I was sorry to learn belatedly of the death of musician and writer Lionel
Salter.  I had always enjoyed his fair and witty perceptions of French and
Hispanic music for "Gramophone."

   Obituaries: LIONEL SALTER.
   From THE STAGE March 23rd, 2000

   By John Martland

   One of the most versatile and talented personalities in British
   musical life, Lionel Salter has died aged 85.  He was truly an
   all-rounder, excelling as a pianist, harpsichordist andconductor, as
   well as a lecturer, broadcaster, writer, administrator and adjudicator.

   Born in London on September 8, 1914, Salter revealed a prodigious
   talent for the piano from an early age.  He studied with Stanley
   Chapple and Yorke Trotter from 1923 to 1931, and by the age of 12
   was accompanying professionally.  Two years later, he won a piano in
   a competition organised by the Daily Express.

   After spending a year at the Royal College of Music in London, Salter
   went up to Cambridge where he took a MusBac degree, graduating with
   a first, and studied piano, organ, viola and harpsichord with a
   variety of teachers, including Professor Edward Dent and Basil Ord.
   During his time there he gave numerous concerts, ran a gramophone
   society and wrote music criticism for the student magazine Granta.

   Returning to the RCM, he continued to study withvarious music
   specialists and composers, including Malcolm Sargent.  He then got
   a job under musical director Muir Mathieson at Denham film studios,
   editing and orchestrating the music of others, and dubbing the piano
   for the screen actors.

   In 1936, he was offered a post in Hollywood, but preferred the less
   glamorous position of staff accompanist, and then chorus master, with
   the infant BBC Television.  During the Second World War, he conducted
   the Radio-France Symphony Orches-tra, and worked in intelligence,
   being invalided out after four and half years Army service.  After
   the war he was appointed assistant conductor of the BBC Theatre
   Orchestra, and producer, Gramophone Department, in charge of Third
   Programmematerial.  He subsequently became European Music Supervisor,
   controlling all music broadcasts to Europe, and was renowned on the
   Continent for his talks on music and records.

   Around the same time he also began what was to bea more than 50-year
   association with The Gramophone as a record reviewer, but still
   continued to perform on the concert platform, as well as broadcasting
   from Paris, Stockholm and Rome, and for the BBC.  He recorded
   consistently, notably as harpsichordist and fortepianist with the
   London Baroque Ensemble, and also with the Vienna Capella Academica.

   Salter was one of Britain's leading authorities on Spanish and Latin
   American music inparticular, and once accompanied the famous cellist
   Pablo Casals at the Prades Festival.  He shared his knowledge of
   those and many other musical genres via hundreds of album sleeve
   notes and concertprogrammes, in addition to numerous encyclopedias,
   and his own bestselling books, which included Going to a Concert,
   Going to the Opera, and The Young Musician and his World.

   His unmistakable voice was heard frequently on the BBC, always
   offering the most stylish and authoritative views, and he lectured and
   adjudicated widely in Britain and abroad.  As for his own compositions,
   there was the music for two 'English-by- radio' pantomimes by Hungarian
   author George Mikes, and a good many radio plays.He was a superb
   editor, and translator of lieder and opera, and for many years served
   as an examiner for the Associated Board of Music.

   Salter's posts at the BBC included head of television music, head
   of opera, and assistant controller of music until his retirement in
   1974.  Known throughout the world of music as a man of the utmost
   integrity, he was highly respected and admired by all those who knew
   him, as well as those who were merely touched in some way by his
   immense talent.  Salter was an inspirational figure ina myriad
   different ways.  Off-duty, he loved the arts in general, and good
   food and wine in particular.

   He married Christine Fraser in 1939, and she died in 1989.  He is
   survived by his three sons, one of whom is the professional musician
   Graham Salter.

James Kearney
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