Clifford Harker (1912-1999)
CLIFFORD HARKER was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the 5th of February 1912. His father, Arthur James Harker, was music
critic of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and wrote under the pen name Counterpoint. His father gave him a great deal of
musical encouragement and was clearly an important formative influence. When the gramophone companies sent his father the
latest recordings to review, Clifford was forbidden to listen to them until he had first learnt the works by playing them
in piano duet form. This gave him a profound knowledge of, for instance, the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies, which was to
last him all his life, and never being a great fan of recorded music, it was a mode of learning he advocated for his own
pupils. When preparing a work he was to conduct for the first time, Clifford always began with the score and not someone
else's interpretation of it.
Clifford's mother, Elizabeth, died tragically young when he was about 14. As a pupil at Dame Allan's Grammar School for
Boys in Newcastle, he professed never to have been terribly happy during his school days and he regretted not pursuing the
chance to become a chorister at Newcastle Cathedral. Clifford's early years were steeped in church music, his piano and
organ playing, and in the tradition of the great North Country Choral Societies. He gained his early accompanying and
conducting experience under the guidance of such people as William Gillies Whittaker, Director of the Newcastle Bach
Choir, who was keen to encourage his obvious talent.
Clifford went on to study at the Royal College of Music where his teachers were distinguished men of their time:
Marmaduke Barton for piano, Dr. Henry Ley for organ, Dr. Malcolm Sargent for conducting and Ralph Vaughan Williams for
composition. These teachers were all to have a lasting influence on those various aspects of Clifford's musical life.
Following his studies in London, he returned to Newcastle to become Sub Organist of the Cathedral under Dr. William Ellis
and Organist and Choirmaster of St. Andrew's Parish Church, gaining his FRCO and ARCM diplomas in his early twenties.
When the Second World War began, Clifford followed the example of his younger brother Geoffrey, and volunteered for
service with the RAF. He knew that wearing a smart collar and tie would suit him much better than army boots. Early on he
met the first of two men to whom he was always grateful for "seeing him through the war" as he put it; this was
Alwyn Surplice. They were on marching exercise in Blackpool when one turned to the other and said "I've got to be
careful with my feet, I'm an organist, you know". Alwyn and Mollie Surplice were to remain close friends and Clifford
would often travel to St. George's Chapel, Windsor when Alwyn was Sir William Harris's assistant there, and later to
Winchester Cathedral where Alwyn moved after his short stay as Organist of Bristol Cathedral.
In 1941, after what he described as a dismal attempt to train him as "the world's worst wireless operator",
Clifford was posted to Cairo, and began what was one of the most exhilarating and rewarding parts of his career. His
musical reputation travelled before him, and on his arrival Lady Dorothea Russell, founder of Music for All, asked Group
Captain T.H. Evans (in charge of Welfare) if he could release Clifford from military duties in order to become its
director, the post having been vacated by Gerhardt Wilner, a German who had left for South Africa when enemy troops
reached El Alamein. He enjoyed these years enormously and revelled in those musical activities which were his first
instinct. It was through the medium of Music for All that Clifford was responsible for producing classical musical
entertainment for the thousands of troops stationed in the Middle East, organising hundreds of concerts from 1942 to 1945
in the Club's concert hall which Lady Russell had had converted from an old cinema. He performed in many of these himself,
either as pianist or conductor. Having formed a ladies' choral society, a male voice choir and an orchestra which happily
included a number of professional players, he gave performances of the great choral works, such as Haydn's Creation and
Brahms's Requiem. His 1942 performance of Handel's Messiah in Cairo Cathedral, with Prince (later King) George of Greece
among the audience, marked the first time that the work had been heard in Egypt since 1882. Air Chief Marshall Tedder
ordered that during the performance the air raid sirens should be sounded only in the most dire emergency - fortunately
they were not needed. While in Cairo, Clifford gave two concert tours of the Middle East as guest conductor with the
Palestine (later Israeli) Symphony Orchestra. He was also organist of (the old) All Saints' Cathedral in Cairo, where the
Venerable Francis Johnston (Sub Dean and Archdeacon in Egypt and later Bishop of Guildford) wrote of the new life and
richness of worship, hitherto lacking, which his personality and musical ability had brought to the Cathedral. He also
paid tribute to his role in attracting hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women from across the Empire and the United
States to attend the wartime services and concerts there. Contemporary newspapers were regularly full of praise for
Clifford's inspirational musical leadership and, although he probably didn't approve of the word, his genius for
motivating people into making great music and to deriving enormous pleasure from it - something he was to continue doing
for the rest of his life.
While he was in the Middle East Clifford's father died, and in 1944 his brother Geoffrey was killed in enemy action
over France. Clifford adored his brother who was all the things Clifford was not: a great sportsman, a gregarious
extrovert and a dashing fighter-plane navigator, and he felt his death bitterly. Throughout these difficult times,
Clifford was supported by the comradeship of his other great wartime friend, John Bennett, and he continued to study for
his Durham University external BMus degree, which he was awarded later in the 1940s. On the way out to Cairo, Clifford had
formed a male voice choir on the troop ship, writing his own arrangements for them on homemade manuscript paper. On the
return journey to England he admitted to feeling very despondent that such a rich and fulfilling phase of his career had
come to an end.
After the war, Clifford was appointed Organist of Rugby Parish Church, and there he formed another choral society, the
Rugby Singers. Again he embarked upon the great choral works, usually with organ accompaniment, engaging some of the great
players of the day, George Dorrington Cunningham, Harold Darke and George Thalben-Ball, and leading soloists such as
Isobel Baillie. He held two teaching appointments, teaching piano at Trinity College London, which he professed to
dislike, and as Director of Music at Lawrence Sheriff Grammar School for Boys in Rugby. Clifford was very self-effacing
about his efforts as a school teacher, yet Canon Edwin Morris who had been a boy at that school, remembers the fine job
he did in enthusing the pupils to an understanding and love of music, and the energetic way he bustled around the
school - quite a different approach from the other masters. Clifford would have liked that description - he had no time
for the old style bullying school masters, one or two of whom he had come across.
In 1949 he succeeded his wartime friend Alwyn Surplice as Organist of Bristol Cathedral, where for 34 years he was to
enjoy a happy relationship with the four very different Deans under whom he served, Harry Blackburn, Evered Lunt (later
Bishop of Stepney), Douglas Harrison and Horace Dammers (who organised the Cathedral Choir's first European tour in 1981).
Among Clifford's many musical activities, nothing was more important to him than his Cathedral work, training the
choristers and lay clerks and playing for Evensong in the Cathedral. He was an organist of the old school, inheriting an
exquisite, sensitive style of psalm playing and choral accompaniment from the tradition of William Ellis, Charles Moody,
Edward Bairstow and William Harris. His playing was inspiring to listen to and to watch, and he could realise orchestral
scores on the organ in a colourful and totally convincing style. His Sunday afternoon voluntaries became an institution.
He was three times President of the Bristol and District Organists' Association, hosting the National Conference in
1962.
Clifford conducted the Bristol Madrigal Society (now called the Bristol Chamber Choir) and gave several concerts with
the BBC West of England Singers before forming his own Cathedral Special Choir and Orchestra in 1953, the singers rapidly
growing in number to some 250. With them, over a period of 30 years, he gave numerous performances of the great choral
works and continued to enjoy an easy rapport with many of the leading soloists of the day, Janet Baker, Gerald English,
Owen Brannigan and Raimund Herincx among them. And, of course, there were also the two annual concerts of Carols and
Christmas Music which he established, and which became something of a legend in their time. The Cathedral would be packed
for two evenings every December for performances which included many of Clifford's own skilful arrangements for the
specific forces of large chorus, boy trebles and an orchestra of Handelian proportions. The atmosphere was as humanly warm
as can be imagined, and the proceeds were always donated to children's charities. All music making in the Cathedral was a
form of Christian worship for Clifford and he would always retire in private prayer with the Dean a few moments before
each of his concerts there.
Clifford was a wonderful conductor with great technical command, flair, and an enthusiasm through which the music
flowed effortlessly. His highly impressive style reflected the technical clarity of his teacher, Malcolm Sargent and,
although he much admired Sir Thomas Beecham, his true conducting heroes remained Alick Maclean (conductor of the
Scarborough Spa Symphony Orchestra) who had been a great influence on him in his youth, and John Barbirolli whose élan
and panache he emulated consciously. His choirs adored him for the warmth he generated among them as a family of singers,
and for his infectious enthusiasm and boundless energy in communicating a love of what he regarded as a supreme form of
amateur music making. Orchestras respected him for his concise, efficient rehearsals (with the exception of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony and a few 20th century works, everything was produced in only one three-hour full rehearsal). Clifford's
interpretation of Handel's Messiah was an experience in itself, imbued with a humanity which seemed to make the work his
own. His Verdi Requiem was an impassioned reading and he showed a deep affinity with the music of Vaughan Williams, all
of whose major choral works he performed. He gained a reputation as a formidable Elgarian, and musicians and audiences in
Bristol will long remember the spiritual atmosphere he created in his performances of The Dream of Gerontius. Elgar's
daughter, Carice Elgar Blake, attended a performance of The Kingdom in Bristol Cathedral and wrote afterwards to Clifford
that every nuance was as her father had intended and that she expected never to hear a finer performance.
He expanded his conducting work in 1960 when he took over the Bristol Choral Society, which he conducted until 1989,
giving a total of 117 concerts in the Colston Hall, including two annual performances of Messiah. From 1963 to 1987, the
Bath Choral Society also came under Clifford's wing. His two annual performances of Messiah in Bath Abbey gained the same
following as his Bristol performances. On more than one occasion the audience rose to its feet in spontaneous applause at
a time when such expressions of appreciation were not entirely welcome in the Abbey. He gave an impressive range of works
with these three large choirs, in the Cathedral and the Colston Hall in Bristol, and in Bath Abbey: the Bach Passions and
B minor Mass, the Verdi Requiem, Elgar's The Apostles and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast. The list is endless and reads like
an encyclopaedic account of the great choral works. Much new 20th century repertoire was introduced: Stravinsky's Symphony
of Psalms, Tippett's A Child of our Time, Florent Schmitt's Psalm 47, works by Kodály, Delius, Duruflé, Holst, the second
complete performance of Malcolm Williamson's Mass of Christ The King and, in 1989, Raymond Warren's Continuing Cities,
commissioned for the Bristol Choral Society's centenary.
In a lifetime totally consumed by music, Clifford's light relief was to be found in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.
As a young man he had memorised every word of Gilbert's libretti and was later to revel in concert performances of the
operettas with the stars of the D'Oyly Carte era, such at Donald Adams (a former Bristol chorister), Thomas Round and John
Reid.
After he retired from the Cathedral, and later from his major conducting posts, Clifford was to enjoy 12 years
(1984-96) as Organist of the Lord Mayor's Chapel - a happy association with Archdeacon Leslie Williams and the loyal
members of the Chapel Choir. He was awarded honorary degrees of Master of Music for his services to music in Bristol both
by Bristol University and the University of the West of England.
Of Clifford's compositional output, some 40 works were published. These include secular songs and organ pieces as well
as several sacred settings which entered the libraries of cathedrals and parish churches. He was characteristically
unassuming about his ability as a composer, always acknowledging his indebtedness to Vaughan Williams (whose first remark
to Clifford was that he had been unwise to leave the tutelage of Ben Burrows, whom Vaughan Williams described as the
finest teacher in the country, in order to learn how to write consecutive fifths and bad Bach from himself).
Of the sad events during Clifford's time at the Cathedral, the untimely death of Michael Dyer in 1973 was a severe
shock. Michael was Clifford's right-hand man and he said at the time he felt that a part of him had literally been cut
off. And four years later, his pupil Assistant Organist David Moon died tragically at the outset of his young career.
But what of the man himself? He was an intensely private person whose personal life never intruded upon his
professional work. He was essentially shy, loathing pompousness and pretentiousness, but his personality would explode
ebulliently when confronted by the massed forces of choir and orchestra. He would never admit to having a birthday and the
subject of his age was strictly taboo. He was fiercely independent and tried to make do with a minimum of fuss from
others, although he was grateful to those who gave him help and support in his later years. It was a very singular
existence, living as he did for most of his life in a single hotel room, and one which allowed him to be totally absorbed
in his music; if he admitted to a certain loneliness, he never complained about it. Clifford was never married, other than
to his music and his work, but his genuine love of children was evident in his care and concern for the Cathedral
Choristers.
He was what Michael Dyer described as "the world's most impractical man". He really did have difficulty
changing a light bulb, couldn't knock a nail into a wall and couldn't catch a ball. The bicycle he brought from Rugby to
Bristol remained stationary for two years until he pushed it up Whiteladies Road in order to sell it - the Bristol traffic
in 1949 was too much to be negotiated. He didn't really understand tape recorders and his famous utterance, "Oh, how
I loathe machines", caused quite a stir at more than one recording session. In fact, had it not been for the
sympathetic patience of Rex Hipple, it is likely that Clifford would never have been persuaded to make those atmospheric
recordings of the Carols and Christmas Music.
Clifford had an endearing sense of humour which was gentle, courteous and rather self-deprecating. It was more
instinctive for him to tell a joke against himself than to score points at someone else's expense. Particularly good was
the story he told of dancing with his great friend Dorothy Caton in the ballroom of a Scandinavian cruise ship. Noting
that the floor had emptied to leave only the two of them, Clifford was later to discover that they had been tangoing to
the Danish National Anthem as the ship neared Copenhagen. Choristers could rely on him for a repertoire of three innocent
jokes: "How do you make a Venetian blind?", "How do you make a Swiss roll?" and, in more risqué
moments, "Why did the submarine blush?" And members of the Special Choir will recall the great warmth and
jollity he created in rehearsals, with a wry admonition to the tenors and basses to get their heads out of their copies,
or a bellowing broadside at the sopranos and altos to silence their chattering. On one occasion during a Special Choir
rehearsal, he left the rostrum and walked over to the tenors and basses. "Gentlemen", he said, "I see no
obstruction between you and the rostrum - why don't you watch me?" "Who are you?" replied one of the
basses.
Clifford was a modest man, not given to pretentiousness or name dropping. The only pedestal he felt comfortable with
was a musical one. He knew intuitively what he was good at and didn't pretend to expertise in areas which knew were not
his forte. Stephen Foulkes remembered an occasion during the Cathedral Choir's European tour in 1981 when Clifford and the
lay clerks were dining in a restaurant in Florence where the service was unbelievably slow. During an interminable wait
for the meal to appear, Clifford was induced into relating stories from his time in Cairo. After describing the RAF's
failure to train him in anything technical, he said "they threw me out and put me into music". "And what
were you like at that?" asked someone impertinently. "Oh very good" he said, without batting an eyelid.
A traditionalist he was, certainly, unashamedly so, and perhaps no more so than in the realm of Cathedral worship.
Once, over 20 years ago, in Brights' Coffee Shop (one of his favourite haunts), Clifford was bemoaning the fact that the
Dean had suggested that the Creed at the 10 o'clock Choral Eucharist should occasionally be said rather than sung, in
order to allow the congregation to join in. Dorothy Caton who was with him said with characteristic north country
bluntness that she thought it was a good idea. This was not what Clifford wanted to hear. His loud reply was
uncharacteristically impolite, and the rattle of china and coffee spoons as the blue-rinsed ladies fell about in dismay
somewhere up in Queens Road might still just be audible. In fact, Clifford was at the forefront of modern changes in the
Liturgy, as Bristol Cathedral, under the guidance of Dean Douglas Harrison, was the first to introduce the new Series 2
Eucharist service. Clifford was never really comfortable with many of the later modernisations of liturgical language. He
simply found them less beautiful and less uplifting. Canon Evan Pilkington, Precentor in the 1970s (later Chancellor of
St. Paul's Cathedral), with whom Clifford enjoyed a special friendship and rapport, in a sermon entitled Something
beautiful for God, spoke about the value of music in adorning Cathedral worship. Evan's text was St. Matthew 26 vv 6-13,
and, as the woman in Bethany is remembered for pouring oil over Jesus's head, so is Clifford remembered for the beautiful
thing he did for God in enriching the worship of this cathedral with his music.
Clifford liked style, in a wonderfully old-fashioned sort of way, and he had this own inimitable style - not the
flashy, image-conscious style of the late 20th century, but one of quality and elegance. He loathed anything cheap or
second-rate. His favourite holiday haunt was Scarborough (staying in what he called "the posh part", and he
thought the world was coming to an end when the Grand Hotel was taken over by Butlin's) and he loved Bournemouth, Nice,
Lucerne and the beauty of the Austrian Alps. He was always impeccably dressed, and even in the last days of his life, you
could be sure that he would be wearing either a sports jacket and flannels and collar and tie, or a dark blue suit, as
though he were ready to go and conduct Evensong.
Perhaps the most important quality is the one expressed most simply. He was genuine in all he said and did; he was
honest, he was utterly dependable and he had great integrity. He was a real Christian, a real musician and a real
gentleman, and for that he was loved and respected. Within an hour of his death on the 2nd of November (All Souls' Day)
1999, the choir and congregation of the cathedral he served so devotedly prayed for him at the annual Requiem Mass, sung
to the music of Gabriel Fauré. May his good and faithful soul rest in peace and be risen in great glory for evermore.
Amen.
John Jenkins
Director of Music, Sherborne School for Girls
Bristol Cathedral Chorister 1965-70 and Assistant Organist 1977-81