Hubert Dawkes, who has died aged 95, was a supremely skilful keyboard player, winning a slew of awards at the Royal College of Music and becoming harpsichordist of choice a the Bach Choir under Sir David Willcocks; he taught music to Lady Diana Spencer when whe was a pupil at West Heath School, in Kent, and appears on a number of recordings by Joan Sutherland.
Dawkes was an essential ingredient of the Bach Choir, a steadfast accompanist for almost 60 years able to anticipate the directions of conductors such as Willcocks and his predecessor, Reginald Jacques.
Although known for delivering the continuo lines in the great choral masterpieces of Bach, Dawkes was sufficiently adventurous to explore works such as Lambert’s Rio Grande, in which, according to one critic, he “threw off the exoticisms of the cadenzas with confident nonchalance”.
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