UO Playback: Babar in Belfast, 1971

On 6 March 1971, for the princely sum of 30p, audiences were treated to a special Young People’s Concert at the Ulster Hall. The Ulster Orchestra was joined by young Australian virtuoso pianist, Geoffrey Tozer, and Belfast’s own David Hammond as narrator for a playful programme featuring Francis Poulenc’s Story of Babar, the Little Elephant.

The inspiration for Poulenc’s popular work was somewhat novel. While the composer was staying with relatives during the Second World War, the children of the house, dissatisfied with his choice of repertoire, placed one of Jean de Brunhoff’s Babar books on his music stand and challenged him to play the story. Poulenc sketched out and improvised musically whilst reading the story aloud to the children’s delight. He later reflected on this memory when completing the score in 1945, dedicating it to all eleven children who inspired the work:

« Pour mes petits cousins Sophie, Sylvie, Benoît, Florence et Delphine Périer ; Yvan, Alain, Marie-Christine et Marguerite-Marie Villotte ; et mes petits amis Marthe Bosredon et André Lecœur, en souvenir de Brive. »

David Hammond was a celebrated broadcaster, singer, folklorist, and filmmaker from Belfast. It is particularly fitting that he was chosen to narrate Poulenc’s piece, as he was also a passionate educator with a keen interest in children’s culture. Hammond produced a number of documentaries, including the award-winning film Dusty Bluebells which captured the playground games and songs popular with Belfast schoolchildren.

Geoffrey Tozer (pictured above) was a world-class pianist, his talent recognized at an early age. Lauded as a child prodigy, he composed an opera at the tender age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship at 13. He was just 16 when he appeared at the Ulster Hall, reprising Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 15, the piece with which he had made his international début at the BBC Proms the previous year.

Were you in the audience for our Young People’s Concert back in 1971? Get in touch and let us know.

Credits: Ulster Orchestra Archive. Photograph of Geoffrey Tozer kindly supplied by Chandos Records.