Oliver Knussen

(12th June 1952 – 8th July 2018) A personal appreciation by Professor Chris Kelnar

Few recent classical musicians can be said to be truly irreplaceable, but Oliver Knussen is certainly one.

A gentle giant of a man, physically, intellectually and musically, Oliver (“Olly”) Knussen (who has died aged 66) was someone whose SCO concerts I always looked forward to with particular anticipation.

Olly was uniquely generous with conducting the music of his contemporaries, doing so with unmatched technical control and interpretative insight. He agonised over the development of his own exquisite compositions and, with increasing conducting (and teaching) activities, his own compositional output is frustratingly small. It includes two memorable “fantasy-operas” in collaboration with Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1979-83) and Higglety Pigglety Pop! (1984-85) and concertos for (respectively) violin and horn. His own description of Requiem: Songs for Sue (2005-06), written in memory of his wife, as “...not a huge work...but...a big piece emotionally”, could stand as a summary of his entire oeuvre.

As a conductor, Olly’s SCO programmes were always thought provoking, for example linking Helen Grime’s A Cold Spring, Knussen’s own Two Organa, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No. 2 and Stravinsky’s Movements with Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony – a piece, I suspect, very close to Olly’s “less is more” musical aesthetic (2012). In 2013, he coupled Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Ebb of Winter and Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto with Stravinsky’s Symphony in C. For the SCO’s 40th-Birthday celebrations (2016), he juxtaposed Henze’s First Symphony with that of the 12-year-old Mendelssohn, Britten’s Lacrimae, and Six Speechless Songs by SCO Associate Composer, Martin Suckling, like Olly born in Glasgow. Aged 15, Olly had conducted the LSO in his own First Symphony. Olly conducted Max’s Fourth Symphony with the SCO for Max’s 75th birthday (2009) having been in the audience for its BBC Proms SCO premiere (1989).

Olly’s EIF appearances included the 2014 Opening Concert (Schoenberg, Scriabin, Debussy) and, in 2008 with the SCO, the premiere of David Matthews’ orchestration of Janáček’s piano pieces On an Overgrown Path. Further details of Olly’s career and achievements can be found in his friend, fellow composer (and David’s brother) Colin Matthews’ fine obituary for Olly in The Guardian (9/7/18).

Olly’s increasing ill health made watching him manoeuvre himself onto the stage, with a stick for support, an increasingly concerning experience. When he sat and conducted, however, his precision, clarity and economy of gesture (attributes equally applicable to his compositions), attuned by the “best pair of ears in the business”, were extraordinary. Few recent classical musicians can be said to be truly irreplaceable, but Oliver Knussen is certainly one