My Other Family. The London Philharmonic Orchestra
by Laurie Watt
325 pages, including appendices.
With black & white illustrations
ISBN-10: ‎ 1917613784
ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1917613781
First published 2025
Hardback, paperback and Kindle versions available
Book Publishing Pros

Laurie Watt has written a most interesting book about the London Philharmonic Orchestra; the interest is heightened because he has written it from a rather novel standpoint. To appreciate this standpoint, I need to provide a bit of biographical background about the author.

As a child, he had the advantage that his family was musical; his mother was a music teacher and alumna of the Royal Academy. At school he took up the French horn and, thanks to a connection of his teacher, he actually had a few private lessons from Alan Civil. I infer that Watt played the horn to a good standard but he was wise enough to appreciate that he would probably never reach a sufficient standard to make a professional career. I smiled at one point when he related that he gave up taking Grade exams on the horn after passing Grade 5 because in order to progress further one had to pass a Grade 5 theory exam; that was also my reason – or excuse? – for packing in exams as a schoolboy bassoonist! On leaving school he took up the law; instead of pursuing a law degree, as many young people do, he followed the more traditional route of joining a law firm in Oxford for a five-year apprenticeship, known in those days (the late 1960s/early 1970s) as Articles of Clerkship. This meant that he learned the law at the chalkface, gaining a hands-on, practical grounding. His spell in Oxford was to prove highly relevant to his future, though, because he continued his horn lessons there and as a result became very friendly with a fellow student, Patrick Garvey. Garvey was a much more talented player – Watt’s own verdict – and soon moved on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music. They kept in touch, however. In 1972 Watt moved to London to begin a career with Charles Russell & Co, a respected law firm; he stayed there for the rest of his working life. Meanwhile, Patrick Garvey followed a professional career and before long he joined the LPO as 2^nd horn.

It was not long before, at Garvey’s invitation, Laurie Watt was able to gain admittance, during his lunch hours, into LPO recording sessions at Kingsway Hall where he sat, quiet as a mouse, at the back of the hall, absorbing what was going on. Though I don’t think he says so explicitly in the book, the thought crossed my mind that such access to the recording studio simply wouldn’t happen nowadays. From this point on, he developed good interpersonal relationships with an increasing number of the players and was gradually drawn into the orbit of the orchestra. It’s important to remember that the LPO was – and remains – a self-governing body. That status was crucial in the case that led to Laurie Watt becoming formally and professionally involved with the LPO in 1977. The case revolved around the orchestra’s decision to dismiss from its ranks the principal oboist; concerns over his playing standards had come to a head. The oboist responded by taking the orchestra to an Employment Tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal. The LPO instructed Watt and the firm for which he worked to represent them. (In passing, I was surprised that the LPO did not already have, it seems, a law firm among their regular professional advisors; if that’s the case then perhaps it suggests that in the less litigious days up to 1977 a body like a professional orchestra did not feel the need to retain legal advisors on an ongoing basis.) Watt gives an excellent overview of the case, in which the LPO prevailed, arguing successfully that because the orchestra was self-governing, the oboist was not an employee and therefore was ineligible to take them to an Employment Tribunal. As Watt points out, had the LPO lost this case it would have had huge ramifications not just for them but also for other self-governing orchestras, including the other three major independent orchestras in London (the salaried BBC Symphony Orchestra is, legally, a completely different animal).

Thus began Watt’s long professional association with the LPO and in the pages that follow he gives us insights into the various non-musical challenges that the LPO faced over the next few decades. These include the Byzantine complexities of the negotiations for one of the London orchestras to become the resident orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall: the contest boiled down to the LPO versus the Philharmonia; eventually, the LPO was selected. He is also a well-informed narrator of the period of anxiety caused by the Arts Council’s decision to review funding for the major orchestras, which brought about the Hoffmann Report in 1993/4. He also relates a terrible episode in 2009 which nearly extinguished the orchestra when it was discovered that the Finance Director, who had just resigned, had embezzled hundreds of thousands of pounds. Faced with such a crisis I suspect that most people would first have thought of calling in the police; I certainly would. Shrewd legal advice by Watt and his colleagues persuaded the LPO management to stay their hand briefly. The errant FD was confronted, the orchestra was able, through their lawyers, to gain control of his assets – which led to significant recoveries – and then the police were called in. The slight delay in ‘dialling 999’ made no practical difference; the director still went to prison for a good number of years, but the benefit of quality legal advice was that the LPO recovered a substantial amount of the embezzled funds and was able to continue in business. These are the sort of behind-the-scenes stories which one never normally reads about in a musical book.

Nor do you usually gain insights into how an organisation like the LPO is run and the travails – and characters – of management; I found all this fascinating. Of equal interest were Laurie Watt’s tales of some of the orchestra’s overseas tours. He goes into particular detail about the tour of Australia in early 1985; he’s justified in so doing because he had a key role in the planning of the tour, which began with some preliminary discussions in summer 1981. The tour was an ambitious undertaking, not least because the plan involved concerts in several cities in that huge country. When reading this part of the book, I got a bit dizzy at times because so many names and Australian organisations are referenced. In saying that, I mean no disrespect to the author; I mention this point because it illustrates how many stakeholders were involved in this proposal. Remembering that all this took place before the days of the internet and email, one can only marvel that it took place at all, let alone that it was so successful. Watt went on to have involvement, to a similar or lesser degree, in several subsequent overseas tours.

It’s important to say that whilst Watt was, quite rightly, properly remunerated when he acted officially for the orchestra in legal matters, such as the Employment Tribunal case referenced above, it’s very clear that much of his contribution down the years has been pro bono. Successive management and Board members have frequently sought his informal advice or used him as a sounding board. He must have an incalculable store of institutional knowledge about the workings of the LPO.

I’ve focused on what Laurie Watt has to say about the organisational and legal elements of his involvement with the LPO because that’s a crucial element of the book. But I mustn’t give the impression that this is the book’s USP, nor that the reader is presented with a dry narrative of the musical business. The narrative is far from dry because Watt tells us about the people who were involved, Furthermore, when he has to go into detail about the legal side of things he does so clearly and concisely. Actually, the USP of the book is that it’s a behind the scenes discussion of the LPO as an organisation, written by a music lover. So, Watt sprinkles his narrative with detail about the concerts which the LPO have given during his association with them and with comments about the musicians – including the conductors – who have been involved, Generally, he’s positive about the musical side of things but just because he loves the LPO doesn’t mean that he won’t make critical comments when he believes it’s justified.

Laurie Watt has a light, easy – almost conversational – writing style. Even when he is dealing with the background to a legal case or some of the complex negotiations with external bodies into which he became drawn, I found him easy to follow. He writes with clear affection for the LPO but is candid about some of the problems which arose over the years, some of which could have been better handled.

As I indicated earlier, this may be a book written by a lawyer but it’s the work of a music-loving lawyer, and a discerning one at that. There’s plenty of comment on matters musical throughout the book. In addition, there are a number of valuable appendices. In one he offers his own views on the LPO’s Principal Conductors, from Beecham through to Jurowski. In another, he discusses a number of guest conductors. Much the most interesting, I think, is the appendix in which Watt relates the not-inconsiderable role he played in getting recordings of LPO live performances released first on the BBC Legends label and subsequently on the orchestra’s own invaluable label, established in 2005. The source for a significant number of the own-label releases are off-air recordings which Laurie Watt himself made from BBC broadcasts. Collectors are in his debt for these.

The book is nicely produced and includes a small selection of black and white illustrations.

It’s pleasing to learn, right at the end of the narrative, that in 2017 Laurie Watt was made an Honorary Member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Life. Based on what I’ve read in these pages, I’d say that honour, which clearly meant a lot to him, was well-deserved.

I found this book an absorbing read. It gives a unique insight into what goes on behind the scenes at a top professional orchestra and illustrates how many challenges have to be surmounted in order that we can enjoy world-class music making either in the concert hall or through recordings.

John Quinn