The Early Music Legend

When Hogwood was interviewed by  Gramophone  in 2002 he looked back to the roots of Historically Informed Performance: 'I'm a Handel and Haydn man. But that's not where it all began. I'd come from playing medieval music with David Munrow. It was completely speculative, a sort of inspired circus, putting on a host of colourful works to entertain, very well run on the concert platform. But there were a number of worrying things about it; one was the impression it gave the world that most medieval music consisted of instrumental, secular music when 98 per cent was religious, sacred vocal music. And the other one was that there is so little surviving evidence of what really went on, what it actually sounded like.' So began an unforgettable musical journey.......................Ref Gramophone Obit of CH September 2014

The following comes from the Gramophone magazine. It is an article by Christopher Bishop who was Munrows producer. August 12th, I942—May I5th, 1976 There must be many of David Munrow's friends who, like me, find it hard to accept the fact that he is dead. His continued presence on television and on records makes it even more difficult to realize fully that so vital a person has gone. He leaves behind the very happiest memories, both musical and personal. David first bounced into my life in 1970, when we did a BBC programme together of madrigals accompanied by instruments. Basil Lam suggested that we should use David's recorder consort, and when I heard them play I realised that I had never heard recorders play in tune before. After the programme, I drove David from Broadcasting House to St John's Wood station, and on that short journey he told me about his work. That was typical of him—he never wasted a minute. Next morning he flew into my office with a tape of the...

DAVID MUNROW Talks to ALAN BLYTH BOTH times David Munrow has arrived on my I-, doorstep he has been accompanied by what I imagine is about his most prized possession, his case of recorders, made specially for him and carefully designed to fit under plane seats. It contains instruments in all shapes and sizes and of all ages, including the tiny one on which he plays the tune that introduces his highly successful Radio 3 series, Pied Piper. He talks, in interview, as easily and fluently as he does on that programme, and last time we met the first subject was records and recorders as he has two discs of solo music soon to be issued. "One is for EMI", he told me, "and contains two staple baroque works—the Sammartini Concerto in F for descant recorder and the Telemann Suite in A minor for treble recorder, which I regret to say is still too often played by a flute. Both of these are with the Academy of St Martin's. And we've also included an interesting pi...