Maestro maker

When Margaret Thatcher imagined perfect power, she thought of the orchestral conductor. ‘She envied me,’ said Herbert von Karajan, ‘that people always did what I requested.’ Power, however, is a mirage that fades as you get close. What Mrs Thatcher saw were the trappings, never the essence. Great conductors might get the glory, but someone else pulled the strings. Behind every power there is a greater force. Behind every conductor, there was Ronald Wilford.

It is hard to think of Wilford, who died last week, aged 87, without a sneaking admiration. A self-schooled Machiavellian, a Mandelson of music, he invented a chimera of ‘the great conductor’ and, as president of Columbia Artists (CAMI), sold it at unimaginable profit.

Peak price for a Wilford conductor at a major US orchestra was $3 million for 14 weeks work. His maestros, holding jobs on three continents, became obscenely rich and far removed from the musicians who did their bidding.