Robert Layton, musicologist and radio producer with a quirky sense of humour – obituary
Robert Layton, who has died aged 90, was a musicologist, music critic, practical joker and part of the triumvirate responsible for the Penguin Guides to classical recordings; he was also a senior music producer at Radio 3 and an authority on Nordic composers, notably Jean Sibelius, about whom he produced a fine biography.
Layton enjoyed an enviable degree of freedom at the BBC, where he was responsible for the Monday lunchtime concerts broadcast from St John’s Smith Square, close to Parliament. By night he would trawl the capital’s concert halls and any young pianist who caught his ear would be invited into Broadcasting House to make a studio recording.
Since 1965 Layton had been an erudite and entertaining contributor to Gramophone magazine. Having learnt from Sibelius’s daughter Eva Paloheimo that her father believed Herbert von Karajan to have the greatest feeling for his music, he secured a major interview with the Austrian conductor; this appeared in the magazine in 1981.
Another string to his bow was The Stereo Record Guide, which had emerged in the 1960s written by Ivan March, Edward Greenfield and Denis Stevens. Layton succeeded Stevens in 1968 and in the 1970s he edited with March and Greenfield what had by then evolved into The Penguin Stereo Record Guide and in due course it evolved as The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs.
Layton, who was known for his dry humour, also contributed several entries on Nordic composers to the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the “bible” of classical music.
Among them was a brief but authoritative biography of Dag Henrik Esrum-Hellerup, a fictitious Danish composer, which conformed so well to Grove style that it went undetected before the 20-volume dictionary was published in 1980.
The joke came to light when two Danish musicians decided to honour Esrum-Hellerup with a plaque – the surname was taken from two railway stations north of Copenhagen – and started asking questions. Stanley Sadie, the furious editor, had this and another spoof removed before the dictionary ran to a second printing.
Robert Edward Layton was born at Chadwell Heath, east London, on May 2 1930, the younger of two children of a stockbroker and his wife. Layton recalled that by the age of 14 he had a substantial collection of 78s, adding: “My mother used to say, ‘There’s no point in giving him money, he’ll only spend it on records’. ”
He was educated at Barking Abbey Grammar School and read music under Edmund Rubbra and Egon Wellesz at Worcester College, Oxford, while continuing his piano studies.
In 1953 he won a Swedish government scholarship to undertake research at the universities of Uppsala and Stockholm on Franz Berwald (1796-1868), the first Swedish symphonist, which he also turned into a biography.
Layton not only mastered the language but also supplemented his finances by working in the Swedish film industry’s musical archives and taking small roles in Swedish films.
On his return to Britain in 1956 he spent three desultory years as a teacher, describing the experience as “standing in front of a class while English, music and maths were on the timetable”.
He joined the BBC in 1959 and the following year was appointed music talks producer, where he was responsible for the long-running series Interpretations on Record; he retired in 1990, and in 1998 published an illustrated life of Grieg.
At times Layton could be critical of the major classical record labels, accusing them of lacking a clear artistic objective.
“Everyone talks about outreach,” he told the journalist Jessica Duchen. “But in my view, there’s no reason music should be accessible. When Beethoven wrote his string quartet Op 127, he wasn’t thinking about the market. He was reporting on his inner experience.”
Robert Layton, who was awarded the Sibelius medal, is survived by his civil partner, Chuan Chiam.
Robert Layton, born May 2 1930, died November 9 2020
