Malcolm Walker, a former Editor of Gramophone, has died at the age of 82. The son of the distinguished bass Norman Walker (a noted soloist on, inter alia, Sir Malcolm Sargent’s pioneering 1945 Liverpool recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius) and the mezzo and pianist Merle Miller, Malcolm was passionate about the world of classical recording, especially all the minutiae of discographical data, and in various capacities devoted his life to it.

He secured a job, fresh from school, in the classical department of HMV's flagship London record shop at 363 Oxford Street, before moving over and working with John Whittle in the Classical Division of the company's UK branch, EMI Records Ltd, at its Manchester Square offices. During this period he would attend recording sessions by the likes of Sir Adrian Boult and Sir John Barbirolli, manna for a young man devoted to Elgar's music (he remembered sitting in on Barbirolli's April 1964 Kingsway Hall sessions, with the Hallé, of Elgar's Second Symphony. Writing in the Winter 1999 issue of ICRC, he recalled that 'it had a glow, a warmth, an intensity and a passion which were almost overwhelming. Here I could observe white-heat Elgar interpretation in the melting pot... Such string sound you do not hear now.') In 1965, he joined Gramophone as Assistant Editor and in October 1972 became the magazine’s Editor, a post he held until January 1980, stepping down due to ill health. He then took on the role of overseeing the various discographies and catalogues published by the company, including the quarterly Gramophone LP Record Catalogue.

On his retirement, he resumed working, on a freelance basis, at EMI (now Warner Classics), assisting on numerous catalogue projects, and provided valuable insight when it came to the compilation of many of the large reissue boxes devoted to single artists and ensembles.

His musical tastes were very wide and, as well as his love of Elgar (and he was a loyal and longtime member of The Elgar Society), he was a particular admirer of the Russian conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky, whose off-the-air recordings he collected assiduously. In 2013, to mark the magazine’s 90^th birthday, Gramophone’s editors, past and present, each chose a recording of significance during his ‘reign’; Malcolm wrote: ‘Rudolf Kempe’s magnificent set of Richard Strauss’s orchestral works with the Staatskapelle Dresden is my choice. Kempe, who died prematurely in 1976, eschewed all publicity hype and was concerned with the music alone. He was a man of few words but to witness his rehearsals and recording sessions was an object lesson in how he made his wonderful stick technique do the “talking”. The Dresden players so obviously revered working with the conductor, as can be witnessed from the truly glorious playing in these indispensable recordings.’ James Jolly

Updated on January 26 to include further information