Everything happened in that room, from rehearsals of the brand new Chulalongkorn University Chorus to penetrating midnight discussions about the philosophies of post-serial music.
One evening, I was looking through Ajarn Piya’s extensive LP collection when I discovered, unopened, the Mahler symphonies. You must understand that Ajarn Piya had a huge LP collection because he simply ordered everything that came out. He was more complete than any record shop in Thailand. What am I saying? There weren’t any such shops in Thailand, really.
Being newly arrived from Cambridge, of course, I was a product of the 1960s Mahler revival. I had been living and breathing the Mahler symphonies for years, and had worn out all my own LPs; I’d just had the incredible experience of singing in Mahler’s “Eighth” in the Albert Hall with an astonishing array of soloists which were a sort of who’s who of British opera, from Heather Harper to Raimond Heryncx, in a concert which was David Willcocks’s farewell to Cambridge. So I cried out, “Look, look, Mahler, Mahler!” (More …)
