Richard Hickox & Collegium Musicum 90
Bach Cantatas & Other Vocal Works
General Discussions

RIP Hickox

Bradley Lehman wrote (November 25, 2008):
Apparently he had a heart attack this morning.
http://news.google.com/news?q=richard%20hickox

Ehud Shiloni wrote (November 25, 2008):
RIP

HIs is one of the best recordings of the B Minor Mass (BWV 232), IMHO.

Uri Golomb wrote (November 25, 2008):
This is indeed surprising and shocking news. I too admire his recording of the b minor mass (BWV 232). As his online obituaries show, he has never been thought of primarily as a Bach conducotr, and Bach indeed appears only rarely in his repertoire; but that B minor Mass (BWV 232) shows that, had he wanted to, he could have become a major figure in that field as well. I had always hoped he would do more in that field, though perhaps it´s true that he´ll be missed more in the British repertoire, where there are (apparnetly) fewer people of such caliber... His recording of Britten´s War Requiem is also quite wonderful.

RIP.

John Pike wrote (November 25, 2008):
[To Uri Golomb] I agree. Very sad and shocking news. Such a talented man, and very young I think. I understand he was having a lot of grief with Opera Australia in Sydney, and may be that has taken its toll on him. He did a lot of recordings on Chandos, two of which have been mentioned below. His complete Haydn masses are also excellent.

Peter Bright wrote (November 25, 2008):
[To John Pike] HMy particular favourite was his recording of the original (1913) London Symphony by Vaughan Williams. If memory serves me well, this won the recording of the year (across all categories) in the Gramophone 2001 awards. Hickox was an outstanding conductor - I think that he, more than anyone in recent history, helped raise the stature of British orchestral music to a level not matched since Britten's era.

John Pike wrote (November 28, 2008):
Thought you would be interested in seeing the e mail exchange below. The details are now in the public domain anyway. "Adrian", a good friend of RH, is Adrian partington, who is condictor of the Bristol Choral Society. They are performing Missa Solemnis tomorrow night at the Colston Hall in Bristol. if anyone is interested.

Julie Parker wrote to John Pike (November 28, 2008):

I thought you might want to know this.

Adrian spoke to us on Weds re Hickox. He spent much of the day that Hickox died with him, as they
were working together on a recording in Swansea. RH had bad chest pains and tingling down his left side on Sunday at around lunchtime, went by ambulance to hospital, had "some tests" and was discharged. He died later in the evening, at about 7pm, an hour or so after talking with Adrian, alone in his hotel room.

I asked Steve about it, and he said that for suspected heart attacks, an ECG is done on admission to casualty, but ECGs do not show all sorts of heart attacks that may have occurred. The way to detect heart attacks that may have been missed by an ECG is to do a blood test 8 hours later - 8 hours is essential, as damage to the heart muscle will only show up in the blood after that amount of time has elapsed. (Of course, you'll know all that too.) However, RH was discharged within a couple of hours of having been admitted, so that blood test could not possibly have been done.

It seems possible to me that had RH been kept in for further tests, instead of being discharged with such unseemly haste as it seems current standard NHS hospital policy is, then at least the possibility of medical intervention such as stents or drugs to dissolve plaque in the arteries could have been investigated. Perhaps it was already too late, and the warning signs gave
inadequate notice of impending disaster, and nothing could have been done.

But isn't it reassuring to know that in our egalitarian NHS, the life of a great man is worth no more effort than that
of an ordinary person. No deviating from standard protocols, or bending rules. I wonder if they'd take the same
approach, though, if it was someone very important, like Brown or Mandelson.

The hotel made it all worse for H's wife, who, on Sunday evening, was at Sydney airport coming to join RH with
2 of their kids. She hadn't been able to contact him, of course, and was worried. Some stupid member of staff
told her that he had died, so she had to make the 24 hour flight here with that knowledge.

Naturally, Adrian has been deeply upset, as they've been friends and colleagues for 30 years. I admired the way
he got on with the rhsl though, albeit without his usual sparkle. He intends to say something at the concert tomorrow, as RH was one of the choir's patrons.

Steven Borbfeld wrote (November 28, 2008):
John Pike wrote:
< Thought you would be interested in seeing the e mail exchange below. The details are now in the public domain anyway. "Adrian", a good friend of RH, is Adrian partington, who is condictor of the Bristol Choral Society. They are performing Missa Solemnis tomorrow night at the Colston Hall in Bristol. if anyone is interested. >
So sorry to hear this; I have no idea if it is official "protocol" under NHS to discharge a suspected cardiac patient that quickly; sounds like a mistake pure and simple.

It might as easily been done (I'm afraid) in the United States.So sorry to hear this may have been a preventable tragedy.

John Pike wrote (December 1, 2008):
Thought you might like to see the latest news on Hickox's death. He would have stood little or no chance of surviving this.

Somebody wrote:
Apparently his aorta burst... maybe he was doomed anyway by the insufficient warning given him by his vascular system. Nonetheless, discharge at such a time seemed most inappropriate.

Richard Hickox: Short Biography | Collegium Musicum 90 | Recordings of Vocal Works | General Discussions | BWV 232 - R. Hickox