Dr Robert Philip

Robert Philip was born in Oxfordshire in 1945, and spent his childhood in Birmingham. He went to school at Epsom College Surrey, and then spent two years at the Royal College of Music, London, studying organ with Ralph Downes and bassoon with Martin Gatt and Archie Camden. In 1964 he won an organ scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read music, and then moved to University College (now Wolfson College) Cambridge to write a Ph.D. dissertation on Some Changes in Style of Orchestral Playing 1920-1950 as Shown by Gramophone Recordings. This was the first study of recordings ever written for a Ph.D.

He was still working on this dissertation when he gave his first two broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, ‘Changing Orchestral Style’, in 1971. This led to regular contributions to Radio 3 and the BBC World Service, most frequently for ‘Record Review’, but also for ‘Vintage Years’, ‘Mining the archive’, ‘Music Weekly’ and ‘Kaleidoscope’. He has also written and presented major series of his own: For Radio 3 ‘The long-playing era’ (1975), ‘The developing musician’ (1976), and ‘Wartime at the National Gallery’ (which was chosen by Radio 3 as an entry for the Sony Awards 1995), and for BBC World Service ‘Composer and Interpreter’ (1980-82) and ‘Musical Yearbook’ (1984-86).

In 1992 he published a book, Early Recordings and Musical Style: Changing Tastes in Instrumental Performance 1900-1950 (Cambridge University Press). This was the first study of early twentieth-century performance practice and its implications. Reviews described it as ‘a monumental book at the cutting-edge of a new face of musicology’ (Richard Langham Smith, Early Music), ‘intensely thought-provoking for students of historical performance of all periods’ (Michael Freyhan, BBC Radio 3 ‘Record Review’), and ‘unquestionably a major achievement’ (David Gutman in The Gramophone). A leading article in The Times wrote that ‘A bomb has been dropped on ... musically correct modern orthodoxy.’ The book was awarded the Deems Taylor Award 1993 by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and the 1993 Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research by the Association for Recorded Sound Collections.

From 1976 to 1999 he worked as an Arts Producer in the BBC’s Open University Production Centre, producing television and radio programmes, video cassettes, audio cassettes, and CDs for a wide range of OU arts courses. He also wrote for OU courses, notably on Mozart’s The Magic Flute for A206 The Enlightenment, and on ‘Performance on record’ for AA302 From Composition to Performance. He continued to pursue his freelance writing and broadcasting, being invited to present papers at conferences in Calgary, Jerusalem, Stockholm, Paris and in the UK. In 1999 he was invited to inaugurate the series of ‘Saul Seminars’ at the National Sound Archives, British Library. He has also given seminars at music colleges and universities across the UK, and writes CD and programme notes for the Florestan Trio and Hyperion Records.

A second book, Performing Music in the Age of Recording (Yale University Press) was published in 2004. Reviews included the following: ‘A brilliant analysis…the best account I know of how musical life in general has changed since the introduction of vinyl and long-playing records in the 1950s.' (Charles Rosen, New York Review of Books). ‘A mind-opening examination of how deeply recording has changed attitudes to music-making since the start of the 20th century.' (Alan Hollinghurst, Sunday Times ). ‘…a book that is essential if you care about music.' (Michael Haas, Gramophone) ‘Unputdownable.' (Julian Haylock, Classic FM Magazine).

He is currently working on a book on orchestral music for Yale University press.

Robert was made a Visiting Research Fellow at the Open University in 1995, and in 2000 was appointed as a Lecturer in Music at the OU, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2004. He was Head of Music in 2005-6.

In September 2007 Robert Philip gave the keynote paper, 'Studying recordings: the evolution of a discipline', at the annual conference of the Royal Musical Association and CHARM (Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music). Follow this link to read the paper (PDF file, 63 KB).

Follow this link for details of Robert Philip's publications