Vernon George "Tod" Handley (11 November 1930 – 10 September 2008) was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers.
Early life and education He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, Middlesex. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his father simply summarised: "They toddle". Handley preferred the use of the name "Tod" throughout his life over his given names.
Handley attended Enfield Grammar School. While in school, he watched the BBC Symphony Orchestra in its studio in Maida Vale, where by his own account he learned some of his conducting technique by observing Sir Adrian Boult. Later the two corresponded in the early 1950s and met around 1958. He spent a period in the Armed Forces and then attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he read English philology and became musical director of the University Dramatic Society. He also studied at the Guildhall School of Music in London, where his performing instrument was the double bass (in addition to the trombone and violin). After graduating he worked as a nursery gardener, bricklayer and petrol pump attendant during the day, studying and conducting amateur orchestras and choirs in the evening.Baton Charge. Sarah Jane Checkland visits the conductor Vernon Handley. The Sunday Times, 19 February 1984. He then became Sir Adrian Boult's pupil. During their first meeting he "was put through the worst two hours of counterpoint and harmony that I've ever faced" and was then asked how he would conduct a page of a score that Boult put in front of him, Arnold Bax's Third Symphony, which Handley happened to have studied. Handley later conducted that work in the first concert he gave in London, with the symphony orchestra of Morley College.Rob Barnett S&H Concert Review - Vernon Handley 70th Birthday Concerts in Liverpool 2000. Handley remained a devoted champion of the music of Bax throughout his career.Vernon Handley, "Back to Bax. Vernon Handley on His Enthusiasm for a Neglected Composer". The Musical Times, 133(1794), pp. 377-378 (August 1992).Lewis Foreman, "Vernon Handley and the Symphonies of Sir Arnold Bax", with interview (PDF), Chandos Records, 2003. Retrieved 2011-06-27.Richard Adams Interviews Vernon Handley, on the Sir Arnold Bax Website. Retrieved 2011-06-27.
Career Vernon Handley's first professional engagement was in 1960, conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In 1962, Handley was appointed the musical director of the newly formed Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he programmed much of Bax's music and made the first recording of Bax's Symphony No. 4. Handley and the orchestra also recorded Gerald Finzi's Intimations of Immortality.Diana McVeagh, "A Finzi Discography". Tempo (New Ser.), 136, pp. 19-22 (March 1981). He also began conducting non-UK orchestras such as the Amsterdam Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony and Berlin Radio Symphony; he led the Strasbourg Philharmonic through a UK tour in 1982 consisting of French and Russian music.Gillard, David. Vernon Handley : British Cosmopolitan. Music and Musicians, October 1982, p17. In 1983 he was appointed Associate Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He was Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra from 1985 to 1989, and had the title of Conductor Laureate from 2003 until his death. From 1986 to 1988, he was chief conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra and was active with several other Swedish orchestras, broadcasting regularly on Swedish radio.Swedish media database search for Vernon Handley, accessed 15 April 2014. Stockholms Konserthus search for Vernon Handley, accessed 15 April 2014.
He held assistant conductorships elsewhere, was Conductor Emeritus of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted a number of others in concert, for broadcast and for recording. Handley was appointed Principal Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra in January 2007.
Handley is much revered for his enthusiastic and untiring championship of British music, including many lesser known, unfashionable or relatively neglected composers whose artistic reputations and popularity he often helped to revive. Although he claimed to be just as attached to composers from elsewhere, the majority (some 90 out of 160) of Handley's recordings were of British music. He is said to have recorded as many as a hundred premières of British works, including highly successful series on Hyperion Records of the symphonies of Robert Simpson and Sir Granville Bantock. Simpson dedicated his Symphony No. 10 to Handley. According to Lewis Foreman, Handley "single handedly transformed the reception of the music of Granville Bantock." He also went on to make the first largely complete official recording of Bantock's monumental Omar Khayyám setting.Rob Barnett CD Review - Recording of the Month, MusicWeb International, 2007. Retrieved 2011-06-28. He contributed a foreword to Alan Poulton's Dictionary-Catalog of Modern British Composers (Greenwood Press) and to a book on Adrian Boult. He also recorded symphonies by Bax, Moeran and Stanford for Chandos Records as well as discs of other orchestral works. Handley recorded the symphonies of Elgar and Vaughan Williams for EMI. Handley also recorded many works by Sir Malcolm Arnold for Conifer Records, which were subsequently reissued in the UK by Decca Records.
He felt that his career might have suffered because of to his championing of British music, but said "I believe there are two sorts of conductors – musician conductors and career conductors. I have always tried to be the former... and I really wouldn't have it any other way".
Handley held clear views on the style of conductors, saying "Music isn't mime; you shouldn't fraudulently convince people that they have heard what they haven't", and stating "jet-set musical careers... are little to do with the work, more to do with PR". Questioning the influence of television on conducting, Handley recalled Boult telling him, "Do remember, won't you, that you are playing to the blind man in the audience.", Gramophone, June 2002. Retrieved 2011-06-27. In April 1989 he presented the hour-long documentary programme on BBC TV on Boult's hundredth anniversary.Listing for ACB - A profile of one of the century's greatest musicians. BBC2 8 April 1989., accessed 20 May 2026.
Handley received numerous awards, such as The Gramophone magazine's Special Achievement Award in 2003 for services to British Music"Vernon Handley Special Achievement", Gramophone, Awards 2003. Retrieved 2011-06-27. (sparking a "Nod for Tod" honours campaign);, Gramophone, January 2004. Retrieved 2011-06-27. and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Classical BRIT Awards on 3 May 2007 at the Royal Albert Hall. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours (having declined appointment as an Officer of the order in 1988). He held an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Surrey and was a Fellow of the Royal College of Music.
Handley had been scheduled to conduct Prom 2 of the 2008 BBC Proms season on 19 July, but withdrew because of ill health; Paul Daniel replaced him.BBC Proms 2008, p. 92, BBC What's On / Proms by Day—Saturday 19 July—Prom 2 , BBC Proms website. Retrieved 2008-09-10. After Handley's death, the director of The Proms, Roger Wright, announced the dedication of the 10 September Prom concert (Prom 73) to Handley.
Personal life and death Handley married and divorced three times. He met his first wife, Barbara Black, while studying at Balliol. They married in 1954 and had a daughter and two sons, one of whom died aged 13 months. His second marriage in 1977 to Victoria Parry-Jones produced a son and a daughter. His third marriage to the flautist Catherine Newby in 1987 produced a son.
Handley died at his home in Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, on 10 September 2008, at the age of 77.Conductor Vernon Handley has died, Gramophone website, 2008-09-10. Retrieved 2008-09-10.Conductor Vernon Handley dies, BBC News, 10 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-10.
Discography Year Recording 1965Arnold Bax -Symphonic Variations with Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra for Concert Artist. Bax - Symphony No. 4 and E. J. Moeran's Serenade with Guildford PO for Concert Artist.1972Geoffrey Bush - Music for Orchestra with London Philharmonic Orchestra for Lyrita.1974Ralph Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis with London Philharmonic Orchestra for EMI's Classics for Pleasure (CfP) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Hamlet Overture-Fantasy, with London PO for CfP. David Bedford - Star's End with Mike Oldfield and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra1975Gerald Finzi - Intimations of Immortality with Guildford PO for Lyrita.1976Geoffrey Bush - Yorick Overture with New Philharmonia Orchestra for Lyrita. Cyril Rootham - Symphony No. 1 and Josef Holbrooke's The Birds of Rhiannon Op. 87 with London PO for Lyrita.1977Frederick Delius - Summer Night on the River, A Song Before Sunrise, The Walk To the Paradise Garden, On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, La Calinda, Sleigh Ride and Irmelin Prelude with London PO for CfP. Elizabeth Maconchy - "Proud Thames" Overture with London PO for Lyrita. Vaughan Williams - A London Symphony with London PO for EMI.1978Edward Elgar - Falstaff and Cockaigne with London PO for CfP William Walton - Symphony No. 1 with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for ASV. Arthur Bliss - Adam Zero with Royal Liverpool PO for EMI.1979Patrick Hadley - The Trees So High with Guildford Philharmonic Choir and New Philharmonia Orchestra for Lyrita. Grace Williams - Symphony No. 2 and Ballads with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra for BBC Regium reissued by Lyrita. E. J. Moeran - Violin Concerto with London Symphony Orchestra for Lyrita. Elizabeth Maconchy - Serenata Concertante with LSO for Lyrita. Arthur Bliss - Discourse for Orchestra, Edinburgh Overture, and Meditations on a Theme by John Blow with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for EMI. Vaughan Williams - Symphony No. 6 and Prelude and Fugue with London PO for EMI.1980Elgar - Pomp and Circumstance Marches with London PO for CfP Sibelius - Concert works for Violin: Two Pieces, Op.77, Serenades, Op.69, Six Humoresques, Op.87 with Ralph Holmes, Berlin Radio Orch (Koch-Schwann)1981Elgar - Symphony No. 1, Symphony No.2 and Sea Pictures with LPO for CfP Delius - Brigg Fair, In A Summer Garden, Eventyr, and A Song of Summer with Hallé Orchestra for CfP.1982Delius - Cello Concerto Holst - Invocation Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on Sussex Folk Tunes Julian Lloyd Webber, cello, Philharmonia Orchestra, RCA1983Vaughan Williams - The Wasps Overture and Serenade to Music Delius - Two Pieces for Small Orchestra, Summer Evening and Air And Dance with London PO for Chandos. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Symphony No. 39 with London PO for Chandos. Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No. 8 and Nocturne for Strings with London PO for Chandos. Elgar - Enigma Variations, Introduction and Allegro and Serenade with London PO for CfP.1984Vaughan Williams - Job with London PO for CfP Elgar - Violin Concerto with London PO and Nigel Kennedy for CfP1985Vaughan Williams - Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, The Lark Ascending, and The Wasps - Aristophanic Suite with London PO for CfP Dvořák - In Nature's Realm Overture, Carnival Overture, Othello Overture and Scherzo Capriccioso with Ulster Orchestra for Chandos. Delius - Florida Suite and North Country Sketches with Ulster Orchestra for Chandos.1986Charles Villiers Stanford - Symphony No.3 and Irish Rhapsody No.5 with Ulster Orchestra for Chandos. Bax - On The Sea Shore Benjamin Britten - Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia Frank Bridge - The Sea with Ulster Orchestra for Chandos.