Showing posts with label Jeremy Siepmann. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeremy Siepmann. Show all posts

Monday, April 11, 2016

Farewell to an unforgettable broadcaster

Jeremy Siepmann
Very sad to see that Jeremy Siepmann, the critic, broadcaster and writer has died, aged 74.

I grew up listening to his mellifluous broadcasts, in conversational Bostonian baritone, on BBC Radio 3, where he often presented the forerunner of today's In Tune; his line-up of music often seemed the most interesting, exciting and sympathetic on offer. He was as fine a writer as he was a presenter and produced a number of biographies and the 'Life and Works' series on Naxos. He was a fine pianist himself and the piano remained, I think, his first love. When I went into journalism I was overjoyed to meet him, and in my five years as editor of Piano Magazine (in its initial title of Classical Piano) I commissioned a lot of articles from him. When I left, he took over as editor and held the post for many years, filling the publication with the sort of fascinating material - notably a "symposium" approach, in which a collection of different pianists would talk about the same composer or the same issue - that you just couldn't find in many others.

He was a lovely person: idealistic, gentle, enormously knowledgeable and full of terrific anecdotes, a fount of information about the world of music and musicians; I particularly remember interviewing him about Jacqueline du Pré, whom he knew well. Here is a full obituary from the Telegraph.