Music At Oxford At The Sheldonian Theatre & Bodleian Library, 7 July 1989

“Everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro” – picture produced in collaboration with DALL-E

We headed up to Oxford late afternoon Friday for an unforgettable 24 hours or so, centred around a superb concert of Handel performed by The Sixteen Choir and Orchestra under Harry Christophers.

When I say “we”, I mean “me and my workmates. This was my first of several Music At Oxford experiences with BDO Binder Hamlyn Management Consultants (as it was called at that time). In fact, I think this concert was the first that Binders sponsored and that Music At Oxford thereafter became a bit of a Binders fixture for several years.

I was thrilled and impressed when I discovered that my firm was sponsoring this concert. I had discovered The Sixteen a couple of years earlier by hearing their recordings broadcast on Radio 3 and had found their sound mighty impressive.

Even now, writing in February 2019, nearly 30 years after the event, Janie and I still consider The Sixteen to be one of the very best early music choir/orchestras we have ever heard – indeed we have booked to see them again at The Wigmore Hall quite soon. It’s been a while – can hardly wait.

But back in 1989 I had not yet seen The Sixteen live and/but it transpired that pretty much nobody at work had heard of them at all, so I was designated to be the in-house expert to whom inquisitive clients attending the concert might be sent for more information…

…in true management consultancy style, my having heard the performers a couple of times on the radio became, shamelessly, “recent, relevant experience”, enabling me to advise the clients about all matters Sixteen, Handel and indeed Early Music generally. I should have charged fees.

I remember the Friday afternoon, especially the journey to Oxford, very clearly. I spent the day at the office. As I still hadn’t passed my driving test, William Casey, the managing partner of the consultancy, offered to take me with him from the office to Oxford. I suspect that part of his purpose was to suck what little I knew about the music and the performers from my brain, so he could say something vaguely meaningful to clients.

Of course, we ended up leaving Faringdon Within later than intended and of course the Friday afternoon traffic between London and Oxford in early July was pretty heavy.

I discovered that the seemingly unflappable William Casey was as flappable as the rest of us when under time pressure, as we really did need to get to the Randolph Hotel, get changed into our fancy-pants clobber and be at the Sheldonian Theatre in good time to meet and greet guests.

Once we got away from the main London traffic it seemed we still had plenty of time. William and I chatted about various things, including life aspirations (mostly his) and William’s prior experience living and working in Brazil.

But I don’t think William had accounted for the dreadful traffic into Oxford on a Friday. 1989 was pre-M40 beyond Oxford, of course, so a fair bit more local traffic needed to use the narrow roads around and through Oxford in those days. So the stress levels started to rise again once the A40 into Oxford became a traffic jam.

At one point, William cut off a rather jammed up corner by driving up onto the pavement and jumping the traffic queue at the turning. Probably spotting my disquiet at that manoeuvre (which had not come up in any of my driving lessons) William exclaimed…

…everyone drives on the pavement in Rio de Janeiro!…

…which is the most memorable single thing that William ever said to me.

Of course, it was all a bit of a rush once we got to Oxford. Of course, we weren’t really late – just a little later than intended – so we were able to do the meet and greet thing before the concert…

…which is just as well, because we really were the sponsors – look at this page from the festival brochure:

Within a few months, we had changed our name to BDO Consulting; the first of several subtle name changes in the five-and-a-half years I was at the firm.

The concert was lovely and the Sheldonian Theatre is a superb setting for baroque music.

First up, the small scale but very beautiful Nisi Dominus, a recording of which, by The Sixteen, recorded just a few months after our concert, is (at the time of writing) available for all to hear:

Next up was the Lord Is My Light – Chandos Anthem No 10. Currently a recording of this one by The Sixteen is also available for you to hear:

Then the interval, which we spent hoity-toitying with our client guests in the Bodleian Library:

The invite doesn’t use the term hoity-toitying but you can take my word for it, that’s what we did.

I cannot remember in detail who was there that evening. All of the consultancy partners and a great many of my immediate colleagues for sure. Possibly some of the accountancy partners too, although I have a feeling that this first sponsorship was very much a consultancy affair and that it was in future years that the sponsorship widened out to Binder Hamlyn more generally. Michael Mainelli might well remember and fill in some juicy details.

I don’t think I needed to attend to my own main clients that year – I don’t think they attended. But I had been involved to some small extent with several of the firms clients by then, so had a fair smattering of people I knew as well as the general entreaty to “walk the room”, be the designated in-house early music expert and pretend to look intelligent…or whatever.

The second half of the concert was the wonderful Handel Dixit Dominus. I cannot find The Sixteen recording on line, but there is a fine live performance under John Elliot Gardiner which you might enjoy enormously:

My log reminds me how I felt about the evening and what happened next:

Superb evening. Ended up back at the Randolph Hotel sing-songing with the clients etc.

I am trying to remember who the main ringleaders of the sing-songing were; my memory fixes on Jim Arnott, Dom Henry and Richard Sealey in particular, but I might be mixing up this event with another event or two. Again, Michael might remember these informal details more specifically than me. I’m pretty sure Michael also partook of the sing-songing.

I don’t think we were sing-songing Handel at all – I suspect our singing was more of the Hotel California/American Pie/Streets Of London variety.

I do remember that we went on singing and partying into the early hours of the morning.

I don’t remember how I got home – I think I took the train from Oxford to Paddington for the return journey.

For sure I was back in London for an evening of Theatre at the National – that’s another story for another Ogblog…

…as are the subsequent Binders/Music At Oxford sponsorship evenings. At the time of writing the only other one I have written up so far is the 1992 one which was, confusingly, in Greenwich, London:

Music At Oxford At The Old Royal Naval College, 9 June 1992

But for sure this first Binders/Music At Oxford event, in 1989, especially the thrill of seeing The Sixteen at the Sheldonian, was one of my most memorable and enjoyable work-related cultural experiences.