Forget Beatlemania, Elgar owns the street
Charlotte Smith
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
When you come out of Warwick Avenue undergound station, the closest to Abbey Road, you could be forgiven for thinking that only one group of musicians has ever recorded in that most illustrious of studios (or studio complex, as it has now grown to be). There’s a little shop near the station – or there was last time I went there – that sells every bit of Beatles memorabilia you can imagine. John, Paul, George and Ringo stare out from mugs, fridge magnets and the like as though they own the street. In terms of reputation, they do. They have done ever since they walked proudly and in one case without shoes across its now-iconic zebra crossing. Yet before Abbey Road belonged to the Beatles, it belonged to Elgar, who opened the studios and soon afterwards recorded his Violin Concerto there with the young Yehudi Menuhin. It belonged, literally, to EMI, who brought and still bring the cream of the world’s classical talent to record there. It belonged to classical music.
In many ways, actually, that remains true today. For all that the world and his wife revere Abbey Road as the heartland of the Fab Four, I’m willing to bet that almost every rocker who stands before its microphones is conscious of the weight of history – and that includes pre-Beatles history, breathing down his or her neck. And in some ways, of course, Paul McCartney himself acknowledged that debt when he recorded his own trio of classical albums at the studios.
Abbey Road Studios is 80 years old this year. It remains as a living testament to the history of recorded music and to its present. Martin Cullingford spent months uncovering the little-known classical music history of Abbey Road – which included interviewing pivotal but hitherto reclusive figures – for this issue’s cover story. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in the story of recordings and their most famous home. As for Abbey Road’s future, following that shaky period recently where it seemed EMI might sell it, that must remain somewhat in doubt. The great label itself is, at the time of writing, up for sale again. Let’s hope whoever buys it takes care of its crown jewel.
