"I don't know why we have so many third rate foreign conductors", harrumphed Sir Thomas Beecham, "when we have so many second rate ones of our own".
The notion that the British prefer their glamorous Guiseppi Verdis to their prosaic home-grown Joe Greens is a persistent one amongst musicians, and although I've never knowingly experienced it, I've met a lot of musicians who swear they have. Certainly plenty of them have tried to make their names more interesting in order to make themselves seem more interesting. Albert Kettleby, himself a third rater, whose In A Monastery Garden is credited to the much more exotic sounding Albert Ketelby, also wrote under the pseudonym Anton Vodorinski.
Another favourite ploy is to utilise the middle name, which would make me Owen Nicholas Simpson (I could have been Wales's national composer, instead of merely being the best - possibly: I don't know all my neighbours - in my street). It worked for Mark Turnage. And for Richard Bennett.
As it happens, I'm not sure what Beecham has got against being second rate. It's a condition I've aspired to through most of my compositional life. That's why I was delighted by the following remarks by a horn playing colleague. "That piece of yours we played a few years back", he said, "that was excellent. Not as good as Beethoven, maybe. About as good as Mendelssohn. Not first rate, but maybe second rate".
Not as good as Beethoven. But better than Kettleby. I'll settle for that.
Meanwhile in Trinity Church Cemetery, Berlin, the composer of Midsummer Night's Dream, the Octet for Strings, Fingal's Cave and the E minor violin concerto is quietly turning in his grave.
