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The English baritone, Gordon Clinton, won in 1935 a scholarship in a competition, with which he could handle his singing studies at the Royal College of Music London from 1935 to 1938. From 1930 to 1937 he was organist at the Swanley Congregational Church in London and then in 1946 Vicar-Choral at the St. Paul's Cathedral. During World War II he served at the Royal Air Force for six years.
It proved to be a risk worth taking for three months later Gordon Clinton was soloist in An Arabesque at the 1946 Delius Festival. Not a bad transition from singing on Worthing Pier which what he was doing when called to the audition. In fact he was doubly lucky that day: had it been wet at Worthing he would have been entertaining holiday-makers driven indoors by the weather: luckily it was fine and they were all on the beach, so he had a free afternoon to travel to London to sing for Sir Thomas Beecham.
For the next five years Gordon Clinton was one of Thomas Beecham's chosen collaborators, singing the baritone parts in Berlioz's Childhood of Christ, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem and as Adam in Haydn's Creation.At a performance of the Haydn he was startled when a message came down the soloists' line: 'Sir Thomas says cheer up, you're supposed to be on your honeymoon'. To Delians he was the admired Dark Fiddler of Thomas Beecham's broadcasts and subsequent recording of A Village Romeo and Juliet, and he also sang Sea Drift at the conductor's 70th birthday concert in 1949 in London. At the rehearsal he was doubtful about his ability to pitch the exposed solo line 'Oh, I am very sick and sorrowful' accurately. 'Leave it to me: said Sir Thomas who at the crucial moment in the concert leaned over to him and emitted a sound like a crow, adding, 'Make a better noise when you start, but thats it!'
Gordon Cliwas highly esteemed particularly as a great oratorio singer. As a singer he appeared particularly at the English Music Festivals, thus with the Three Choirs Festival, at the Bach-, Delius- and Elgar-Festival in London. After the Beecham years he had a spell with the Golden Age Singers. He appreaded as a soloist with the Reigate & Redhill Choral Society and sang with them George Frideric Handel: Messiah (October 1953); J.S. Bach: St. John Passion (BWV 245) (April 1959); Felix Mendelssohnn: Elijah (November 1959); Kenneth V. Jones: O Light Invisible & Ralph Vaughan Williams: Hodie (November 1963). He continued to sing in concerts until he was 70.
In 1946 Gordon Clinton received a Professor at the Royal College of Music, and became a conductor of the Whitstable and Thankerton Choral Society. In 1960 he became Principal of the Birmingham School of Music in succession to Sir Steuart Wilson and finally founded in 1973 the CBSO Chorus for Louis Frémaux and seved as its chorus master. His work as an adjudicator took him all over the world, and as a distinguished teacher many now famous British singers passed through his hands at the Royal College of Music. Members will remember with pleasure the talks this unassuming man gave in London and to the Midlands Branch about his life and experiences as a concert singer.
Recordings: Gordon Clinton sang as soloists in Matthäus-Passion (BWV 244) by J.S. Bach and in the opera A Village Romeo and Juliet by Delius (Conifer World record, 1947), although he was actually concerned otherwise hardly with the opera singing. Records on the labels Oiseau Lyre and Decca. |
