Artist managers: A Christmas recollection

In this column, I long, long ago exhausted the fund of stories from my years as an artist manager in the late 1970s and early 80s. But I re-visit one of them here. The arrival of the first snows of the winter in the UK prompts a tale, seasonal in nature, in affectionate memory of the Romanian-born violinist Eugene Sarbu, who died a few months ago. On behalf of the Ibbs and Tillett office I essentially represented a younger generation of musicians. Eugene is the first of these to pass away; one reason among many why I was particularly touched by the sad tidings.

Eugene belonged to that genre of highly talented performers who never make it into the upper echelons of musicians (where artist management then becomes more about juggling dates than finding them). After studies at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia with the legendary Ivan Galamian, Eugene was a prize-winner at a host of international violin competitions, with his mix of cultivated and heart-on-the-sleeve playing. Yet all this success hadn’t been leading anywhere special. It’s the job of an artist manager (with a – hopefully – careful strategy) to ensure that such competition successes are capitalised upon while the iron is hot. In this case, for whatever reason they hadn’t been previously, and it was clear there now had to be a carefully staged progression of Eugene’s career, with a solid foundation in the UK, where he lived.

Eugene found it hard to accept that he couldn’t leap straight to stardom. There was a sense of injustice in him that other violinists from his cohort were forging ahead and he wasn’t. But injustice or not, a cold realism was required, something Eugene could never quite grasp. Hence the anecdote I now repeat, which perhaps exemplifies Eugene’s charming lack of application to the nuts and bolts of his career.

Things were looking up. Engagements were coming through. Stepping-stones. One small but nonetheless significant element in the ongoing strategy was photo-imagery. To that end, I arranged a session for Eugene with a photographer based just north of Hyde Park. New, different promotional pics were needed.

The studio session was set for 10am on a Friday morning just short of Christmas. The day in question dawned dazzlingly bright with not a cloud in the sky. The low sunbeams made everything they touched sparkle like Christmas tree decorations. For me, it was a day in the Ibbs and Tillett office on the Edgware Road. No need to nursemaid Eugene. He knew where he was going and when.

At 10.30am, my phone rings. It’s the photographer: ‘Where’s Mr Sarbu? I’ve got all morning…but there’s another appointment at two o’clock.’ OK, no immediate panic. I dial Eugene’s number (landline, of course). He’s still at home! Why? ‘Andrew, I’m so sorry – I woke late. And now I see I have a sore on my chin. It won’t look good in the photos, can’t we re-arrange?’

‘No, Eugene – you’re paying for this session whatever. There’s plenty of time, I’m coming to get you.’

As I walked to find my car, I noticed in that blue, blue sky, low down on the western horizon, a line of cloud that was as sharply defined as the weather fronts on a BBC weather map. Thinking nothing particular of it, I roared round to Eugene’s and rang the doorbell. A window opened above and there was the virtuoso violinist with schoolboy grin in place. Towel draped round his bare shoulders, hair dripping wet. ‘Andrew, I’ll be down in a moment.’

Once inside, I’m ready to read the riot act, but the by now half-dressed Eugene advances towards me with a gift-wrapped something in hand. He’s remembered a certain anniversary. ‘Here, Andrew. Happy Birthday!’ The gift is a deluxe version of a Sony (cassette tape) Walkman. How would you have played the situation? I somehow squeezed both ‘You shouldn’t have’ and a ‘Get a move on, Eugene’ into the same sentence.

As I wait, it’s getting dark outside. Very dark. It’s that weather front. And as, finally, we jump into the car it’s starting to snow. Soon, a blizzard with snowflakes as large as tennis balls has invaded north London and traffic grinds almost to a halt. We inch our way southwards. No mobile phone to ring the photographer. Eugene is somehow blithely unaware of my vaulting levels of anxiety but I’m determined to make a point and snowplough onwards.

We arrived at 1.40pm. The photographer looked meaningfully at me, shrugged his shoulders, reminded me of his 2pm booking, then snapped away manically. We were then shooed out, with the promise that an invoice for the full two-hour session would be on its way.

How we then escaped through the snow, I don’t know. All I remember is Eugene’s disappointment at the photo proofs, as if oblivious to the circumstances which produced them – only one or two passed muster.

The trials of artist management, eh? In the end, though, it was I that let Eugene down in a far broader sense by deciding the following year that artist management wasn’t for me in the long term. Eugene’s talents gave much pleasure to many an audience around the world subsequently (not least in his native, post-Communist Romania) but the kind of high-level global career he’d envisaged never materialised. Maybe he simply needed more good fortune at crucial moments, or maybe that impatience for recognition was his Achilles heel.

As it is, a modest pile of tape cassettes to hand here offers auditory glimpses of Sarbu at his most special. A smoky, sensual second Szymanowski concerto with the BBC Philharmonic, for example. A delicately perfumed Proms performance of the Chausson Poème. The Grieg third sonata in a Queen Elizabeth Hall recital. Not forgetting his commercial recording of the Sibelius concerto with the Hallé Orchestra. Each a calling-card – and each involving yours truly in some aspect of the artist manager’s expertise.

We occasionally spoke on the phone over the years, and meet for lunches at which Eugene would inevitably beg me to resume my representation of him. On one occasion he even selected Michel Roux’s Michelin-starred La Gavroche – to no avail. We last met just before the pandemic, when I invited Eugene to the Surrey Hills for a talk I was giving at Leith Hill Place, Vaughan Williams’s childhood home. He arrived by car halfway through the presentation, with not so much as a single snowflake to blame. You couldn’t help but smile.

Missing you, Eugene. Sleep well.