The Churchill family and their friends promoted in 1988 in a
West End Cabaret Theatre a 'Musical' with 'Winnie' singing
in his bath!
After three
performances it was taken off. It was reputed to have lost
£3 million pounds and was described by a Buckingham
Palace courtier as "just done for money, money, money . . .
. vulgar vulgar vulgar!"
THE CHURCHILL
MUSIC
(see above) took the
composer Rutherlyn nearly eight years to write in his spare
time.
He began the work in 1965 and designed it to be a
celebration for Churchill's centenary birthday (eight years
hence) and for its first performance to be on Churchill's
100th birthday - Saturday night November 30th 1974 in St
Paul's Cathedral.
History of the
THE CHURCHILL MUSIC
He completed the work
in time and presented a finely bound and gilded edition to
Lady Churchill in late 1973 and values her letter of
thanks.
As she was so elderly
he suggested she present it as a gift to The Winston Churchill Memorial
Trust with all
the copyrights. This she did. He also sent a copy to
Churchill College Cambridge - it lay there for 20 years
unacknowledged.
No-one was interested
in the work - indeed Sir Alan Lascelles the then Director
General of the WCMT wrote a year later and asked the
Rutherlyn to take it away as they could not guarantee its
safety (sic) -
the composer amazed - refused.
After fifteen years of
tireless efforts to get it performed, when the Iron curtain
came down, Rutherlyn sent a copy of the score to the Prague
Conservatoire of Music, who much liking the composition sent
it on to Radio Prague where its quality was instantly
recognised and its first performance fixed for VE Day 1995
in Prague Cathedral with the Czech National Symphony
Orchestra to be conducted by the leading Czech conductor -
Vladimir Valek. They also arranged for the event to be
televised by Czeske TV.
The audience was too
large for the venue but thoughtfully Radio Prague and Czeske
TV had anticipated this and placed loud speakers in the
square for the free concert had been widely advertised and
such was the desire for seats that no-one would leave theirs
during the interval for fear of other people taking them.
Many people were British tourists - but not a single person
from the British Embassy attended.
The composer was
astonished at how many elderly Czech Veterans turned up in
their old but spotless military uniforms complete with
medals, and after the concert was overwhelmed by their
expressions gratitude - one saying that he had known
Churchill well during the war and that the music was a
perfect reflection of him in all his different moods.
A review read'
'I am
astounded - the work towers amongst and rubs shoulders with
the great symphonic masters'.
(Other
reviews).
The Guardian and the
East Anglian Daily Times were the only UK newspapers who
reported the
forthcoming
CHURCHILL
MUSIC 1995 VE Day Prague Concert but the event itself was
not reported in the UK.
The work has been
broadcast in Europe again three times since, but not a
single note of the concert has ever been heard in the UK.
The BBC refuse to reply to any letters about it and most
sadly of all, Lady Churchill never heard a note of it before
she died.
Such is the poor
management of the Churchill family dominated Winston
Churchill Memorial Trust the patron of whom is the
Queen!
After the the
performance the composer sent Mr Winston Churchill Junior a
gift of a CD of the first performance (to which he and the
family had been invited but all had declined). He replied
saying that he had no right to have composed the work
without the family's permission and he had disposed of the
gift unopened. In a later intemperate letter he accuses the
composer of being both 'bogus' (sic) and a 'pirate (sic).
In fact his father's
granted Rutherlyn permission in a letter in 1965 but with
the caveat - providing you use no Churchill copyright
material.
The composer writes -
'the implication of this caveat only struck me twenty two
years later when puzzling why I received no support for a UK
first performance of the work from the family or the Winston
Churchill Memorial Trust, and when I learned in 1987 that
the Churchill family and their relatives were planning to
stage a 'Musical' entitled 'WINNIE' in a London cabaret
theatre.
He continues:-
'I gradually learned
from various sources - eventually in complete disbelief, of
the Churchill family's production of a West End Musical
"WINNIE" in 1987 and then realised this explained their
total hostility to my work - this in spite of the fact that
they had never heard a note of it because at that time it
had never been performed.
We repeat -
Such is the
management of the Churchill family dominated Winston
Churchill Memorial Trust
the patron of whom is the Queen!