The development of excellence and expertise often results from the coming together of an incalculable set of circumstances; a fortunate confluence of nature and nurture. For Barry Tuckwell this is truly – and triumphantly – the case.  

Barry was born into a family of active musicians. His father was a professional organist, his mother a singer, and all the members of his immediate family were endowed with perfect pitch. From an early age Barry was fascinated by music, and taught himself how to read music before he could read text.

As a boy he studied piano, organ and violin, and was a chorister at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney; activities that laid the firm foundations for a life that seemed destined to be spent making music.  

All that was needed was for the right instrument to be placed in Barry’s hands. Sitting in a café one day with his sister Patricia and other members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the discussion turned towards what Barry’s future in music might be. Horn player Richard Merriweather suggested his own instrument. Just seven months later, after lessons with the renowned teacher Alan Mann, Barry was playing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under Joseph Post!   

Even by the standards of his outstanding seven decade career, this prodigious introduction to orchestral life in under a year of playing is a scarcely believable feat in itself. But then, there have been so many of these remarkable episodes.

Barry’s first position with the MSO was rapidly followed by an appointment to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Eugene Goosens.  After three years in the SSO Barry travelled to England where his astronomical rise continued with a string of orchestral positions, starting in 1951 with the Hallé Orchestra under John Barbirolli, closely followed by the Scottish National Orchestra and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, culminating in his appointment as Principal Horn with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1955. He was 23 years old!

The LSO’s highly charged and energetic repertoire, as heard on the recordings of this era leaves us with a golden legacy of Barry as the orchestral musician par excellence. During his 13 years with the orchestra he was elected to its governing body and ultimately became Chairman of the Board; a hands-on management position in which he adeptly steered London’s finest ensemble through many crises into calmer waters.

In 1968 Barry resigned to pursue a career as a soloist and conductor.

Never before had a horn player made, or sustained, ­ a career exclusively as a soloist. Even the great Dennis Brain, the premiere horn virtuoso in the generation before Barry had to shoe-horn solo engagements in between his obligations as an orchestral player.

A fulfilling solo career requires a range of music for the musician to play, in order to keep their performance fresh and alive. Sadly the horn soloist just doesn’t enjoy the wealth of repertoire that is available to a violinist or a pianist. Barry set about addressing this imbalance, inspiring a wealth of compositions from many of the foremost composers of his time and in the process, building a legacy of high quality modern repertoire for the horn.

He also set about exploring music that had “slipped off the radar”, restoring neglected pieces by Strauss, Mozart and others.

One of the great treasures in this vein is the virtuoso chamber music of Jan Dismas Zelenka.

Chamber music has always played an important part in Barry’s musical life, and it’s a measure of his achievements that his collaborators have included early colleagues Brenton Langbein and Maureen Jones along with such stellar names as Peter Peers, Itzak Perlman, Vladimir Ashkenazy and James Galway.

Launching into a solo career at the height of the Golden Age of the recording industry when the “major” labels, Decca, EMI, Phillips and DG were in full swing, Barry realised full well the value of recordings in promoting an artist’s career to the widest international audience.

His recordings document the span of an extraordinary career, from the early vinyls made when he was still a member of the London Symphony Orchestra, the Mozart horn concertos with Peter Maag and the Strauss concertos with Istvan Kertesz, through to later incarnations of these same pieces; the complete Strauss horn music, this time with Vladimir Ashkenazy and a third complete set of the Mozart concertos both conducting and playing with the Philharmonia Orchestra.  

Barry continues his life-long involvement with music now as a conductor and mentor. He has been the Chief Conductor of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra; he founded the Maryland Symphony Orchestra in the USA and has enjoyed a long and fruitful association with the Northern Sinfonia in the UK.

He is also making an invaluable contribution to the growth of the Stonnington Symphony Orchestra in Melbourne.

He combines many of the strands of his rich musical life in championing a new generation of musicians, passing on insights gained from over half a century’s involvement in music making at its pinnacle.

With his deep knowledge of the music industry (and, not least, his unique perspective on it) the board of the Melba Foundation and Melba Recordings are delighted that Barry Tuckwell shares our belief in the need for a classical music recording label, dedicated to promoting the best of Australian performers, not only within Australia, but also to a wider international audience and does so with the same unwavering commitment to quality that has shaped and defined his own astonishing career.

We are honoured that he places his expertise and experience at the service of Melba Recordings and the Foundation, and, most of all, we are grateful for his generous support and loyal friendship.

We salute Barry Tuckwell on the occasion of his 80th birthday, and we honour the achievements of his remarkable career thus far. After 65 years’ as a musician, he maintains an unabated passion and enthusiasm for music and music making. We thank him for it, and look forward to many more years of musical collaboration to come.

IAN PERRY Melba Recordings, Melbourne