BIOGRAPHY OF JULIAN RHODES
Julian Rhodes was born on 10th November 1964, in the heart of the Derbyshire coalfields. He was adopted by the Tilleys as a baby and given the name Nigel. He grew up in Chesterfield, an only child. Later he discovered he had been born 'Julian Rhodes', and he reverted to this name in 1993.After picking out his first tune on the piano at the age of five, he began studies locally. He quickly became fascinated by the organ, and was soon accompanying services at Ampleforth Abbey, Southwell Minster and St. Paul's Cathedral, among others.
Aged twelve, his success at a BBC1 piano competition, 'Major-Minor' led to the award of a place at the prestigious Chetham's School of Music, Manchester. Julian left home at 16 to board at Chetham's, where he was introduced to the harpsichord and clavichord. He went on to the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and then moved to London to finish his degree at the Guildhall School of Music. Here he met Piers Adams, budding recorder maestro, who was to become a close friend as well as a musical colleague. During this period Julian won awards from the Countess of Munster Trust and the Craxton Memorial Trust.
His London debut was at the Wigmore Hall in 1987, performing on piano, organ and harpsichord. He was invited by the Maisie Lewis Fund to present a recital at the Purcell Room: the programme included music from 13th-century Spain to 20th-century America (it was cancelled owing to Julian's illness.) In the mid to late 1980s he played synthesiser with a rock band and gave classical concerts with Piers Adams, the pair were promoted as "Wonder-Working Wizards of Wind and Wire.'
In 1989 Julian married Claire. They parted in 1992, and later divorced. They had no children. Julian and I met in 1997 and I soon became his girlfriend, partner and agent.
Throughout his twenties, Julian suffered years of ill health. From 1989 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - then known as M.E blighted his life for five years. A piano concert in 1994, at the White Rock Theatre , Hastings, marked his re-launch. He also suffered a punctured lung, which almost killed him, and an emergency appendectomy.
Julian's indifference to fame or wealth greatly hindered his progress in the highly-competitive classical music world, where supply of performers outstrips demand. Ignoring the one-in-a-million who is promoted by a major record company, even modest success requires years of sustained and aggressive self-marketing coupled with a willingness to compromise, to travel, and a commitment to work hard for (relatively) small fees. Julian preferred to channel his energies into the quest for perfection in musical performance. He worked at his own pace, believing passionately in 'quality not quantity'. Much time was spent alone at the piano and organ, perfecting his playing technique and creating exquisite arrangements of beautiful pieces.In his early days, Julian worked with the Endymion Ensemble and other groups, playing with equal virtuosity on organ, piano, clavichord, virginal, spinet, harpsichord and synthesiser. His enjoyment decreased as numbers grew. He liked the intimacy of duets but, above all, he felt he was meant to be a soloist. He was an avant-garde harpsichordist who could have won fame and fortune in that field, but the pipe-organ was his lifelong passion: he called it 'the instrument and voice of God'. He played the organs of many British cathedrals and churches. To miss hearing Julian on the organ was to miss him at his best. The words 'spellbinding', and 'dazzling' have been frequently employed to describe his playing.
Julian put something of himself into everything he played, and was not afraid to alter works to increase their impact or interest. This upset a few stick-in-the-mud traditionalists, but Julian believed that if a performer had nothing new to 'say' with a piece, he should not bother performing it. He arranged a number of interesting and unusual pieces, including a splendid and highly-acclaimed arrangement of Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite; J.S. Bach's Sinfonia to Cantata 29 and The Wedge; and Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag . He was painstaking in choosing the correct registration (choice of stops) for each piece. Julian's repertoire covered over 2,000 years of music, from ancient Sumeria to his own compositions. The programme and playing order for each recital was very carefully chosen, (See some typical concert programmes .) to keep the audience's attention from the first note to the last.
Julian did not so much learn his repertoire, as 'internalise' each piece, mentally and emotionally, so that he played all recitals from memory. His technical brilliance and intuitive musicianship were highly acclaimed by many critics .He was also renowned for his superb sense of comic timing, and for coaxing extraordinary sounds from church organs. One promoter asked 'was that a Wurlitzer I heard?' and an organist declared 'Julian must bring extra stops with him and take them away when he leaves - I can never find them afterwards.'
In February 1997 baroque violinist Julia Bishop and cellist Angela East joined Julian on harpsichord and Piers on recorders in a rock-baroque group called Red Priest (pictured). The quartet's success was immediate: bookings flooded in, and soon Julian found himself travelling all over the UK, and to Europe and the USA.Red Priest's success placed Julian in a dilemma. Not only did he blanch at the concert schedules and the travelling but, a solo pianist and organist at heart, he felt both frustration and bitter irony at finding himself in greatest demand in a quartet, playing his least favourite instrument - what he called 'a box of wood and wire'. Nonetheless, he delighted audiences with his solos, especially 'Renaissance Revels', which he sometimes played standing up, in comic mimicry of the wild men of rock 'n' roll.
Broadcasts and recordings
Julian made a few television appearances. Since appearing on BBC1 aged 12, he was seen on BBC1's 'Daytime Live' and BBC2's 'Arena', and as a soloist was featured on Radio 3, playing the Trumpet Tune by William Croft on harpsichord, and with Red Priest. Three Red Priest concerts were broadcast on radio, in Copenhagen, Washington DC, and Slovenia.
Julian's early recordings were with chamber groups. He recorded for Decca with the New London Consort, and for Radio 3 with the BBC Singers and Combattimento. In 1993, he released 'Shine and Shade', with Piers Adams on recorders and himself on piano. In 1997, with Red Priest, he made the CD 'Priest on the Run', which contains the two harpsichord solos. As a soloist he released four CDs: 'The Temple of Tone' (organ) and 'Julian Rhodes Live' (piano), both for Colossus Classics; and the premier recording, on two CDs, of the complete harpsichord works of William Croft for Ismeron. Record companies had invited Julian to make further recordings, both as a soloist and with Red Priest. He deferred these as his left elbow had become stiff and painful.
Lifestyle, and personal interests
Julian loved nothing better than to be at home. Here he immersed himself in organ research, the fruits of which were collated and filed on thousands of index cards. Dubbing himself 'Anorakus Magus' he revelled in accusations of eccentricity and collected thousands of stop-lists from all over the world. A decade ago he published, as Nigel Tilley, 'Organs in and around Chesterfield . It amused Julian to cite 'Mr Tilley' in his research; for example:
Much of the information in these pages is the result of research undertaken by Nigel Tilley and myself during the summer of 1991. We visited, examined and played the organs...The initial result of our research was Nigel Tilley's book 'Organs In & Around Chesterfield' (1991)He even thanked 'Nigel' on his Dream Organs acknowledgements page. He was a prolific and amusing contributor to the Internet pipe-organ list of Albany University, USA, where his input is much missed.
In his seafront flat, Julian loved to enrich his mind and spirit. He played his piano, harpsichord and clavichord, read classical literature and poetry and enjoyed a good rummage in secondhand bookshops. He meditated, arranged and composed music, drew up astrological birth-charts, and created Indian meals, grinding the spices himself. He loved small, beautiful objects: crystals, fountain pens, essential oils, tarot cards, sea-shells and candles, He gave a home to over 300 teddy bears and other cuddly toys.
Julian wrote many essays and articles, for magazines and for his websites. Most of his writings concerned the history, design, aesthetics and philosophy of the organ, and his virtuosity with words rivalled his musical prowess. Had he the incination, he could have made a very good living as a professional writer. As with music, as a writer he was a perfectionist, who would debate at length the tiniest details of grammar and punctuation. He declared that professor of English was his career choice, had he not been a musician. The lucky recipients of his emails,letters and monologues were kept amused by the hilariously comic, pendantic literacy in which he couched everything from high-brow literature to Indian restaurant reports.
Having learned HTML in 1999, he designed several websites: as well as his famous Dream Organs he created a photography Site , to display a few of our photographs. He designed three websites for friends and two sites for my women's history projects; indeed, during the Croft recording, Julian busied himself typing my handwritten notes about the suffragettes while waiting for the instruments to be tuned! He created The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam and The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot, purely out of irritation with the typographical and other errors found on existing sites.
His final 12 months
After a busy year, performing in ten countries, Julian played what was to be his last organ recital on 10th October 1999, at All Saints in Hastings.
Problems with his elbow made it impossible to operate stops; or, indeed, to play the piano. He last played a pipe-organ on 2nd June 2000, when he gave an impromptu 'mini-concert' in St Clement's, Hastings, during a walk with me in Hastings Old Town. With an immobile elbow, and despite often considerable pain, Julian tried hard to meet his concert obligations as harpsichordist with Red Priest. A concert at the Konstanjevica Monastery in Brezice, Slovenia on 21st July 2000, broadcast on radio, proved to be his very last. He retired from performing in order to seek a cure.
Terminal cancer was diagnosed in November 2000. Oncologists gave him 12 months to live, and suggested large doses of the strongest chemotherapy to buy extra time. He chose instead to try ozone, and a bewildering array of other complementary therapies, but these failed to work. After he lost his left arm on December 8th, his fortitude and determination seemed almost superhuman. He began to learn new piano repertoire, arranging Scarlatti sonatas for right hand.
On January 6th he recommenced accompanying services, at a Spiritualist Church which had an electronic organ. His final such appearance was on 27th January 2001; he left the console at 6.35pm, and never played an organ again.
On 2nd February he was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties, a chest scan showed that he had just weeks left, and he was transferred to a hospice.
No-one who visited him will ever forget the courage, and the black humour, that he exhibited. As a firm believer in karma and reincarnation, he was excited about what his new life would bring, and begged friends not to be sad for him. He spent his last month practising a new hobby, drawing - at which he excelled - designing many more Dream Organs; making out his Will and writing detailed instructions for his funeral and memorial service.
He died during the night on 15th March, peacefully in his sleep.
Helena Wojtczak
Memorials (2 pages)
Photographs (8 pages)
Discography
Concert dates 1998-2000 (3 pages)
Compositions & Arrangements
Musical philosophy
Representative concert programmes
Links
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