Neil Mantle took us on a journey through his life from GP’s son in deprived South Chelsea, now upmarket Battersea, to douce Edinburgh; from a house with no music to (French) horn player and conductor of Scottish Sinfonia.
At home the same record was trotted out for Christmas but fortunately a generous uncle with a radiogram sparked his interest in a very wide range of music. 1961 saw the family uprooted to Edinburgh where young Neil experienced an SNO performance and was so impressed with Andrew Gibson’s attire that he determined to become a conductor. He took up the horn and was soon playing in a quartet with musicians who in their spare time enjoyed playing music which professionals can come to hate.
He started Scottish Sinfonia in 1970. Two horn selections broadened our horizons. We were introduced to Jazz on French Horns in ‘Temptation’ by Julius Watkins.
The cruelty of the acoustic recording system was exposed in Glazounov’s ‘Rêverie’ by Aubrey Brain on Edison Bell Electron. Our greatest exponent of the instrument is forced to split a note and it has become a part of his epitaph because a re-recording was too much trouble. The most personal and treasured record was a track from Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 recorded in nearby Greyfriars Kirk by Gillian Gray-Mantle, Neil’s wife.
Meeting Address
Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL