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Preston in Westminster Abbey, in 1981. He said his role was “a lot of hard chore”Simon Preston performed much of
Antonio Salieri’s music in Milos Forman’s
Oscar-winning film Amadeus (1984),
directed the music at the wedding of
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson at
Westminster Abbey in 1986 and
composed works for the organ of which
Alleluyas, a spiky work in the style of
Olivier Messiaen, is the best known
among the instrument’s aficionados.
As organist and master of the choris-
ters at Westminster Abbey from 1981 to
1987 he held what he agreed “might well
be the most glamorous job an organist
could have”. If fellow organists were
envious, he was clear that envy was in
the eye of the beholder. “The truth is, it’s
a lot of hard chore,” he said. Even with
three assistants there were daily
services to be prepared, choristers to be
kept on pitch and responsibility for
maintaining a musical standard at least
slightly higher than that at St Paul’s
Cathedral, which the urbane, elegant
and mischievous Preston referred to as
“the parish church”.
Preston had a brilliant keyboard
technique. He was not only a virtuoso
who could rattle off a dazzling account
of the Widor Toccata for a wedding, but
also a delicate and expressive player
who quickly mastered the increasingly
fashionable small, neo-baroque organ.
He brought to his playing an indivi-
duality and warmth that reflected his
own engaging personality, becoming
an ambassador for the instrument not
only in Britain but also overseas.
This conflict between his abbey
responsibilities and his ever-increasing
touring commitments heralded the end
of his tenure, as did his dismay about the
increasing use of the Alternative Service
and modern music rather than the Book
of Common Prayer and the traditional
music of Tallis and Byrd. Alan Luff, the
abbey’s precentor and sacrist, insisted
that there had been no “flaming row”
but lent weight to suggestions of discord,
telling The Times: “I am sure Tallis and
Byrd would be clapping Simon.”
According to Gramophone magazine,
Preston “went on to stride the world as
an organ colossus, popping up in the
most unlikely places, wowing audiences
remained part of Preston’s approach to
choir training.
He spent the best part of five years at
King’s working with Sir David Will-
cocks (obituary, September 19, 2015),
the organist and director of music,
recalling: “Willcocks was a superb
organist and although I never had
lessons from him, I learnt a great deal
just watching him. He wouldn’t let people
get away with anything, especially wrong
notes or rhythmic infelicities.”
On leaving Cambridge Prestonapplied for several posts. “Didn’t even
get on the shortlist for Manchester
Cathedral,” he said. When Ossie Peas-
good, the long-serving sub-organist at
Westminster Abbey, died in 1962, Pres-
ton was appointed as his successor. That
year he made his London concert debut
at the Royal Festival Hall in the difficult
organ part in Janacek’s Glagolitic Mass
with the Bach Choir under Willcocks.
He played at the 1961 consecration of
Guildford Cathedral in the presence of
the Queen, for Princess Alexandra’swedding to Angus Ogilvy at West-
minster Abbey in 1963, and at the 1964
Proms in a solo recital of Bach and
Messiaen. According to one report, “the
young audience stamped non-stop for
nearly ten minutes and made the sort of
ecstatic noises more often heard in
‘pop’ music than for organists”. The
following year he made a 25-city tour of
organs in the US and Canada, returning
to film a recital as a curtain raiser to the
abbey’s 900th anniversary.
In 1968 Preston took on the music at
St Albans Cathedral during the incum-
bent’s sabbatical year. “I wanted to see
what it was like to run a church like that;
whether I could do it and would enjoy
it,” he said. The experiment was suffi-
ciently successful for him to commit in
1970 to being organist and tutor in music
at Christ Church, Oxford, demonstrating
that he could transform a mediocre
cathedral choir into a first-rate ensemble.
In 1981 he returned to Westminster
Abbey where, having developed a love
of smart cars, his Jaguar was stolen
from the abbey’s precincts.
Once free from church duties Preston
enjoyed a broad international career. He
was artistic director of the Calgary
International Organ Competition in
Canada throughout the 1990s and im-
pressed the audience at the Last Night of
the Proms in 2004 with a feisty salute to
the newly restored Royal Albert Hall or-
gan in Samuel Barber’s Toccata Festiva.
After many years enjoying the lifestyle
of a single man he married Elizabeth
Hays, an arts editor, in 2012. She survives
him with four stepchildren.
After dealing with royal brides, cath-
deral politics and demanding film di-
rectors, it was hard not to see the attrac-
tion for Preston of freelance life. “It
doesn’t worry me at all, though, if that’s
what people want to remember me for,”
he said of the Yorks’ nuptials. “It would
only worry me if it had been tacky, and
I don’t think it was tacky at all. I don’t
think Amadeus was tacky either.”Simon Preston CBE, organist, was
born on August 4, 1938. He died of
complications from dementia on May 13,
2022, aged 83in the Americas, Australasia, Asia,
Africa and the length and breadth of
Europe with his inimitable charm,
enthusiasm and musical intensity”.
Simon John Preston was born in
Bournemouth in 1938, the son of John
Preston, an architectural draughtsman,
and his wife, Doreen (née Lane). “I
suppose you could say I came from a
church family,” he said. “My uncle
played the organ at the local church, my
parents were both worshippers there,
and my aunt taught in the local church
school. We had a harmonium at home
and I used to fiddle around with that.”
He was expecting to attend Bourne-
mouth Grammar School, but a cousinsent a newspaper clipping advertising
voice trials at King’s College, Cambridge,
in which he proved successful. Boris
Ord, the director of music, rebuffed the
youngster’s desire to study the organ.
“He was actually rather grumpy about
the whole thing and tried his best to stall
me,” Preston said. “However, one day I
managed to persuade him to listen to me
play Paradies’s Toccata on the piano.
‘Too much pedal,’ was his comment, but
he gave me permission to start organ
lessons immediately.”
After his voice broke he moved to
Canford School, Dorset. He considered
reading modern languages at Cam-
bridge but instead entered the Royal
Academy of Music. Some months later
an organ scholarship became available
back at King’s College. At his audition
he had to play the introduction to a
chorus from Handel’s Messiah, a tricky
challenge on the piano.
“I was just thinking, ‘Oh dear, if I
make a mess of this, that’s it’, when I
noticed one boy leaning on the piano,”
he said. “So I absolutely bawled him
out, ‘Stand up, you lousy individual’ and
then went straight into the chorus
without playing any more of the intro-
duction.” This disciplinarian mentalityHe played at the 1961
consecration of
Guildford Cathedral
Simon Preston
Westminster Abbey organist and master of the choristers who directed the music at Prince Andrew’s wedding to Sarah Ferguson
DAVID JONES/TIMES NEWSPAPERS LTD; TED BLACKBROW/ANL/SHUTTERSTOCKEmail: [email protected]Anthony Wieler
Stockbroker who co-founded the Gurkha Welfare Trust and broadened the appeal of modern pentathlon beyond its military roots
In 1955 visitors to the Tower of London
looked on in amazement as the 17-year-
old Anthony Wieler and his friend
Bjorn Thofelt, 20, pounded indefatigably
around the moat, alternately jogging
and sprinting until close to exhaustion.
The young Swede, son of Sven Thofelt,
pentathlon gold medallist at the 1928
Olympics, had won the individual world
title the previous year. Wieler, an
enthusiastic modern pentathlete, was
determined to bring the army-
dominated sport to a wider public.
Anthony Eric Wieler was born near
Hambledon, Surrey, in 1937. His father,
Brigadier Leslie Wieler, would serve
with distinction in the Second World
War, losing an arm in Tunisia when his
tank was strafed during the north Africa
campaign. Anthony’s mother, Elizabeth,
was the daughter of the journalist Eric
Parker, author of Highways and Byways
in Surrey. The imposing mansion Feath-
ercombe, which Parker had built in 1910
near Godalming, was later home to
Wieler and other family members.
During the 1948 London Olympics
Brigadier Wieler had organised the
modern pentathlon event at Sandhurst
and become vice-president of the
fledgling world governing body, the
Union Internationale de Pentathlon
Moderne (UIPM). Watching the stars of
the sport captured the young Anthony’s
imagination. Baron de Coubertin,
founder of the modern-day Games, had
inaugurated pentathlon at the Stock-
holm Olympics in 1912, declaring that
the man (it was all-male then) who could
master the five disciplines of shooting,
fencing, riding, swimming and running
was the true victor ludorum. Lieutenant
(later General) George S Patton of the
US Cavalry gained fifth place.
The brigadier was appointed
governor of the Tower of London in
1955, hence his son’s unorthodox choice
of training venue. To promote the sport,
he encouraged children in the pony
clubs to take it up. “My father established
an office for the Modern
Pentathlon Asso-
ciation of Great
Britain at the
tower,” Wieler
recalled, “and or-
dered the Yeoman
Guards to phone
each pony club,
saying: ‘I havethe governor of the Tower of London
on the phone. Will you take the call?’
They led events, including triathlon
and tetrathlon, which recruited hun-
dreds to the sport — and later many tal-
ented girls and women.” Inspired by his
father, Wieler was a cheerleader for
modern pentathlon, organising events
and cultivating a network of sporting
contacts globally.
Wieler was educated at Shrewsbury
School, read history at Trinity College,
Oxford, and enjoyed competing in the
National Pentathlon Championships.
He co-founded the Oxford University
Modern Pentathlon Asso-
ciation and, with Colin
Peace at Cambridge, in-
stigated the first
Varsity match
in 1958.The universities staged the 65th match
last month.
Wieler’s National Service from 1958
in the 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own
Gurkha Rifles led to his other great
passion, the welfare of Gurkha veterans.
Recognising the young man’s energy
and connections, the GB Pentathlon
chairman Sir Gerald Templer, re-
nowned “scourge of the communists”
in Malaya in the 1950s, sent him to
Hong Kong, where Field Marshal
Montgomery, chief of the imperial gen-
eral staff, exhorted him to “sort things
out there: organise some sports activi-
ties!” Wieler complied and won a repu-
tation for efficiency, developing a great
affection for the Gurkhas.
He then began a City career, first
in his family’s stockbroking business,
L Messel and Co, then at Ionian Bank.
Wieler was appalled at the
plight of the thousands of Gur-
kha veterans who had fallen on
hard times after returning to
Nepal as civilians. In 1970 he
launched a fundraising
campaign with a letter to
The Times from eight field
marshals including Mont-
gomery, Slim and Au-
chinleck. This described
the Gurkhas’ tradition ofservice, their 26 Victoria Crosses and
43,000 casualties in two world wars.
City grandees including the shipping
tycoon the Earl of Inchcape lent their
support. Wieler and Brian Alexander,
son of the 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis,
organised galas and premieres, with
“suitably glamorous girls to sell the pro-
grammes and usher VIPs”. The appeal
raised £1.5 million (£28 million today)
and the cause has since flourished.
While running a trust management
company between 1972 and 1989, he
joined the Centre for Policy Studies,
Margaret Thatcher’s free-market think
tank. Wieler, who was unmarried, also
served as president and chairman of the
Britain-Nepal Chamber of Commerce
and supported the Gurkha Welfare
Trust in his retirement. In 1998 he was
awarded the Most Puissant Order of the
Gorkha Dakshina Bahu (an order of
knighthood) by the King of Nepal.Anthony Wieler, co-founder of the
Gurkha Trust and pioneer of modern
pentathlon, was born on June 12, 1937.
He died of complications from
Parkinson’s disease on April 12, 2022,
aged 84Wieler, centre,
in 1990 with
the Olympians
Sebastian Coe and
Colin Moynihan