Steven Isserlis

Yet another farewell – this time to someone who was not himself a practising musician, but who was passionate about music, and would, I think, have appreciated being included in what has, alas, become something of a verbal cemetery for musicians.

How to say anything about Barry that has not already been said? His hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of friends have been writing about him, publicly and to each other in private, since the shocking (if expected) news of his death broke. Yes, he was 89, and had had a breathtakingly full life; but when a personality of that size departs, they leave a gaping crater behind them. It was impossible to know Barry at all well without having your life changed by him. Whether you had great times with him, or he drove you mad, or both simultaneously – he mattered. Somehow, he became part of your DNA, invading your consciousness; you thought about him, told stories about him, even (in my case, at least) dreamt about him quite often. He was irresistibly charismatic – and also irresistibly funny, offstage as well as on (not necessarily true of many comedians). His stories were riveting, his cultural knowledge astounding. Like most super-egos, he could drive you up the wall; but one would always drive back down again for more.

I met him for the first time in 1990, during the week in which he got married to Lizzie Spender in Spoleto, Italy (where I was taking part in the chamber music series of the annual festival). I had no idea that the wedding was taking place – and so was rather startled one day to run into Billy Connolly in the piazza. A day or two later, Barry turned up to one of our concerts. I remember that my fellow-musicians, mostly Americans, laughed at me for being so star-struck; like most Brits, I was a Dame Edna fan – but at that point he/she was little known in the US. (That was to change later, of course.) Well, Barry was a star; he dressed like one – his clothes designed to attract the maximum attention – talked like one, behaved like one. Larger than life, one could say. (He also loved to be described with what he called ‘The G word’ – genius. And he deserved the appellation…) We chatted for a bit, and it turned out that we lived very close to each other in London. Shortly after returning home, I was thrilled to receive an invitation to dinner at his and Lizzie’s house. Actually, a dinner invitation (as I was to discover) from Barry wasn’t really so much an invitation as a command. Sometimes it arrived in written form; but often it came via the phone. ‘It’s Barry,’ he would announce heavily, in his uniquely raspy voice, fully conveying the importance of that information; and one would know that one’s fate was sealed. One didn’t refuse Barry – it just wasn’t done.

His dinner parties were always exciting, fun events – and invariably quite raucous. To start with, the house itself was like a series of Aladdin’s caves, paintings (many of them meriting an 18 certificate!) lining every wall, bookcases stuffed with first editions, recordings of (mostly obscure) music, and his treasured collection of extraordinary memorabilia. (Several obituaries mentioned that he owned Oscar Wilde’s phone book; but I heard more about the several scraps of paper which Barry had acquired, on which Wilde had written the witticisms he would memorise and then utter spontaneously (!) at dinner parties.) Among the guests, there would always be a fairly large proportion of Australians – and Australians know how to party! Lizzie’s amazing cooking would put everyone into the right mood; and Barry’s flow of stories – he seemed to have known everyone who had ever mattered in the cultural world, as well as oodles of people outside it – held us spellbound, frequently provoking hysterics. His turn of phrase was unlike anyone else’s: in his mouth, the simplest expression would suddenly seem hilarious. He had that gift with the written word, too; he just knew how to manipulate language, to make it do exactly what he wanted it to do.

Oh, the anecdotes! One of my favourite stories of his was actually – characteristically – quite shocking. Somehow – I forget how – Barry had befriended a seemingly harmless old man in Salzburg. As they got to know each other better, Barry gradually realised, to his disgust, that the man had been an avid Nazi. He broke off the friendship; but several years later, felt somewhat remorseful (the man had been so friendly to him), and called to see how he was doing. His wife answered. ‘Ach – Barry!’ she said. ‘Alas, my husband died. But he often talked about you, right until the end. Just before he died, in fact, he said: “What a pity that Barry never met the Führer – the Führer would have loved him!’ Barry relished quoting that line, eyes glinting, waiting for the gasps of horror that he so loved to evoke…

Talking of Nazis, or rather their opposite, Barry was fascinated by Jewish culture. Much of our talk centred around my being a ’Red Sea Pedestrian’ (an expression he’d coined for Private Eye many years before, much to his annoyance, Monty Python purloined it for ‘Life of Brian’). The Third Reich cropped up often in our conversations; he loved to find the names of forgotten Nazi composers, urging me to learn their unjustly neglected cello concertos. (Pure tease, of course; he was the very opposite of an anti-semite – as shown clearly in this wonderful programme, which somebody kindly sent me a few days ago: http://editorium.co.uk/barry-humphries/.) He loved to listen to recordings of historic cantors and congregations – along with all the other music of so many styles with which he was familiar. He seriously chastised me for not playing the music of Miaskovsky, Hans Gal, Pixis, Roget-Ducasse, etc. Once we went together to Harold Moore’s, a famous specialist record shop in London. He was evidently a favourite customer, the staff running around catering to his esoteric tastes; on that visit, they showered him with gifts – discs of the music of little-known composers. (I’d never heard of most of them, in fact; but Barry had, of course.) He was also famously knowledgeable about the cabaret music of the 30s, in addition to many other neglected corners of musical history. And that was just one aspect of his erudition: he could just as easily discuss the visual arts, literature, poetry, and so on. Truly a phenomenon.

In over thirty years of friendship – albeit rather patchy, in that he would vanish for months on end, much to my chagrin (‘I never fail to let you down, do I?’ he chortled once) – there were so many memorable moments that it’s hard to choose which to record here. There was the time, many years ago, that we performed together at the Wigmore Hall, with three pieces featuring Barry in three guises: the first as himself (in a piece for narrator and cello called ‘Fables, Foibles and Fancies’, by Grant Beglarian); then as one of his favourite characters, Sandy Stone (for a new work, with a wonderful script about a cellist written specially by Barry, with music by the Australian composer Ross Edwards); and finally, for the encore, in an arrangement of an Australian song made by my sister Annette. For that, he reappeared as that most sensitive artist and singer Sir Les Patterson. (I spent most of the time trying to shield my precious cello from the gobs of saliva flying regularly around the stage.)

It was in the run-up to that (one-off) concert that a little incident occurred that was typical of him. An interview was arranged for the two of us for the BBC radio programme ‘In Tune’, by the host, Sean Rafferty (whom Barry knew well, of course). We were to be driven to Broadcasting House by a lovely man called Graham Sydney, who used to drive me very often in those days. Graham picked me up first; for some reason (probably my fault) we were running late. Next, we called at Barry’s place; he got into the car huffing and puffing, in a foul mood. ‘We’re late – it’s live,’ he announced. I assured him that it wasn’t – it was a pre-record; but Barry wasn’t going to be diverted from his huff. And it wasn’t helped by Graham turning to him and asking something that one just didn’t ask Barry: ‘Do I call you sir or madam?’ Barry ignored him, sulking. When we got to the BBC (on time) and got out of the car, I scolded Barry for his rudeness. We bickered for a bit, made up, and did the interview (which was fun – at one point Dame Edna announced that I ‘could put my cello under her bed any time’); then we went back to our separate abodes. Shortly afterwards, the phone rang; it was Barry’s PA, asking (in a somewhat long-suffering, if amused, voice) whether we could give her Graham’s address. A couple of days later, Graham received a letter: ‘Dear Graham, I’m so sorry that Barry Humphries behaved so badly. Next time drive with me – I’m much nicer. Yours – Dame Edna.’ Graham treasured that letter for the rest of his life.

And then there was the occasion on which we visited the ailing Dudley Moore, during his last visit to London. I’d got to know Dudley through the TV series ‘Concerto!’, on which I was one of the soloists. We’d kept in touch; and I’d put him back in touch with Barry, with whom he’d been good friends many years earlier, but had somehow drifted out of contact. It was arranged through Rena Fruchter, the lovely lady who looked after Dudley in his last years, that Barry and I would visit him in his hotel. I knew that Dudley was pretty far gone, almost unable to speak; so I wondered whether I should take my cello and play. (Dudley was of course an ardent classical musician, as well as jazz pianist.) I called Barry to ask if he thought this was a good idea; his PA answered, informing me that Barry was out, but that she’d give him the message. Some time later, the phone rang. Barry’s voice rang out. ‘Yes – I had this thought that it would be a good idea for you take your cello, you see, in case Dudley can’t speak.’ Funny – I was sure it had been my idea; oh well…

The visit was memorable – in fact, Barry describes it in one of his books. I did indeed play; but we also talked. I told them both about a Saint-Saens festival I was planning, featuring many of Saint-Saens’ least-known works, because I knew that Dudley (and Barry, of course) would be interested. He responded, but I just couldn’t understand what he was saying. He tried about three times – and then gave up. I wanted to kick myself later, because I suddenly worked out – well after we’d left him – what it was that he’d been trying to say: he’d asked why people always played the same pieces over and over again, instead of exploring the forgotten ones. (Quite right.) Anyway, the most haunting moment of the visit came after Barry had been doing a sterling job of keeping the conversation going, with a monologue that ended with a pretty gross joke. It wasn’t clear whether Dudley, with his frozen features, had understood much; but suddenly, startlingly, there was a snort of laughter. It was poignant – both gratifying and disturbing.

In addition to those relatively ‘public’ moments, though, it is the abundance of private moments with Barry – many of them involving laughter – that linger most.. The morning, for instance, on which he turned up unannounced at my front door (a rare event); I answered, unshaven, in my dressing-gown – and wilted under Barry’s disapproving gaze. He looked me up and down, rather sadly. ‘A disappointing sight,’ was the verdict. Or the time he met my friend Richard Tognetti (director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra), with whom I was staying in Sydney. Richard and his wife put on a grand dinner at the house, with several of the great and good of Australian musical life in attendance; Barry was absolutely in his element (and became great friends with Richard, later touring with the orchestra). Or another dinner, also in Sydney, at which Barry introduced me to his daughter Tessa – still one of my closest friends. Or the dinner in a restaurant near our houses, when he’d just returned from performing in San Francisco – the wildly successful show that really made his name in the US. This restaurant had opaque windows; at one point, Barry went outside, and gave us a hand-puppet show through the glass. Lizzie glanced at her watch. ‘8 o’clock,’ she sighed. ‘He’s used to performing at this hour.’

And then (much later) – lockdown. As I mentioned, our meetings had tended on the whole to be rather far apart; but during Covid, being neighbours, we suddenly started to see each other much more often. As I put it to him, he was so desperate for company that even mine would do… As soon as it was allowed, four of us would go for walks together: Barry, Lizzie, myself and either my friend Joanna Bergin or one of their friends. We explored the area a bit – even though we were locals, none of us knew it that well. And then, when things opened up a bit, we’d have meals at their house (Lizzie’s cooking again!), and actually get to talk like old friends, rather than participants of dinner parties. Lockdown wasn’t easy for Barry; he seemed older and frailer – but still very much himself. Trying to keep us both occupied at this barren time, I suggested that we record a podcast, in which I would interview Dame Edna about her childhood. He agreed to it; but alas, it never happened. (In fact, I don’t know how keen he really was on the idea; but he pretended to be, at least.) Joanna – who is a wonderful photographer – also wanted to take photos of him and Lizzie; sadly, that didn’t happen either. Still – we had some fun times. At what was perhaps the last lunch we had before lockdown was lifted, he proudly showed me his newest acquisition: a biography of the rather unfortunately-named composer William Crotch. He was enjoying that…

However, thank goodness (in most ways), our confinement finally came to an end. I started to travel again, and he went on tour with a highly acclaimed show, which lifted his spirits no end. (To my lasting regret, I was away, so missed it.) Our meetings became rarer again – although he and Lizzie did attend a recital that Connie Shih and I gave, consisting mostly of rarely-heard sonatas, at the Fidelio Café in London (photo below) – that was a memorable evening. Mostly, though, it was back to phone calls and chance meetings; and then he was gone, back to Australia. I gather that at first it was a joyous return; but then, news came that he was in hospital – deeply worrying. I happened to be in Gstaad – where he and Lizzie had a house – so sent him a photo of the main street, asking whether he recognised it – and gently probing for news, since I knew that he wouldn’t like it if I asked too bluntly about his health. A reply came:

“God has touched the pause button on my life… They don’t think I will be here much longer,[in hospital ] but i can’t fly home to London until mid to late March… I’m full of pills and painkillers but very hopeful.

What are you playing?

Must get home to have my snap taken by Joanna. Tell her I haven’t forgotten my promise

Much love to you

As ever.

Ba…”

And that was it – the last I heard from him.

It is just terrible that he has gone – that he’s abandoned us. He really didn’t want to leave; but as he said, the Almighty had other plans. But I must say that I’m glad that he died in Australia; for all his merciless satire, he remained truly Australian in spirit. I saw his shows in London (several of them), in New York, in Chicago and in Melbourne. All were side-splttingly, outrageously funny; but it was the one in Melbourne that took the crown. I remember thinking: ‘He’s truly at home.’

Farewell, Barry – and thank you for the laughter, the fun, the fascination – and the warmth. We’ll miss you forever.

POST-SCRIPT

Now, I know that this has been a long article – well, there was a lot to say! But it’s hard to leave him, even now; so I thought that I would append just a few little excerpts from the many emails I have in my inbox. (Actually, there are far fewer than there would be had I not managed to lose all my emails from 2008 to 2018; I very much hope that if I look hard enough, I’ll find them on an old hard drive.)

I think – hope – that he’d have been fine with this; he loved to be reminded of the witticisms he’d uttered in the past.

At the time we met, we used to communicate by fax – his arriving from his company, Megastar Productions, most stamped with the advice to keep this document, since it would one day be valuable (haha.) It must have been around 2004 that we switched to email, one of the first being dated 18/2/2004:

I am about to have a scary birthday but since I don’t feel old, or look old, I have come to the conclusion that the Melbourne Registrar of births and deaths committed a clerical error and I am suing them.

He asked me several times to arrange a piece by Josef Suk, and play it, when the time came, at his funeral. (Since the funeral was in Sydney,it didn’t happen; but luckily, Richard and Satu Tognetti got back from tour just in time to play there).

He mentioned the Suk on 26/8/04

The Suk is not a masterpiece, but it is affecting and will help a few hard hearted people at the Service to squeeze out a reluctant teardrop.

(Then – his show had received a completely unfair review some time earlier from a horrible critic; charmingly, I’d attached a picture of said critic to the email I’d sent him. At the end of his reply, Barry thanked me:

‘Thanks for the picture; you are a very thoughtful little person.’)

Haha.

10/2/06

I hope your recital went well. It looked an interesting programme but lop-sided. No Orff, no Graener, no Werner Eck or Pfitzner. You need a more liberal repertoire.

15/05/07

I am amazed someone found a song by Damase to play on the radio since he is not much recorded. But yes, i did commission him to write variations on the Wedding March for a recent marriage of mine – i think it was to Lizzie.

3/10/07

I must admit that as I leap about the stage every night, and twice on Saturdays, I sometimes wish I had a sit down job like yours.

(Then the missing 10 years! I’ll find them someday.)

23/2/18

I’m sorry to say that no one makes me laugh quite as much as you.. Your last outrage caused a painful snort.

As I always say, come to dinner. I hope you are still with your lovely girl. In which case bring her.

On second thoughts, just send her.

11/7/19

(I’d heard from my son Gabriel that he’d encountered Barry on the tube):

Yes, on one of my very rare visits to the London Underground railway, I sat next to a tall, good looking fellow who accosted me and claimed a filial relationship with you! I strung him along as a harmless and deluded chap whose agreeable countenance and affable manner were in grotesque contrast to those of his alleged father. You are, I think, aware that this handsome loon is travelling all over this city on the underground railway saying ” I am the son of Steven Isserlis” to bewildered and concerned passengers. Your lawyers should issue a Cease and Desist immediately.

25/9/19

I’m in Sydney at the start of my third farewell tour . I can fearlessly use jokes from the fifties and sixties confident in the knowledge that the audiences who laughed then, laugh no longer, as they enjoy the long dirt nap.

Then, early in lockdown:

22/4/20

Have you thought of busking outside Waitrose?

The passers by certainly won’t need any prompting to safe-distance.

As lockdown progressed, our emails tended to be briefer, and more about arrangements, since we were actually seeing each other more often – a pity, in a way. But there were still a few, such as this from 06/03/21:

It was very nice to chat on the phone, and you too sounded affable. Do we really DO affable?

Let’s walk tomorrow, early or late? I’ve got my son at lunch, or I think I have.

Your coherent friend

Barry

And a nice one from 22/3/21:

You know I love you. We are off to the north tomorrow for my first gig in eighteen months. Pro bono, of course!

Can we meet over Easter? And don’t say “what’s Easter?”

But – no more now…

Rest in laughter, dear Barry Humphries.