Who remembers Gavin Park?

10 October 2024

Who remembers Gavin Park? The answer is, surely, anyone who can recall the early days of Messiah from Scratch®. While the original 1974 inspiration clearly came from Messrs Monro and Burgess, that first Messiah would have been a one-off wonder but for Gavin Park. As the first-night conductor, it was Gavin’s courage, determination and cool head which assured the success of the venture. In the programme for the 25th anniversary performance, Don Monro wrote: ‘We owe conductor Gavin Park an enormous debt. No-one else was prepared to stand up and face whatever happened on that amazing first night, in the blaze of television lights with the media licking their lips for the expected catastrophe. It was, of course, a triumph!’

Gavin Park was another scientist from Imperial College – he was also a superb amateur clarinettist and cellist. When he joined the Tuesday Partnership and agreed to conduct, he had only recently picked up a baton and had never conducted a choir. In a BBC interview, asked if he regarded the forthcoming performance as ‘a terrifying proposition’, his reply was indecisive. ‘My feelings vary according to the time of day. It seems sometimes the most exciting and splendid thing I could possibly do. At other times the realisation of the worst nightmare you could imagine.’

Ingrid Lunt (who ‘fixed’ the orchestra between 1975 and 1992) recalls that ‘Gavin . . .  studied the score with a passion and obsession almost all his waking time away from the lab. I remember the first performance: the overriding excitement, and Gavin’s supreme efforts to overcome the inevitable nerves and take command of the enormous crowd of singers and players.’

Richard Shorter was the orchestra leader for that first performance. He remembers that ‘Don and David were rather cagey about how many tickets were sold – we assumed we were going to be a bit thin on the ground.’ It had been agreed that the conductor’s rostrum would be in the middle of the arena to accommodate the large orchestra (250 players). The surprise was ‘a chorus which extended half-way around the auditorium! Don and David had not warned Gavin . . . who assumed that part of the audience had got in early. His expression, when he asked the chorus to stand for the [warm-up] of the Hallelujah Chorus, was priceless.’

Gavin conducted for the first five years until, in 1979, his research took him on sabbatical to the USA. Don Monro and David Burgess approached David Willcocks, Director of the Royal College of Music, to see if he would conduct; amazingly, he agreed. On his return from the USA, Gavin ‘gracefully deferred and played cello in the orchestra’ until his early death from cancer in 1984 at the age of 52.

David Burgess wrote a generous tribute to Gavin Park in the 10th anniversary Messiah from Scratch programme. ‘We were incredibly fortunate that in Gavin we had not only a very long-standing friend, but one of such natural musical talent and enthusiasm. Had Gavin’s nerve, skill or musicianship failed him in any way . . . we would simply not be gathered here tonight. But conduct that marvellous first performance Gavin did, and with a control and a fervour that those involved . . . will always remember.’

So when we say ‘Who remembers Gavin Park?’ the answer should be that everyone who has delighted in a performance of Messiah from Scratch® should remember the name if not the man. Without him the UK’s choral calendar would be immeasurably poorer.

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