It was one of my most valued possessions and it was taken
in 1954 at a reception for Dr. Vaughan Williams at University of California at
Los Angeles (UCLA) after a lecture he had just given.
Moving to a new location is difficult whether it’s a mile
away or 10,000 miles away and packing up all ones belongings and determining
where they should go is dramatic; which pile, throwaway, store, giveaway or
take? Mistakes are always made. I left 13 boxes of stuff I couldn’t throw away
in my sister’s garage in Los Angeles in 1989 when I left for Europe; after
thirteen years she asked if I would please come and get them. I had a student
that lived in LA pack them up in a crate, call the movers and send them to me
in Lausanne, Switzerland where they sat, still unpacked, for another five
years. When friends came to help me pack for the move to Japan, I was
embarrassed, when after opening the boxes that had been closed for 17 years, I
felt I couldn’t part with their contents!
Not only were we packing for my move to Japan, we were
looking through all my possessions in the world for my cherished photograph of
Vaughn Williams and me.
I was fifteen and a half, I had read in 1954 about the
tuba concerto in Time magazine and had tried everything to get a copy of it. I
even wrote a letter to the Library of Congress and received a letter that read
something like this:
Dear Roger
Bobo,
We have no record of a Concerto for Tuba by Ralph Vaughan
Williams and you can be sure that if a composer of the stature of Ralph Vaughan
Williams had written a tuba concerto we would know about it.
Good luck in your musical
studies.
Library of Congress, Music
Department
I heard about his lecture at UCLA, went to it and crashed
the reception afterward to meet him. He was a very nice and kind man, he was
also completely deaf; Beethoven could not have been deafer! During the lecture
he would play musical examples and he had to have somebody tell him when the
music had stopped; well almost completely deaf, his wife, Ursula served as his
ears. She was a wonderful woman with a piercing sonic laser beam voice that was
able to penetrate his poor hearing.
After the lecture I waited my turn in a reception line,
finally my turn arrived and when I introduced myself and spoke about the tuba
concerto Ursula Vaughan Williams translated. “RALPH, THIS YOUNG MAN IS A TUBIST
AND HE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO GET A COPY OF THE CONCERTO”. Of course
everyone in the room was looking by then, I was no longer the low profile boy
who crashed the reception. Dr. Vaughn Williams put his arm around my shoulder
and told me that the music was being edited at the time and as soon as it was
finished he would have the Oxford University Press send me the first copy.
While he was talking to me Mrs. Vaughn Williams took a picture of us. I gave
them my address and went home and waited.
About a month later I received a copy the photograph
Ursula Vaughn Williams had taken and a note from her saying that they hadn’t
forgotten about me and that they expected the edited version to be ready soon.
I framed the photo, hung it in my room and waited for the music; it took more
that half a year before it came. It arrived rolled up in a tube and when I
opened it “Sent At The Request of Dr. Vaughn Williams” was printed on the
cover.
Within minutes after receiving the music it was on my music
stand and I was trying to play it. It was high! The fact is that I
essentially learned how to play the tuba by that piece and little did I know
that I would perform that concerto more that 70 times during my career. One of
those performances was with the London Philharmonia in 1964 with Joseph
Horowitz conducting, it was a good performance, the reviews were very good and
best of all Ursula Vaughn Williams was at the performance; seeing her there was
a wonderful moment.
My friends and I spent the better part of a week looking
for that picture; while packing for the move to Japan we went through every
page of every book, every piece of music and everything looking for it.
I know I put it someplace special so that I would never loose but I don’t
remember where, or I gave it to someone to keep it for me but I don’t remember
who. Very sadly, I think it’s gone forever, however, if ever it miraculously
appears you can be sure it will be up in Facebook and rogerbobo.com as fast as
possible.
December 4, 2005, Lausanne,
Switzerland
Revised December 6, 2012, Tokyo
Japan
