Most of our best work including the film sessions, together with many of the older members, most of the wind principals among them, went to the new orchestra. This left the LSO with a rather empty diary and in fact, if I hadn't had a lot of deputising work with the CBSO while they found my successor I'd have had a very hard time indeed during my first year. At first I was absolutely horrified by the terrible standard of conductors. All sorts of conductors who shouldn't have been there were foisted upon us and made the job much more difficult than it needed to be. The ones that did impress me were Josef Krips, Stokowski and Antal Dorati.
Conductors make such a difference to the way orchestras work.
Musicologists then, and to some extent now, don't give the aspiring orchestral player enough repertoire to make him feel experienced and the fact that the National Centre for Orchestral Studies exists is, in a way, an admission of defeat by the colleges of music in not providing what they should provide. It worked both ways. I felt that I didn't need to worry about a particular thing like a high entry, or a solo, or whatever, but on the other hand my pride, which we all have, made me concerned. And that is what happened in the end. Playing in a symphony orchestra is an extremely limiting kind of musical life, and your moments of glory are very few.