A Chance Meeting

One evening in 1983 a music teacher from Caterham was driving home from giving piano lessons when her car broke down on White Hill, Caterham. She needed to find a telephone to call for assistance, and, in those pre-mobile-phone days, she had no option but to knock at the door of the nearest house. No answer. She tried the next house. No answer. And the next one, where an obliging man said he would love to help, but regrettably didn’t have a phone (in 1983!). The next house was called “The Dairy” and the pleasant, if rather scruffy man who answered the door heard the teacher’s predicament, and helpfully invited her into his house to use the phone. “It’s this way” he said as she followed him, carefully avoiding all the motor-bike parts littering the entrance hall. He led her into the room where the telephone was, and she was astounded to see that room also contained two very classy pianos - a Bluthner grand and a Broadwood upright. The music teacher was Sue Simpson, and the owner of the pianos was Robert Bouffler, an Australian concert pianist and music teacher, whose house Sue had chanced upon.

This was the start of a friendship that lasted barely four years until Robert’s tragically early death in May 1987, a few months before his 40th birthday. The Robert Bouffler Music Trust was set up after his death to help young local people with their music education. Sue became a founder Trustee, together with Sidney Davidson and David Birt.

So who was Robert Bouffler?

Born in 1948, an only child, adopted as a baby by a couple that lived in Bathurst, New South Wales, west of Sydney, beyond the Great Dividing Ridge. It is believed his adoptive father ran a successful haulage business. Robert inherited his father’s wealth, but continued to live a simple life, very much a socialist at heart.

He was clearly an exceptional student, excelling in sciences as well as music, and became very well qualified. He told a friend that it had been a toss-up between nuclear science and music as a career. He began learning the piano aged 9, and broadcast on the radio at age 11. He won a scholarship to the Sydney Conservatorium where he studied piano, harpsichord, organ composition and conducting, and became a finalist in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s competition at age 18. His tutor at the Sydney Conservatorium said of Robert in 1967 that “It has been my great pleasure and privilege to have taught Mr Robert Bouffler in class for Harmony and Counterpoint, and privately in Composition and Orchestration. He has from first to last shown abundant originality of both matter and style – in fact, he is approaching that much misused quality, genius.” The testimony ends with “Mr Bouffler is a young gentleman of impeccable character and manners.”

In 1968, at the age of 20 he came to England to study for a Masters degree at King’s College London. Over the next 10 years his musical life blossomed. He studied Contemporary Music at Oxford and took part in piano master classes with leading musicians, including Daniel Barenboim, and made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1975.

An invitation from the Dutch Government to participate in a leading Music Festival in the Netherlands gave him the chance to develop his friendship with two people he remained very close to all his life. One was the Australian composer Jenny Fowler, who was to compose a “Lament” in his memory, played at his memorial service. The other was the German ‘cellist Michael Nebe, with whom he shared the house in White Hill (the one with the phone and pianos!) after they studied together at King’s College.

The late 1970s saw his fame spreading with concert tours in USA, Canada, and his native Australia, where he performed concertos with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. He made several records and was recorded for TV and radio in many countries.

From his home at Dairy Cottage in Caterham, he was able to teach piano to beginners and more advanced students, as well as teaching for the Open University and the Royal Academy of Music. He was Music Director of Croydon Opera Group for many years, was guest lecturer at several music colleges. He composed several works which are lodged in the library of the Sydney Conservatorium.

What sort of music did he play?

Robert Bouffler was well known for the vast range of his repertoire, from the Renaissance to the Avant-Garde. He was particularly praised for his interpretation of composers as widely diverse as Scarlatti, Rameau, Bach, Schumann, Debussy, Scriabin, Schonberg and Berio. In later years he was highly regarded as a Lieder accompanist, and gave many recitals, latterly with his great friend the bass-baritone Jonathan Robarts, who played such a key role in setting up the Robert Bouffler Music Trust after his death.

Robert taught Barbara Barnes, the current Secretary of the Trust, and daughter of Robert's friend Sidney Davidson (who was to become the first Treasurer of the RBMT). She can remember, as a very young, impressionable girl, being enthusiastically encouraged by Robert to go to London to hear concerts by some of the more obscure avant-garde composers. He told Sue that Schoenberg was his favourite composer, an indication of the impact of studying contemporary music in his 20s at Oxford, but his favourite piece of music to play was Debussy’s “L’isle Joyeuse”. A Heidelberg newspaper reviewer described his performance of it as “presented with hymnic brilliance.”

Michael Nebe said that “throughout his playing career Robert became well-known for his beautiful transparent touch, his intelligent musicianship, no-nonsense approach and above all his astounding talent as accompanist and coach.”

What sort of man was he?

A photo of Robert Bouffler on the front page of his memorial service booklet shows a broadly smiling, bearded biker, clad in biking leathers, a scull motif on his tee shirt, posing on his Suzuki motor bike. An enthusiastic biker, he rode it everywhere, with music and dinner-suit in the panniers!

Michael Nebe first met Robert when he was aged 20 in Holland. He described him as “extremely shy, with lively eyes and sharp critical intellect, whose contributions to the often heated and at times harsh discussions were concise and cutting remarks of astonishing persuasiveness.” He was accepted as a son and brother into Michael’s home in Germany, and often stayed there over Christmas, when he joined in the music making at home and in the family church, all very fondly remembered.

By all accounts Robert was totally engaging, and extremely modest, despite his considerable talent. His commitment was the same to all his pupils, from the youngest beginner to the most gifted. He accompanied them to their exams to give them confidence. He was generous with his time to a fault; some students would be waiting patiently for a home lesson, while Robert was enthusiastically overrunning a previous lesson!

His generosity also ran to throwing a garden party for friends and pupils every summer when the doors would be flung open, furniture put in the garden and a string quartet played Haydn on the lawn.

Jenny Fowler recalls his many musical talents but others as well; he was a philosopher, particularly in the fields of aesthetics. Jenny paid tribute to his “ever present modesty that his friends were able to appreciate these prodigious talents without feeling overwhelmed by them. Quite the opposite: he was a marvelously supportive friend who seemed to have an uncanny ability to know exactly when a word of encouragement was most needed.”

Whilst modest about his own abilities, his total honesty made him sparing in his praise of others, but praise when it came was all the more valuable.

Aside from music and motorbikes, Robert did seem to embrace new innovations with the same open-mindedness that allowed him to appreciate twentieth century music. When Sue knew Robert, she was also developing skills in the business of music administration, and had just been elected secretary of the East Surrey Choral Society (where she still sings). When Robert needed help with a new brochure, mailing music societies, and looking for concert opportunities, she offered to help. His contribution was to buy a computer – quite a brave purchase in those early techie days. He called it “Mr Atari” and it remains unclear whether the time spent by Sue getting the thing to work, actually saved any time at all!

Final Thoughts

We should perhaps come back to Sue Simpson’s summary from her contribution to Robert Bouffler's memorial service booklet:

“His legacy to those of us privileged to have had him as a teacher is a new insight into music and musicianship, a heightened self-knowledge, an appreciation of the 20th century music he championed, an awareness of the beauty of sound, and a desire to pass on those same gifts to others.”

Robert’s life was cut short when he was one of the first casualties of AIDS in this country, at a time when the disease was barely known and even less understood. His partner, the singer Jonathan Robarts. wished to put his legacy from Robert to good use and proposed a fund to assist young people with their musical education. The Robert Bouffler Music Trust was therefore set up to sustain the spirit and objectives that were behind Robert's work, by encouraging and supporting young talented musicians in the area in which Robert had lived and taught.

The work of the Trust, albeit with its dwindling resources, continues today.

A final story

One afternoon sometime in the early 1980s Robert was biking through Forest Row, in Sussex when his attention was distracted by the sight, in a car showroom, of a grand piano, in place of a gleaming new motorcar. Curiosity got the better of him, so he stopped and, clad in biking leathers entered the showroom. It seems the piano had to be sold to pay for a car, and it was thought better to display it in the showroom to see if an early sale could be achieved. Robert asked if he could play it. He did not exactly look like the epitome of a concert pianist, so it took a little while before he was allowed to touch the instrument. After playing for a few minutes, he turned to see the showroom doors opened and a reasonable audience of appreciative, but nonplussed local people standing on the pavement! It is thought he probably played “Jeux d’eau” by Ravel, a piece he loved to play.

Move the story forward 30 years. A young lady called Nadine Andre was one of the Robert Bouffler Music Trust’s first beneficiaries. She is now a teacher, pianist, and Trustee. On her website, you can download some music she plays – including – yes, you’ve guessed it – “Jeux d’eau” by Ravel. Thank you, Robert Bouffler, your legacy continues!

Some typical press reviews

“The Australian pianist Robert Bouffler is an artist of integrity who serves the composers on his programme with the respect which allows the music to speak for itself. He possesses a sound technique which makes this possible. At the Purcell Room last night he opened with a joyous account of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D major, and performed the slow meditative E minor with the minimum use of the sustaining pedal, this allowing the four parts to be unusually distinct. Mr Bouffler gave a generous account of Schumann’s Sonata in G minor, reflecting its varied moods and perception and with the composer’s authentic tonalities.

Scriabin’s one-movement Sonata No.5 was given a luminous reading, brilliant with its clusters of notes in the high treble range and velvet-toned in the quiet passages. Even today Schonberg’s three Klavierstuck have an illusive quality but Mr Bouffler matched his tone with so much skill to the often puzzling harmonies and fluctuating rhythms that they became unusually lucid.”

Daily Telegraph

“Robert Bouffler’s account of the Ravel Piano Concerto for the Left Hand was beautifully done, his piano tone glowing luminously, and he showed a complete understanding of the inner character of the music…a bold yet shapely interpretation.”

Daily Telegraph

“A programme abounding in riches, some of them off the beaten track, was given at the Purcell Room last night by Jonathan Robarts, bass-baritone, with his accompanist Robert Bouffler, who also provided contributory piano solos. Their fine musicianship and easy presentation disguised the complexities in a full-blooded selection from the great German song-writers.

Admirably teamed, they immediately struck a solemn note in Mozart’s Masonic Cantata, the singing illuminating the long declamatory recitative with vision and bringing tenderness to the five short arias. With his group of Schubert, Mr Robarts set the composer’s delightful moods by lightening the quality of his full, warm voice, evoking the ardour of the serenader in An die Laute. Mr Bouffler’s rendering of the Klavierstuck No1 in E flat minor enhanced the Schubertian atmosphere. The feelings of nostalgia in the five songs of Brahms’ Op 72 drew from Mr Roberts still more vibrancy and here in Verzagen. Mr Bouffler fulfilled his exacting task with brilliance.”

Daily Telegraph

“The organist of the trio, Robert Bouffler quickly found his way around the registration of the not too opulent organ of the Resurrection Church. By mastering this small organ, he could bring the last little perfection out of it. As well he still kept sufficient discretion of cello and soprano soloists. Soloist and accompanist excelled in seamless ensemble-playing. A real artistic treat.”

Mannheimer Morgen