Refiner's Fire

Richard Bratby is a critic for The Spectator, Gramophone, Bachtrack and The Birmingham Post, and writes on music for the BBC, the Salzburg Festival and concert promoters around the world. Formerly an orchestral cellist in the now-defunct Sri Lanka Philharmonic, he worked as concerts manager for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and later the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where he founded and managed the CBSO Youth Orchestra. His books include Forward: 100 Years of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra ("a gem": The Oldie) and Classical Music: An Illustrated History. Born in Wirral, he now lives in Lichfield with his wife the theatre historian Dr Annette Rubery, as well as their cat Rusty and a collection of miniature steam locomotives.

‘Born in the heat of the period performance revolution, UK ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Bratby charts the history not just of an orchestra, but of a movement that led to a permanent upheaval in the art and business of making classical music.’ Financial Times"If like me you have derived deep and abiding pleasure from the Academy of Ancient Music, then this superb account of how that glorious institution came into being will give you deep and abiding pleasure too. Impossible to read without leaping for your collection or streaming platform and reminding yourself of just how magnificent the AAM was, is, and - we have good reason to believe -  will continue to be." Stephen Fry“An uplifting, anecdote-packed account of the Academy of Ancient Music to mark the orchestra's 50th anniversary including everything from the achievements (and occasional disputes) that ran through the years of the ‘early music revival’ to the detailed life and work of that much-admired, multi-talented father of the AAM Christopher Hogwood.” Lucie Skeaping"Richard Bratby’s story of a musical revolution is frank and full of insight, with illuminating comments from AAM members past and present. The refiner’s fire of AAM still burns brightly: this book tells us why. From the Marquis of Granby to the Hollywood Bowl; an illuminating account of a musical revolution." Catherine Bott"To do justice in a single volume to the first fifty years of AAM was a huge challenge, and Richard Bratby has really pulled it off. Using a mass of archival material and many interviews, Refiner’s Fire is a lively account of the orchestra’s history, of Christopher Hogwood himself and of the other essential players (literal and figurative). AAM has come a long way; for those of us who were part of the journey there is much in this story to savour, some to surprise, even to shock, but what we can clearly recognise is the enduring vigour and imagination that should take the orchestra-and-choir through the decades to come." Emma Kirkby ‘[…] this measured, well-researched, cogently plotted and readable history does affectionate justice to the outsize achievements of a pioneering, influential and still relevant ensemble.’ Lindsay Kemp, Gramophone magazine