John Culshaw

John Royds Culshaw OBE (28 May 1924 – 27 April 1980) was a pioneering English classical record producer for Decca Records. He recorded a wide range of music, but is best known for masterminding the first studio recording of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, begun in 1958.

Largely self-educated musically, Culshaw worked for Decca from the age of 22, first writing album liner notes and then becoming a producer. After a brief period working for Capitol Records, Culshaw returned to Decca in 1955 and began planning to record the Ring cycle, employing the new stereophonic technique to produce recordings of unprecedented realism and impact. He disliked live recordings from opera houses, and sought to put on disc specially made studio recordings that would bring the operas fully to life in the listener's mind. In addition to his Wagner recordings, he supervised a series of recordings of the works of Benjamin Britten, with the composer as conductor or pianist, and recordings of operas by Verdi, Richard Strauss and others.

Culshaw left Decca in 1967 and was appointed head of music programmes for BBC Television, where he remained until 1975, employing a series of innovations to bring classical music to the television viewer. He later undertook several academic posts. He remains best remembered for his Decca records; along with Fred Gaisberg and Walter Legge, he was one of the most influential producers of classical recordings.The Times said of him that "he stood in that great tradition of propagandists from Henry Wood to Leonard Bernstein, who seek to bring their love and knowledge of music to the widest audience."

Culshaw was born in Southport, Merseyside, one of at least two children of Percy Ellis Culshaw, a bank inspector, and his first wife, Dorothy née Royds. He was educated first at Merchant Taylors' School, Crosby, which he despised for its snobbery and its sports-obsessed philistinism. His father then sent him to King George V Grammar School, Southport. When he left school in 1940, aged 16, he followed his father into the staff of the Midland Bank as a clerk, working at a branch in Liverpool. He had little aptitude or liking for banking, failing to pass the company's examination in banking theory, and in 1941 he volunteered to join the Fleet Air Arm as soon as he reached the minimum recruitment age in May 1942. He trained as a navigator, was commissioned as an officer, and promoted to lieutenant as a radar instructor. What spare time he had, he devoted to his passionate interest in music.

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