In 2009 he was the recipient with Ken Jagger of EMI of a prestigious Gramophone award for his work on EMI’s “Composers in Person”, a 22-disc box set featuring works recorded by their composers. Ill health led him to step down from editing Gramophone in January 1980, but he continued to appear for some time as records editor. He was also an admirer of the Russian conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, whose recordings, both official and unofficial, he collected. He later went into even greater depth with a discography of Decca Records, the result of many years’ labour in retirement.Īlthough Walker had a wide range of musical interests, Elgar remained a firm favourite, and he was a long-serving member of the Elgar Society. Meanwhile, his enthusiasm for Barbirolli’s legacy had remained undiminished and in 1970 he produced a full discography for the conductor that was reproduced in Evelyn Barbirolli’s memoir Life with Glorious John (2002). In October 1972 Pollard relinquished his day-to-day responsibilities to become managing editor and Walker was promoted to editor. By return came a charming reply, wishing him well for the future.Īfter only six months at Gramophone, Walker became assistant editor under Anthony Pollard. On leaving EMI to join the magazine in December 1965 he wrote to Barbirolli expressing his thanks for the musical experiences. On leaving school he worked in the classical record department of HMV on Oxford Street, central London, before joining the classical division of EMI Records in Manchester Square and becoming a regular correspondent to the letters page of Gramophone. Malcolm Walker was born on May 16 1940, the eldest of four children of Norman Walker, a distinguished bass remembered for his role in Sir Malcolm Sargent’s 1945 recording of The Dream of Gerontius, and his wife Merle Miller, a New Zealand-born mezzo-soprano and pianist. “The chemistry between soloist and conductor was astonishing and the tension and atmosphere exuded during the whole recording, especially the slow movement, was almost unbearable,” he concluded, adding: “You can never recreate such occasions.” On a par with the Gerontius experience were two sessions the following summer in which Jacqueline du Pré made her famous recording of the Elgar Cello Concerto with Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra. “Barbirolli went through the gamut of his emotional range to get the performers to give of their best,” he told International Classical Record Collector magazine in 1999, adding that he especially recalled “the marvellous singing of the Angel by Janet Baker, an incandescent interpretation which remains unsurpassed”.Īt the end of those sessions Walker diffidently asked the conductor if he would write a personal note to be published in the record booklet: “He responded most positively and, better still, produced his copy before time.” “Here I could observe white-heat Elgar interpretation in the melting pot … Such string sound you do not hear now.”Ī few months later he was in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester at all seven recording sessions for The Dream of Gerontius. “It had a glow, a warmth, an intensity and a passion which were almost overwhelming,” he wrote. In April 1964 he was in the control room under the stage at Kingsway Hall, London, during a recording of the Second Symphony with the Hallé Orchestra, later recalling being mesmerised by the string-playing in the slow movement. Malcolm Walker, who has died aged 82, was the editor of Gramophone magazine during the 1970s, a time when vinyl records sales were in the ascendancy before the introduction of the compact disc he was a true gramophile, a walking, talking encyclopaedia of the classical record industry who was seemingly able to carry in his head the minutiae of every record ever issued.Įarly in his career Walker had worked at EMI Records, which often dispatched him to recording sessions involving Sir John Barbirolli conducting music by Edward Elgar.
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