had to be regarded as an opponent.

Frank Edwin Shipway was born in Birmingham on July 9 1935. He described a miserable childhood and how his father snapped at him whenever he played a wrong note on the piano. “I loathed it,” he told the Hereford Times in 2008, when he conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Malvern, where he lived, “but he stood over me with the proverbial stick and shouted.”

He was taught piano by Ailsa Verity, whose husband paid for the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra to accompany her star pupils. A fellow student recalled how Shipway “had an extravagant piano style. He would slam down the final chords of a big piece and sit there with his right arm swinging by his side before taking a bow.” On one occasion he reputedly broke the string of an upright piano with the strength of his performance.

He won a piano scholarship to the Royal College of Music but, after what he described as “a certain amount of manoeuvring”, switched to conducting, taking lessons from Sir John Barbirolli and attending masterclasses with von Karajan, whose characteristics he mimicked: the black polo-necked shirt; the sweater draped over his shoulders; even, on occasions, a fake German accent that barely disguised his regional tones. At home he wore a velvet smoking jacket and puffed on a large Cuban cigar.

He was at Glyndebourne in 1961, and two years later took over the South-West Essex Symphony Orchestra, which was soon renamed the Forest Philharmonic Society. This small ensemble, which gave occasional performances in Walthamstow Assembly Hall, soon morphed into a well-organised machine with 105 players from across the capital who, every Monday evening, made the trek to the far end of the Victoria line and beyond. “We are a non-professional orchestra run on very professional lines,” he said, adding that “we had very little money and we took some dangerous risks”.
[…]
Those risks included performances at the Festival Hall of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius in 1973, Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust in 1976 and, for the Silver Jubilee year, Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand at the Albert Hall with almost the full complement of 1,000 orchestral musicians and singers, including the Hertfordshire Chorus, which he directed from 1970 to 1977.

Meanwhile, thanks to enlightened sponsorship from Langham Life Assurance and the benevolence of the London Borough of Waltham Forest, soloists such as Shura Cherkassky ventured to north-east London to play Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and John Shirley-Quirk sang the The Bells by the same composer.

In 1973 Shipway became assistant conductor to Lorin Maazel at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In the early 1990s he founded the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI in Turin, serving as its chief conductor for four years and returning in 2004 to conduct a celebration of Carlo Maria Giulini’s 90th birthday.

He joined the BRT Philharmonic Orchestra in Brussels in 1996, again drawing lush, romantic sounds on stage while antagonising many of the players off it. Three years later he became artistic director of the Zagreb Philharmonic in Croatia.

Latterly he had been a regular conductor with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in Brazil, and the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, in Finland, to whom he recently explained: “I’m older, more experienced and more patient”.
[…]
Only a handful of recordings exist of Shipway conducting, of which two in particular – Mahler’s Symphony No 5 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10, both with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra – have attracted widespread praise. His account of Strauss’s Alpine Symphony with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra was shortlisted for the BBC Music Magazine awards this year.

In 2009 he left Malvern to settle near Devizes, Wiltshire. Despite being in his mid-seventies, Shipway rewired the house himself, built a new kitchen and sewn his own curtains. He also threw himself into local life, joining Chirton parish council, directing the Devizes Junior Eisteddfod and enjoying long and liquid lunches, which often evolved into dinner.

He is survived by his wife, Carmen, who was administrator of the Zagreb Philharmonic, and by a daughter from a previous marriage.

Frank Shipway, born July 9 1935, died August 6 2014

Hilary says:

Thank you Jonathan for inviting him to conduct a rehearsal of WSO.
I loved his conducting style and the way he casually draped himself over the stool! The results he got from the orchestra were amazing, just after a few minutes…..and he made it look effortless!
I think that the forthcoming performance of ‘Enigma’ may well be the most moving and emotional one ever. RIP Maestro

William Soley says:

Having recently returned from overseas I was looking up old friends from the 60’s through to the nineties and only today came across the sad news of the loss of a dear friend from the seventies.
I first met Frank Shipway when I joined the Forest Philharmonic to assist Gerry Rosen in attempting to place the orchestra onto a sound economic footing, The committee at that point were not adventurous in the repertoire, Frank, Gerry and I voted Mahler Eight for the Silver Jubilee amongst stiff opposition.
The Royal Albert Hall trembled that night, after twenty four rehearsals, two dress rehearsals, Frank Slipway stood tall amongst his critics.
The classical music scene has lost a great leader, I have lost a good and much respected friend and I will never forget that supreme effort with corresponding result in June 1977.
Frank , like all great men will live for ever.
Bill Soley