Hugo Rignold
Encyclopedia
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
(1960-1968).
After playing the violin and recording with many jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and dance bands, and leading his own London Casino Orchestra, in the 1920s and 1930s, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Rignold began to conduct classical orchestras. Thereafter, he conducted opera at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
and then the Liverpool Philharmonic, beginning in the late 1940s, followed by the Royal Ballet and his long tenure with Birmingham.
Biography
Born in Kingston upon ThamesKingston upon Thames
Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a suburb situated south west of Charing Cross. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the...
, England, the son of conductor Hugo Charles Rignold and opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer Agnes Mann, Rignold was taken to Canada when his parents emigrated to Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
in 1910. He began studying the violin as a child with John Waterhouse
John Waterhouse (violinist)
John Fereday Preston Waterhouse was a Canadian violinist, conductor, and music educator of English birth. Born in Bilston, West Midlands, he was educated at the Royal Academy of Music where he was a pupil of Émile Sauret , Ebenezer Prout , and Stewart Macpherson . He was later named a Fellow of...
in Winnipeg. After returning to England in 1921, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
and then worked as a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
for a time.
Early career
In the 1920s and 1930s, Rignold played violin with many jazz and dance bands of the day, including those of MantovaniMantovani
Annunzio Paolo Mantovani known as Mantovani, was an Anglo-Italian conductor and light orchestra-styled entertainer with a cascading strings musical signature. The book British Hit Singles & Albums states that he was "Britain's most successful album act before The Beatles .....
, Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton was a British band leader and impresario.He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage...
, Jack Harris
Jack Harris (musician)
Jack Harris was an English vocalist for the British progressive rock band, The Alan Parsons Project. He sang lead vocals on "Day After Day " on the album, I Robot , and the single "Pyramania" taken from the Grammy nominated Pyramid...
, Fred Hartley
Fred Hartley
Fred Hartley was a Scottish pianist, conductor and composer of light music best known for his waltz Rouge et Noir. He sometimes composed music under the pseudonym Iris Taylor....
, Ambrose
Ambrose
Aurelius Ambrosius, better known in English as Saint Ambrose , was a bishop of Milan who became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He was one of the four original doctors of the Church.-Political career:Ambrose was born into a Roman Christian family between about...
, Lew Stone
Lew Stone
Lew Stone was a British dance band leader and arranger. He was well known in Britain during the 1930s.Stone learned music at an early age and became an accomplished pianist. In the 1920s, he worked with many important dance bands...
and Jay Wilbur
Jay Wilbur
James Edward Wilbur was a British bandleader and prolifically recorded musician identified with and influential in the Big Band era....
. Rignold was highly regarded as a jazz player. In 1936 The Gramophone magazine said of him, "With the possible exception of the Negro artist, Eddie South
Eddie South
Eddie South was an American jazz violinist.-Biography:South was a classical violin prodigy who switched to jazz because of limited opportunities for African-American musicians, and started his career playing in vaudeville and jazz orchestras with Freddie Keppard, Jimmy Wade, Charles Elgar, and...
, and our own Eric Siday
Eric Siday
Eric Siday was a composer and musician. While most commonly known for his pioneering work in electro-acoustic music, his early career was that of a hot-jazz violinist in the London dance bands in the Roaring ’20s, including Ray Starita's Piccadilly Revels...
, who is abroad, there have been only two violinists who have hitherto meant anything to jazz — Venuti, of course, and more recently the French musician Stephane Grappelly
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
(sic). To my mind Hugo Rignold is a greater artist than any of them." Rignold went on to lead his own London Casino Orchestra.
He made many recordings with these musicians, a good number of which have been reissued on modern CDs. Other classical musicians such as Leon
Léon Goossens
Léon Jean Goossens CBE, FRCM was a British oboist.He was born in Liverpool and studied at the Royal College of Music...
and Sidonie Goossens
Sidonie Goossens
Sidonie "Sid" Goossens OBE was one of Britain's most enduring harpists. She made her professional debut in 1921, was a founder member of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and went on to play for more than half a century until her retirement in 1981.- The Goossens Family :She was a member of the famous...
, did likewise, but these early jazz and dance records caused some snobbish condescension towards Rignold later in his career (as later happened to André Previn
André Previn
André George Previn, KBE is an American pianist, conductor, and composer. He is considered one of the most versatile musicians in the world, and is the winner of four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings. -Early Life:Previn was born in...
). 1920s recordings in which Rignold played with the Jack Hylton Orchestra include George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's "Oh, Lady Be Good" recorded on 29 March 1926, and Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin was an American composer and lyricist of Jewish heritage, widely considered one of the greatest songwriters in American history.His first hit song, "Alexander's Ragtime Band", became world famous...
's "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" recorded on 17 August 1926. Both were for HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
at the company's studios in Hayes, Middlesex. Later, with Hylton as his mentor, he founded and led his own band, which was playing up to the beginning of the Second World War.
Rignold married three times: in 1934 to Rita Mary Gaylor (the actress Molly Gay); in 1941 to Phyllis Stanley; and in 1948 to Patricia Horton. There was a daughter by each of the first two marriages. The elder was Jennifer Gay
Jennifer Gay
Jennifer Gay was an on-screen BBC Children's TV continuity announcer for the BBC Television Service, between 1949 and 1953.-Early life:...
, who became the first on-screen schoolgirl continuity announcer for Children's Hour
Children's Hour
Children's Hour—at first: "The Children's Hour", from a verse by Longfellow—was the name of the BBC's principal recreational service for children during the period when radio dominated broadcasting....
on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
Post-war
While serving in the Royal Air ForceRoyal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
in 1944, Rignold got the chance to conduct the Palestine Orchestra, now the Israel Philharmonic, and thereafter his career remained within the classical sphere. He was a staff conductor at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden, 1947-1948; he directed the Liverpool Philharmonic (not then 'Royal') in the 1940s and 1950s, succeeding the popular Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
. A "period of unrest and strife" accompanied the beginning of Rignold's reign in Liverpool: Rignold replaced many older players in the orchestra, and some of the audience were unimpressed by his career in popular music.
In the 1949/1950 season with the Liverpool Philharmonic, Rignold conducted 34 concerts, with guest conductors, including Sargent, Rafael Kubelik
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
, Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....
, Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult
Sir Adrian Cedric Boult CH was an English conductor. Brought up in a prosperous mercantile family he followed musical studies in England and at Leipzig, Germany, with early conducting work in London for the Royal Opera House and Sergei Diaghilev's ballet company. His first prominent post was...
and Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
conducting a total of 19 other concerts. Rignold's programming there maintained a balance between presenting accepted modern and classical works and premiering new works, including Prokofiev’s suite from Cinderella
Cinderella (Prokofiev)
Cinderella is a ballet, Op. 87, composed by Sergei Prokofiev to a scenario by Nikolai Volkov. It is one of his most popular and melodious compositions, and has inspired a great many choreographers since its inception. The piece was composed between 1940 and 1944. Part way through writing it he...
and works by Martinů, E. J. Moeran
Ernest John Moeran
Ernest John Moeran was an English composer who had strong associations with Ireland .-Early life:...
and Gordon Jacob
Gordon Jacob
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob was an English composer. He is known for his wind instrument composition and his instructional writings.-Life:...
.
From 1957-1960 Rignold was Musical Director of the Royal Ballet, In 1960 he became permanent conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. The Orchestra's current chief executive, appointed in 1999, is Stephen Maddock...
when Andrzej Panufnik
Andrzej Panufnik
Sir Andrzej Panufnik was a Polish composer, pianist, conductor and pedagogue. He became established as one of the leading Polish composers, and as a conductor he was instrumental in the re-establishment of the Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra after World War II...
unexpectedly resigned. He remained at Birmingham until 1968.
Rignold made a number of classical recordings, but did not have a long-term contract with any of the record companies with the consequence that his recorded repertory was somewhat haphazard – accompanying concertos or even operatic selections for artists such as Maggie Teyte
Maggie Teyte
Dame Maggie Teyte DBE was an English operatic soprano and interpreter of French art song.-Early years:Margaret Tate was born in Wolverhampton, England, one of ten children of Jacob James Tate, a successful wine and spirit merchant and proprietor of public houses and later lodgings. Her parents...
, and ballet music. Most of his records were made in the mono era, and some have been reissued on CD.
He was a car enthusiast and talented driver: it was said that "he would not be out of place on the Grand Prix
Grand Prix motor racing
Grand Prix motor racing has its roots in organised automobile racing that began in France as far back as 1894. It quickly evolved from a simple road race from one town to the next, to endurance tests for car and driver...
circuit".