Moray Welsh

Benjamin Hughes: You recently retired from position of joint principal cello of the LSO after fifteen years.

Moray Welsh: Yes my final concert was on the 1st June.

Can you remember your first outing after the appointment?
Well, the first piece of work I did with the orchestra was with Slava. He was doing a Prokofiev festival with the LSO and it was quite challenging because I had never heard a lot of the pieces: for example I didn’t know any of the early symphonies, so a lot of it was kind of new and interesting.

Did you have any orchestral experience?
Yes, when I was in the NYO (laughs), but that was a rather long time before so it was definitely a bit of a baptism by fire. When the chairman, Lennox Kensey, rang me up originally, he asked me if I would like to think about it, and a month later he rang back again and said, ‘Look, have you thought about it?’ and I said, ‘Well, not really’ and he said, ‘Well, think about it before Tuesday’. So I thought I might as well just give it a go. Until then I had been teaching two days a week in Manchester at the [Royal Northern] College and doing a mixture of chamber music and solo work so I thought that it might be quite interesting to learn the orchestral repertoire from the inside. I used to have to teach orchestral parts and I felt a bit of a fraud because I had not done them myself. Now that I have had the experience first-hand, teaching all that repertoire has become really enjoyable.

Can you tell me your most memorable moments from your time in the LSO?
All the stuff with Slava was very memorable. There was a tremendous atmosphere when he conducted Shostakovich and Prokofiev. I think because of his intense, personal relation-ship with that music one was aware that you were getting it from the horse’s mouth because of his connections with Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and Britten as well. I always enjoyed the big choral works with Sir Colin Davies. He did them wonder-fully and I think it is fascinating to bring together something involving such a large throng in a short space of time.

Could you tell us about life with the orchestra? Were they a friendly bunch?
Oh yes, terrific! It’s a tremendous organization; they have a great management team and the way the orchestra is run is superb. Most of my time was with Clive Gillinson as the managing director. I will miss the fact that one doesn’t have that social intercourse with people you are seeing on a regular basis: I had terrific, terrific colleagues. They are a really professional bunch and they just get on with it.

Your career has had many facets. Tell us about your solo work.
I had a very nice mixture of chamber music and solo work until I joined the orchestra. I have managed to keep up the odd concerto and so on since then but I haven’t pursued it with the same intensity that I did before.

Have you had any works written for you specifically?
Yes, there are a few things. David Blake’s concerto, George Nicholson’s concerto and Robert Bronstein’s cello concerto are the main ones that I can think of.

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