Raphael Terroni Obituary

It won’t come as any great surprise that Raphael and I met through music, but it has come as a surprise to me to remember that our first meeting was almost thirty years ago. Raphael came to play the John Ireland Piano Concerto with the City of Hull Youth Orchestra, and, although, as an aspiring pianist and conductor, I was never a good enough trumpet player to be in the orchestra, I was allowed to sit in on rehearsals as well as the concert itself. I had a lot more nerve then than I have now, and I introduced myself to Raphael in the rehearsal break – whereupon we became instant friends, not least through our mutual regard for the music of Lennox Berkeley.

Quite apart from his teaching and performing commitments, Raphael served for many years on the Committee of the British Music Society, as both Chairman and Vice Chairman. He encouraged me join both the organisation and indeed the Committee, despite my protestations that I was at best uncertain as to what I could offer. Even the fact that meetings took place in London and I was at university in Yorkshire didn’t seem important, as Raphael and his wife Pam invited me to stay at their home in Surrey, which I did on many occasions – a quite extraordinary act of kindness to someone who was pretty much a stranger.

On these visits we listened to a lot of music, and I remember Raphael waxing lyrical about Richter, Curzon and Perahia. But we also listened to what I came to realise was a Terroni speciality – obscure Italian tenors. At the time I didn’t really know a Chopin prelude from a Beethoven sonata - let alone one Italian tenor from another - but that didn’t seem to matter: I was a fellow musician, and therefore an equal. In many ways Raphael was the first professional musician to accept me on this basis, and it is something I will never forget.

Raphael was a passionate and outstanding teacher, as many of his pupils will testify. I didn’t want to cloud or complicate our friendship by having regular lessons, but he did help me a good deal with my final post-graduate recital, for which I foolishly programmed the Sonata by Samuel Barber – far too many notes for my fingers. I quickly learned why Raphael had such an enviable reputation as a teacher – he was clear, concise, encouraging, but also determined to get the best out of a student. The fact that I got through the recital at all was due in no small part to Raphael’s help.

British music, of course, played a major part in his repertoire. In recent years it has been heart-warming to read fine reviews of his recordings of composers as diverse as Arthur Butterworth, Robin Milford, Arnold Cooke, Kenneth Leighton, William Wordsworth and, inevitably, Lennox Berkeley. But whatever Raphael played – as soloist, accompanist or chamber musician – he was never anything less than the complete musician. He made the piano sing and purr, and managed to weave long silken lines, not least in his beloved Chopin, in a way that made me very envious. On many occasions I told him that he was one of the most hopeless self-promoters I had ever met – but, there again, if he hadn’t been, that wouldn’t have been Raphael. He was there to serve the composer and the music – nothing else: a useful lesson for some of the more starry names before the public today.

It is my everlasting regret that Raphael and I performed together in public only once, as part of a Berkeley Festival organised by Adam Pounds in Cambridge a few years ago. Happily we played music by two of our favourite composers – Lennox Berkeley and Maurice Ravel. At the time I had only just gone back to playing the piano in public again, and Raphael could see that on the whole I would be much less nervous conducting the Dream of Gerontius – but again he was unfailingly generous and patient. We talked about doing more, but as often is the case in these situations, time and pressure of other things got in the way and it wasn’t to be.

After a move to Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, it was perhaps no surprise that Raphael became active in the musical life of his community, helping to run the Ramsey Arts Festival. Ever the supportive friend he asked me to take one of my choirs to perform at the 2010 festival, and we will return later in 2013. Some of the last conversations we ever had concerned the repertoire for this concert – Raphael was particularly pleased that I had programmed Berkeley’s setting of The Lord is my Shepherd and the Barber Agnus Dei. It is too sad that he won’t be there to cheer us on, but we will dedicate the concert to his memory.

Raphael was devoted to the music of Lennox Berkeley, playing for Lennox himself several times, not least at celebrations of the eightieth and eighty-fifth birthdays. He was always an enthusiastic supporter of the Society, and played the music whenever he could, quite rightly winning glowing reviews for his recording of the Piano Sonata, an account that many of us still think is just the best recording of the piece available. It seems fitting that we should remember this fine artist, wonderful teacher and devoted family man in the LBS Journal. I remember him with affection in all these roles, but also as a great friend who I will miss very much.