Colin Mason – A Memoir

Extract

It is now just over a year since Colin Mason died at the age of 47. I first met him in 1964 when, as chairman of the Macnaghten Concerts Society, he asked me to compose a new work for the forthcoming season. The occasion was a concert including Roberto Gerhard's Nonet, and Colin suggested that I might like to write a piece featuring the piano accordion, an instrument much favoured by Gerhard (and used in his Nonet) but for which virtually no other chamber music repertoire existed. I subsequently wrote The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo for trumpet, piano and piano accordion, given its first performance at a Macnaghten Concert in October 1964. I was then still a student, and this was the first commission I had ever received. I have no idea how Colin lighted upon my name; but it is well known that as a critic he did not have his head in the clouds, but kept his ear firmly to the ground, the better to detect the rumblings of burgeoning compositional talent.