John Ogdon

JOHN OGDON d1989. English composer and concert piano genius born in Nottinghamshire in 1937. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music from 1945 ; his teachers included Claude Biggs / Denis Matthews / Gordon Green and Egon Petri. In composition he joined the Manchester New Music Group which included fellow Manchester contemporaries Birtwistle / Goehr and Maxwell Davies amongst its members. ln 1958, Ogdon made his London debut playing the Busoni Piano Concerto at the Proms. He came to international attention when he won the Liszt prize in Budapest in 1961 and the first prize in the 1962 Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition jointly with Vladimir Ashkenazy. He was equally at home with the classics and in modern repertoire, but he was perhaps most renowned for championing the music of the 20th Century British composers. In addition to first performances of numerous works by the Manchester New Music Group, he pioneered first performances of works by Elgar / Rawsthorne and Tippett.  At the same time, he explored much neglected music from the late Romantic period. He was a formidable exponent of Alkan / Busoni /Rachmaninov / Scriabin and Schoenberg. He never forgot Liszt and was one of the first players to revive almost forgotten pieces by the composer. He also mastered the two piano repertoire with Brenda Lucas whom he married in 1960. His health was good and his physical constitution was strong, as his wife often recalled in her biography. A gentle giant, known and loved for his kindness and generosity, he had tremendous energy. But an everyday business argument seemed to upset him more than expected and then suddenly in 1973 he experienced a severe breakdown. This sometimes changed his gentle giant personality completely. His illness was diagnosed initially as possibly schizophrenia, but then changed to manic depression (either was possibly inherited from his father, who committed suicide). He spent some time in the Maudsley Hospital in London and in general needed more nursing than it was possible to provide while touring. Nevertheless, he was reported to maintain three hours' practice a day on the hospital's piano. In 1983, after emerging from hospital, he played at the opening of the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall. He died in August 1989 of pneumonia probably brought on by his undiagnosed diabetes. The BBC made a film about his life titled "Virtuoso" based on his biography written by Brenda Lucas Ogdon. This production regarded Ogdon's illness as manic depression rather than schizophrenia, as he responded much better to treatment for the former condition. Brenda Ogdon also recalled being informed that his obsessive musical work could have been a symptom of manic depression. John Ogdon leaves an invaluable legacy of recordings made over a span of 30 years