London Concert Honors Tim Mason

adapted from the program notes of Marshall Marcus and Jan Mason

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE) presented a concert in memory of cellist Timothy Mason in London in January. Mark Elder conducted a beautiful program featuring selections from Mozart and Haydn to Stravinsky: a heroic attempt to compress something of Tim’s musical personality and world into a single evening. Proceeds of the concert were presented to the British Association of Cancer United Patients, their families, and friends (BACUP), and to the Von Hippel-Lindau Fund for Cancer Research. "To know that you are part of an international group, all fighting for the same goal -- to make VHL a manageable condition -- is both a challenge and a comfort."

Timothy Mason, one of the principal founders of the OAE and its first Chairman, and a cellist with the orchestra for many years, passed away from VHL in 1997. By the time Tim was diagnosed with VHL, undetected kidney cancer had already spread. His children have the advantage of early surveillance.

"Tim was the quintessential musician’s musician," Marshall Marcus wrote in the Introduction. "Ever alert to the weaknesses of us lesser mortals in matters of fact and music, he combined a staggering ‘donnish’ grasp of the academic perspective together with a sustained passion for the music itself. Yet with these rather severe characteristics went an often unnoticed sense of humour. To behold this combination in action was an entertainment enjoyed by generations of London musicians."

The concert was a celebration of Tim’s life by his friends in the OAE and performers from Tim’s wider circle of friends and colleagues: English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir, Capricorn and the Gainsborough String Quartet including Michael Chance, Philippa Davies, Tony Pay and Julian Jacobson. His wife, Jan Mason, wrote in the programme, "He would have been amazed at such a gathering, delighted by such an eclectic programme so beautifully played and sung by so many of his friends and colleagues, and deeply touched by the generosity of everyone who participated. Special thanks go to the orchestra and choir, Mark Elder and all the soloists, and to the indefatigable OAE office staff.

"In celebrating Tim’s passion for music, his idealistic approach to life, his sometimes perverse humour and his astonishing capacity to keep striving for what he believed in, we can take the memory of him into the future, not just to comfort us but to encourage us to try a little harder and to see a little further."