The Early Music Legend

I think readers may be interested in this. Ted Watson was contemporary to David Munrow, and knew him very well, and called him a super guy! The following of what he mainly recalls is here for all to see... I first met David Munrow in 1966 when I joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as a musician. He was a very fine bassoon player and as I was a clarinettist we generally sat together during performance. At that time the windband was based around a brass quartet (2 trumpets, horn and trombone) and a wind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon) plus percussion. As a wind quintet we gave regular concerts both in the theatre and also outside venues. At this time David was acquiring the early music instruments and I regularly was called upon to play duets for clarinet and crumhorn, clarinet and rackett, clarinet and recorders various. As we played he would often stop to tune certain notes usually by sticking layers of paper into the vents. The playing of th...

David Munrow I heard a recording of early 20th century music this morning using the sort of instruments that were contemporary and it got me thinking about David Munrow. I was extremely lucky to have been at the right age to have come across David Munrow just at the time when I was getting interested in early music. I had been a singer from an early age and so was used to singing Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons and others, but I did not play an instrument. To rectify this I taught myself the recorder during the summer vacation of 1968. Then a whole new world of fun and music making opened up for me. Then, in 1970, when I was at Cambridge, I went to hear David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London play in the Senate House. (It might have been 1971, I cannot remember if it was in the Michaelmas or Trinity term). In this large, open, rectangular space the group of five players looked lonely. There was Oliver Brooks playing bass string parts, James Tyler with a variety of lutes and  ci...