I first met John in the late 1960s, at the now sadly defunct Records and Recording magazine, where I worked as an Editorial assistant. John did a lot of writing for them, being both quick and enthusiastic. He was regarded by them as a specialist in Russian repertoire, as well as anything that seemed contemporary or ‘difficult’. Nevertheless it was only in September 1971 that we got together as a couple. At that time, having left his job as Pianist-in-Residence at University College, Cardiff, and moved to London in the fond hope that this would further his composing career, he was not doing much playing, though the duo he had with the superb horn-player Ifor James was beginning to blossom, leading to many concerts over quite a few years.

I’d been unaware of just how good a pianist John was until that time. ‘You should be playing more, making records’, I said, when I realised. Those were heady, optimistic days. The record industry was booming. There was so much repertoire still to be recorded. Sound quality was improving all the time, with more stereo LPs coming on to the market. We were young and, like the young musicians of today, knew it was necessary to take chances as they came along.

After leaving Records and Recording I went to work for Bob Auger, who ran a location recording unit, a subsidiary of the major northern TV company, Granada. Bob was noted to be possibly the finest recording engineer of the time, and in fact John had already worked for him during a previous spell at Pye Records, making an excellent LP of contemporary piano music, another of Hindemith, Nielsen and Fricker with Ifor James, and a third, accompanying singer Marni Nixon in songs by Ives, Goehr and Schurmann. John’s voice can be heard, putting in the spoken ‘Ha-llelujah’ in a suitably transatlantic accent, at the end of one song – he was, incidentally, a marvellous mimic of accents. John’s First Symphony, reissued a while back by Naxos, was also recorded at this time, by Pye.

I was soon aware of how very deep was John’s love and knowledge of Haydn’s keyboard sonatas. Even as a child he’d enthusiastically investigated as much repertoire as possible, spending his pocket money on scores and records. He was fortunate also that his piano teacher (in the earliest days, a supervising teacher, with one of his pupils doing the actual teaching) was the remarkable Gordon Green, who was happy to encourage John’s widely enquiring mind. At that time Haydn’s music was largely disregarded beside that of Mozart, Haydn being relegated to the position of a kindly old ‘Papa’. John first encountered a Haydn keyboard sonata when Gordon Green played him a recording of one by Sviatoslav Richter. It was, John recalled, ‘one of the less interesting ones’ but it was the only one generally played in those days. It was, however, enough to awaken his interest. He acquired all the sonatas he could, and being a superb sight-reader, soon had them under his belt. His knowledge and love of Haydn therefore stemmed from an extremely young age.

Likewise, perhaps even more surprisingly, so did his love of the piano music of Nielsen – he being virtually unknown in this country at that time. In an article described by him as a personal view of Nielsen’s piano music, John recalled, ‘The first piece of his I ever heard was the Chaconne, in the mid-1950s, in France Ellegaard’s eloquent 10” Decca LP recording, and it still casts an emotional spell’. John insisted on playing the Chaconne for his university degree recital, causing much consternation, in place of the standard Romantic work expected. ‘I remember the fuss when as my “Romantic” 10 minute piece for my university degree recital I chose the Nielsen Chaconne’, he wrote in another article. Gordon Green, still his teacher, was taken aback, but supported him against considerable opposition, and learnt the piece himself, so as to be able to work with him on it.

My few years of working in recording now proved to be extremely useful, especially knowing Bob Auger, and having experience of how recordings were set up. With the foolhardiness of youth, I suggested to John that we should make an LP of some of his favourite Haydn sonatas (Landon Nos 13 and 15 – two delightful early ones – and the great last sonata, Landon No 62). We were able to lease this recording to HMV, via their A & R supremo Douglas Pudney, with whom we already had links. The recording received excellent reviews, and especially so as interest in Haydn became greatly awakened now, fostered first by the conductor Leslie Jones, and then by the recording of all the symphonies by Decca, under Antal Dorati. The String Quartets and Piano Trios were also being recorded, and the music world was thrilled to encounter this Aladdin’s Cave of musical riches. So I conceived the idea of going to Decca’s Ray Minshull, and suggesting recording the complete keyboard sonatas, taking the HMV LP as a visiting card. Ray Minshull asked us a few questions, but was obviously intrigued by the idea. This was to him a ‘completion’ matter – complete symphonies, complete this and that. Here was a further completion, which had the added advantage of being inexpensive should it fail. There was the small matter, of course, that John had signed a contract not to re-record the sonatas, but the big record companies have their own way around such things, and a deal was struck, with HMV allowing the Haydn project to go ahead.

The rest, as they say, is history, for the Haydn Keyboard Sonatas were recorded and have been in the catalogue ever since – more than 40 years, which may be a record in itself. There are many stories I could relate of the making of these records – sadly space doesn’t allow this. It is worth mentioning, however, that each set of three LPs was made in only five days (the last set, being four LPs, may have been granted six), and this despite the chosen recording venue being directly under the flightpath to, and just a few miles from, Heathrow. Only someone with John’s concentration, patience and knowledge of the music could have accomplished this, what with airport rush-hours, rain on the roof, birds, and unexpected and unwanted incursions during recording. One, a steady tramping across the floor, followed by the words, ‘I’ve come to collect the ’arpsichord’, during a very good take of a major sonata movement, awakened the terrifying wrath of producer Jimmy Walker, who erupted from the crypt, all five foot two of him, in a state of purple fury! Jimmy, who I think had served in the Navy, and thus had words of reproof at his command, liked to record at All Saints, Petersham, despite the air traffic problems, because it was walking distance from his home. He was also fond of a glass of lunchtime beer at his local pub. But relations between Jimmy and John were very good, and when it turned out that Jimmy had a birthday the next day, on one of the final recording sessions, when we got home John wrote a special piece for him, based on the Capriccio in G major (Hob.XVII:I), which was due to be recorded first thing. The Capriccio lent itself to being interwoven with ‘Happy Birthday to You’, and John started recording without saying a word, Jimmy emerging from the crypt shortly after, amazed, but this time grinning broadly. He was so amused that he cut us a 7” disc of it, which I still have, along with John’s score. John would be thoroughly delighted today that the greatest Haydn sonatas are now standard piano repertoire.

John’s Nielsen recordings were set up during the period of the Haydn recordings, so he accomplished both these major undertakings during the mid-1970s. Again we made these ourselves, using Bob Auger once more, but in a different church, St George the Martyr, Holborn, where what we lost in aircraft noise we gained in other forms of interruption, including a nearby children’s playground. (I often wonder whether critics realise that actually playing the music is the least difficult part of recording.) These tapes we placed with Decca’s Ace of Diamonds label, and the records were well received at the time, but eventually went out of print. I owe it to the kindness of Robert Matthew-Walker, to Siva Oke of Somm, as well as to the skill of Paul Arden Taylor that our by now very elderly tapes were rescued, and that they were reissued in the tragic last days of John’s life. He was never able to listen to them, but it comforted us both that he was at least aware that they were to be re-released on CD, before he died of an aggressive brain tumour. Again they have been very widely reviewed, and most kindly received, by critics. This encouraged me to look out the tapes for the Grieg recording, which we made somewhat later, in 1978, this time arranging release via RCA, where the widely knowledgeable Bob Matthew-Walker was at that time A & R Manager. He also had a great interest in Grieg, and tried to further appreciation of his music.

John had long wanted to record Grieg’s Slåtter (Norwegian Peasant Dances), Op 72, one of the composer’s final two sets of works for solo piano, and the earliest example of the collection of folk music by a classical composer (via Knut Dale, the hardanger-fiddle player, of Telemark, who had approached him with the suggestion, with the idea of saving these works for posterity). The Slåtter were regarded by John as remarkable and much neglected major piano works, with their earthy, rustic vigour, swinging dance rhythms, contrasting with much delicacy of decoration. However, try as he might, he was unable to obtain the music, which seemed to be unavailable at the time, even from Grieg’s own publisher. (An Urtext edition has now been printed, however.) That he was able to record them eventually was through an entirely fortuitous finding of a tattered old copy in a second-hand book-shop in Lichfield.

It was from this second-hand copy, costing 20p, that the recording was made, and it was coupled with the Stimmungen, Op 73, Grieg’s final work for solo piano. Sadly, although as I recall, it was well reviewed, RCA were plagued at that time by bad pressings, from a newly established factory in the North, set up with Government assistance, to provide jobs for people made redundant from failing heavy industry. As I heard it, the workers were as willing as could be, but the record factory took them out of their previous ‘comfort zone’, and the LPs suffered badly from pops and crackles, which was a terrible disappointment.

However, with so many events in our lives, the tapes languished in a degree of neglect, though boxed themselves, and in a plastic box, until I came across them earlier this year. It was Bob Auger’s usual way to record on one-inch tape, but these tapes were only half-inch, and I suspect were safety copies. They were by this time virtually at the end of their lives, and I am so grateful to Paul Arden Taylor, and to Martin Nichols, for their work in restoring them for use, and to Siva Oke and Somm for reissuing this archive recording. Finding these tapes made me search out the old original copy of the Slåtter, and I noted once again how, in most typical fashion John always so thoroughly worked out fingering and other markings, sometimes almost obliterating the notes themselves. This was very much his way of working, and I often wondered how his mind could take it all in when playing – but perhaps this is material for some other article, some other time.