SOUND TRAVELS
Tom Waters: Do you have a first memory, a first unforgettable musical experience that left an impression?
Anthony Clarke: The story goes that when my parents brought me home as a newborn the only way they could get me to settle down and stop crying was to play a recording of David Oistrakh performing a Beethoven violin concerto. Evidently within the first few bars I’d settle and… zzzz… fall asleep. I still have that same LP and I still have Oistrakh’s sound in my mind—that sound is what I aim for when I play. Of course being a newborn I doubt I remembered the actual experience but the residual effect of listening to Oistrakh somehow became ingrained and played a significant part in my musical personality. It’s now well-known that expecting mothers should listen to composers such as Mozart because it’s good for the baby’s development and of course all children should study a musical instrument.
TW: And did that start you on the hi-fi journey or did something else start you on the audio equipment quest?
Despite the overwhelming influence of the Oistrakh recording, as a primary school-aged child I think I had a negative reaction to hi-fi initially. My parents owned quite a few LPs but I was reluctant to listen to them because the system they had was terrible. As an infant, I didn’t have a choice, the sound was there. It wasn’t until my first job (probably I was 20) when my boss, David Craddock, was very much into Bang and Olufsen. We became firm friends and still are, he was my mentor and through him I started to realise that the sound of a hi-fi could begin to emulate the sound of real instruments and voices. Perhaps I’ve become a bit of a musical snob, but by being so close to the sound of acoustic instruments on a daily basis it makes me realise that unfortunately no hi-fi system could ever achieve an absolute live sound quality. Every system I heard sounded inferior, and I used to think that I didn’t want to
