Victor Olof (12 July 1898 – 3 November 1974) was an English musician, known first as a violinist and conductor and later as a record producer for

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis after his acquisition of a gramophone manufacturer, The Decca Gramophone Company. It set up an American subsidiary under the Decca name, which bec ...

and subsequently for

His Master's Voice His Master's Voice is an entertainment trademark featuring a dog named Nipper, curiously peering into the horn of a wind-up gramophone. Painted by Francis Barraud in 1898, the image has since become a global symbol used across consumer elect ...

. Among the artists whose recordings Olof supervised were

Karl Böhm Karl August Leopold Böhm (28 August 1894 – 14 August 1981) was an Austrian conductor. He was best known for his performances of the music of Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss. Life and career Education Karl Böhm was born in Graz, St ...

Erich Kleiber Erich Kleiber (5 August 1890 – 27 January 1956) was an Austrian, later Argentine, conductor, known for his interpretations of the classics and as an advocate of Neue Musik. Kleiber was born in Vienna, and after studying at the Prague Conser ...

Carl Schuricht Carl Adolph Schuricht (; 3 July 18807 January 1967) was a German conductor. Life and career Schuricht was born in Danzig (Gdańsk), German Empire; his father's family had been respected organ-builders. His mother, Amanda Wusinowska, a widow soo ...

Sir Thomas Beecham Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philh ...

, Lisa della Casa,

Cesare Siepi Cesare Siepi (10 February 19235 July 2010) was an Italian opera singer, generally considered to have been one of the finest Bass (voice type), basses of the post-war period. His voice was characterised by a deep, warm timbre, a full, resonant, w ...

Victoria de los Ángeles Victoria de los Ángeles López García (1 November 192315 January 2005) was a Spanish operatic lyric soprano and recitalist whose career began after the Second World War and reached its height in the years from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. ...

Clifford Curzon Sir Clifford Michael Curzon CBE (né Siegenberg; 18 May 19071 September 1982) was an English classical pianist. Curzon studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and subsequently with Artur Schnabel in Berlin and Wanda Landowska and ...

Wilhelm Backhaus Wilhelm Backhaus ('Bachaus' on some record labels) (26 March 1884 – 5 July 1969) was a German pianist and pedagogue. He was particularly well known for his interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin and Brahms. He was also much adm ...

and

Yehudi Menuhin Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin (22 April 191612 March 1999), was an American-born British violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in Britain. He is widely considered one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century. ...

Life and career

Early years

Victor Olof Ahlquist was of Swedish descent.Andry, Peter
"Victor Olof"
''

Gramophone A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding physic ...

'', January 1975, p. 50 He was born in St Pancras, London, the youngest of five children of Michael Ahlqist, a tailor who retained his Swedish nationality, and his wife Elizabeth. He attended the

Guildhall School of Music The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a music and drama school located in the City of London, England. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with dram ...

in London, where he won the Melba Scholarship in 1916."Guildhall School of Music"
''The Musical Times'', Vol. 57, No. 883 (September 1916), p. 421 His violin professor was Kalman Ronay. Among his fellow students were the singers Dora Labbette and Lilian Stiles-Allen. On the advice of the principal of the school, Sir Landon Ronald, he dropped his original surname. In the 1920s Olof founded and led the Victor Olof Sextet, with whom he gave concerts and broadcasts for more than 20 years. In January 1923 he gave a recital in Vienna which included an arrangement for violin and piano of the Elgar Violin Concerto. In 1928 he married Phyllis Robey; there were two sons of the marriage. In the 1940s he was an orchestral manager and conductor, working with the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

and especially the National Symphony Orchestra, an ''ad hoc'' ensemble of top orchestral players assembled for the wealthy musical amateur Sidney Beer.

Decca

At a recording session

Arthur Haddy Arthur Charles William Haddy (16 May 1906 – 18 December 1989) was an English recording engineer. His work as Technical Director of Decca Records caused him to be nicknamed "the father of hi-fi". After working in the recording industry in the ...

, chief recording engineer of the Decca Record Company, spotted Olof's acute ear for orchestral balance. He recommended to the head of Decca, Edward Lewis, that Olof should be invited to join the company to produce some of the many recordings planned for the expansion of its classical catalogue. Decca had developed a revolutionary new recording technique known as "ffrr" (full frequency range recording) which put the company far ahead of its rivals in the realism of sound on its discs. Olof's first sessions as producer were with Decca's renowned engineer Kenneth Wilkinson, recording

Eileen Joyce Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (1908–1991) was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years. Her recordings made her popular in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War II. At h ...

with Beer and his orchestra in music by

Grieg Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of N ...

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

and

Delius file:Fritz Delius (1907).jpg, Delius, photographed in 1907 Frederick Theodore Albert Delius (born Fritz Theodor Albert Delius; ; 29 January 1862 – 10 June 1934) was an English composer. Born in Bradford in the north of England to a prospero ...

in June 1944.Stuart, Philip
''Decca Classical, 1929-2009''
accessed 10 January 2012. In between supervising sessions of music by composers from

Eric Coates Eric Francis Harrison Coates (27 August 1886 – 21 December 1957) was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist. Coates was born into a musical family, but, despite his wishes and obvious talent, his parents ...

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...

, Olof conducted some recordings for Decca, mainly of overtures and other short orchestral pieces. At the end of the war, Lewis authorised the expansion of Decca's classical programme to make it international, with recordings in Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Geneva, Bayreuth and Vienna. The Decca producer

John Culshaw John Royds Culshaw, OBE (28 May 192427 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He produced a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's ''Der Ring ...

wrote, "Within five years of the end of the war Decca was well and truly in the big league."Culshaw, John
"50 years of the Decca record label"
''

The Gramophone ''Gramophone'' (known as ''The Gramophone'' prior to 1970) is a magazine published monthly in London, devoted to classical music, particularly to reviews of recordings. It was founded in 1923 by the Scottish author Compton Mackenzie who continue ...

'', July 1979, p. 23 Olof was in the thick of this international programme, supervising sessions in all six locations with the exception of Bayreuth (according to Culshaw, Olof did not much like Wagner's music). Among the recordings produced by Olof that have seldom been out of the catalogues are ''

Das Lied von der Erde ''Das Lied von der Erde'' (The song of the Earth) is an orchestral work for two voices and orchestra written by Gustav Mahler between 1908 and 1909. Described as a symphony when published, it comprises six movements for a large orchestra and tw ...

'' with

Bruno Walter Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a Germany, German-born Conducting, conductor, pianist, and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French people, French cit ...

and

Kathleen Ferrier Kathleen Mary Ferrier (22 April 19128 October 1953) was an English contralto singer who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the class ...

, and a series of

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

operas made in 1955 with the

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; ) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world. The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of ...

and singers mostly from the

Vienna State Opera The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by ...

. At that time, Olof was little interested in

stereophonic Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

recordings; he supervised the mono recordings with one of Decca's senior engineers, while his assistant, Peter Andry, and a junior engineer made simultaneous stereo recordings of the same sessions. Among those whose recordings Olof supervised for Decca were

Josef Krips Josef Alois Krips (8 April 1902 – 13 October 1974) was an Austrian conductor and violinist. Life and career Krips was born in Vienna. His father was Josef Jakob Krips, a medical doctor and amateur singer, and his mother was Aloisia, née Seit ...

, Lisa della Casa,

and

His Master's Voice

At EMI, Olof took over from

Lawrance Collingwood Lawrance Arthur Collingwood CBE (14 March 1887 – 19 December 1982) was an English conductor, composer and record producer. Career Collingwood was born in London and attended Westminster Choir School, beginning his musical career as a choirboy ...

as producer of

's recordings. He knew Beecham well, having played an important role in assembling the

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, England. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable recording contracts and important engagemen ...

for the conductor in 1946.Patmore, David
"Sir Thomas Beecham: the Contract Negotiations with RCA Victor, Columbia Records and EMI, 1941–1959"
''ARSC Journal'', 33. 2 (Fall 2002) Having had substantial influence over the choice of repertoire at Decca, Olof was more constrained at EMI, where he was subordinate to the head of the company's International Artistes Department, David Bicknell. The latter,

Fred Gaisberg Frederick William Gaisberg (1 January 1873 – 2 September 1951) was an American musician, recording engineer and one of the earliest classical music producers for the gramophone. He did not use the term 'producer', and was not an impresario like ...

's successor, was responsible for decisions about the artists and repertoire recorded by EMI, and was more inclined than Olof to go along with Beecham's choice of repertoire. Olof's assistant, Peter Andry, wrote in an obituary tribute: Among the EMI recordings produced by Olof are Beecham's set of ''

Carmen ''Carmen'' () is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed by the O ...

'',

Rudolf Kempe Rudolf Kempe (14 June 1910 – 12 May 1976) was a German conductor. Biography Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School. He played oboe in the opera orchestra of Dortmund and ...

's set of ''

Lohengrin Lohengrin () is a character in German Arthurian literature. The son of Parzival (Percival), he is a knight of the Holy Grail sent in a boat pulled by swans to rescue a maiden who can never ask his identity. His story, which first appears in Wo ...

'', and all but one act of

André Cluytens Augustin Zulma Alphonse "André" Cluytens (, ; 26 March 19053 June 1967)Baeck E. ''André Cluytens: Itinéraire d’un chef d’orchestre.'' Editions Mardaga, Wavre, 2009. was a Belgian-born French conducting, conductor who was active in the conce ...

' set of ''

The Tales of Hoffmann ''The Tales of Hoffmann'' (French: ) is an by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on three short stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, who is the protagonist of the story. It was Offenbach's final work; he died in ...

'' (the Giulietta act was produced, at

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, (; 9 December 1915 – 3 August 2006) was a German-born Austro-British lyric soprano. She was among the foremost singers of lieder, and is renowned for her performances of Viennese operetta, as w ...

's insistence, by her husband,

Walter Legge Harry Walter Legge (1 June 1906 – 22 March 1979) was an English classical music record producer, most especially associated with EMI. His recordings include many sets later regarded as classics and reissued by EMI as "Great Recordings of th ...

). Among the other artists whose performances Olof recorded for EMI were

Sir Malcolm Sargent Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (29 April 1895 – 3 October 1967) was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated include ...

Sir John Barbirolli Sir John Barbirolli ( Giovanni Battista Barbirolli; 2 December 189929 July 1970) was a British conductor and cellist. He is remembered above all as conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, which he helped save from dissolution in 1943 ...

and

. He retired from EMI in 1963, but returned to the studios from retirement, his last recording being made when he was 70.

Later years

In 1969, Olof was appointed as a member of the

Arts Council An arts council is a government or private non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts; mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing arts events. They often operate at arms-length from the government to prevent pol ...

committee of inquiry into orchestral resources in Britain under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Peacock. In retirement, Olof lived at

Milford on Sea Milford on Sea, often hyphenated, is a large coastal village and civil parish in the New Forest district, on the Hampshire coast, England. The parish had a population of 4,660 at the 2011 census and is centred about south of Lymington. Touri ...

on the south coast of England. He died at the age of 76."Deaths: Latest Wills", ''The Times'', 7 March 1975, p. 16

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Olof, Victor 1898 births 1974 deaths English record producers Royal Philharmonic Orchestra English people of Swedish descent