Len Mullinger: an appreciation by John Quinn
Len Mullenger was a remarkable man. Though he may not have been a trained musician, he made an incalculable contribution to the appreciation of classical recordings.
Born in Stafford, he was a scientist by training. He gained two degrees at Leeds University before obtaining a PhD at the Army College at Shrivenham, Wiltshire. One of his earliest successes at Leeds was to get himself appointed to run the Student Union’s record library. With typical enthusiasm, he decided at once completely to reorganise the facility. Once he’d done that, he was able, as he told me more than once with a grin of satisfaction, to engineer things so that all new acquisitions came first to him, which meant that he could hear all the new LPs as they arrived.
Around 1970, Len joined the academic staff at what was then Lanchester Polytechnic; later, in 1987, it became Coventry Polytechnic and eventually, in 1992, Coventry University. He rose to be Principal Lecturer in Molecular Biology at the university before he took early retirement in March 1997. As he put it, retirement meant that he now had ‘even more time to spend listening to music (mainly classical) and indulging my interest in Early Twentieth-Century British composers.’ Those British composers included – but were by no means limited to – Malcolm Arnold, whose music Len greatly admired, Arthur Butterworth (who wrote a regular column for MusicWeb between 2000 and 2011) and also William Alwyn. The latter, though a very fine composer, was not exactly a household name when Len first encountered his music, but the enthusiasm he developed for Alwyn’s compositions played a key part in the establishment of MusicWeb International. Len heard a broadcast of Alwyn’s opera Miss Julie in 1977; this kindled a desire to hear more of the composer’s music; one thing led to another and before long Len had built a website for the William Alwyn Society. We can trace the origins of MusicWeb back to the creation of that website, as Len explained in the History of MusicWeb, which I shall reference later in this article.
Retirement from the university also meant that Len could pursue other interests. For many years, until Covid intervened, he was a volunteer guide at Charlecote Park, a Victorian mansion located not far from his home, which is administered by the National Trust. During his time there, Len developed an enduring interest in the many rare volumes housed in the library. These books were not normally on display to visitors, but Len studied them and developed a talk and presentation which he delivered to small groups of visitors, thereby enabling them to see a few of these priceless volumes and to learn about them. Len also wrote and delivered to various organisations a number of other talks on a variety of subjects such as printing and the life cycle of the octopus. These talks demonstrated the wide range of his interests; perhaps surprisingly, only a few of these talks were on musical subjects, though he was very well qualified, through his own reading and listening experience over many years, to make presentations on music.
Though he very regularly listened to recorded music, Len enjoyed nothing better than a good concert. In his student days he attended orchestral concerts in Leeds Town Hall and when he returned to the Midlands he was a frequent supporter of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in their old venue, the city’s Town Hall. Later, of course, they relocated to the splendid modern setting of Symphony Hall. From around 2001 onwards I used to review a good number of CBSO concerts at Symphony Hall – and some in the International Concert Series, also given there – for Seen and Heard International. Generously, the organisers would almost always provide a pair of tickets and Len often accompanied me, especially if one of his favourite composers was to be featured. We experienced some exceptional concerts together. On all these occasions Len was excellent company and a discerning judge of both the music and the performances. Almost invariably I found that his views and mine largely coincided; when they didn’t, we’d have a healthy debate before we went our respective ways.
Another context in which I was able to experience Len’s knowledge and discernment at first hand was in the MusicWeb Listening Studio. These Listening Studio sessions began almost by accident in December 2013 with Len and I getting together with our colleague David Dyer to listen to recent recordings on high-end equipment. We enjoyed these sessions so much that they became quite a regular feature of our respective diaries and we decided to share our experiences with MusicWeb’s readers through the Listening Studio Reports. For me, one of the best aspects was that Len and David had been collecting recordings for even longer than I had; it was especially interesting to audition with them remastered versions of recordings that they remembered from the first releases, such as Decca’s SACD remastering of Britten’s War Requiem and of the Solti Ring cycle, all of which impressed us very much. Though we tried to spread our listening net widely, the music of certain composers – Mahler, Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich in particular – seemed to be a fairly consistent thread. Len’s judgements on both music and sound quality were always perceptive, the fruit of a lifetime’s experience of listening to music. The three of us often agreed on the recordings we heard but there were also some lively, though good-humoured debates.
In recent years, Len didn’t write much for the site himself; he was content to leave that work to others. There were notable exceptions, though. One such came in 2019 when a video of Richard Strauss’s opera Salome, with Asmik Grigorian in the title role, so fired his imagination that he felt compelled to share his thoughts and did so to memorable effect, as you can read here. As recently as June this year, he was so thrilled by a big boxed set of stereo recordings by Sir Thomas Beecham that he wrote what turned out to be his last review (here) for us. It’s well worth reading that review because it gives an excellent insight into Len’s lifelong love affair with recorded music. His summary of the set as ‘A lifetime of pleasure for the cost of a meal out’ is so typical of him.
The Listening Studio reports, referenced above, were but a tiny fraction of the vast amount of material published over the last thirty years on MusicWeb International. The site came into being almost by accident, evolving from the site which Len established for the William Alwyn Society. Though I could tell the story of MusicWeb here it is far better, I think, to let Len speak for himself on the subject. He wrote the story of MusicWeb in 2001 and updated it at intervals thereafter. He most certainly didn’t blow his own trumpet in this piece and gladly acknowledged the contributions of others, such as Rob Barnett, who for many years was MusicWeb’s sole editor. From what Len has told me, the fact that he was a poor sleeper helped MusicWeb; he would get up in the small hours of the morning and put in several hours on MusicWeb business before heading off to the day job. By one of life’s coincidences, Rob Barnett also slept lightly, and I believe that they frequently held conversations relating to MusicWeb during the wee small hours. Though personally modest in tone, if you read Len’s history (here) you will get a great feel for the scale of his achievement in creating and expanding the site. Furthermore, Len’s article demonstrates a couple of things that newer readers to MusicWeb may not appreciate. One is the extent to which MusicWeb provided a ‘home’ for material relating to a good number of less prominent composers, by no means all of them British. Secondly, in its early days MusicWeb included flourishing separate sections devoted to film music and jazz. Nonetheless, the primary focus was, and remains, classical music.
Just before MusicWeb approached its thirtieth anniversary in 2025, we published review number 60,000. Thus, within a matter of weeks two milestones of which Len was justifiably proud were reached. Shortly before that, we created a new site which became operational at the beginning of 2023. Len was delighted with the new look and the crisper operating platform which WordPress gave us. For operational reasons it would have been impossible to migrate the original site over to the new version but Len and the rest of us were determined not to lose the rich treasure trove of content on the old site. So, it remains available and Len was very happy that statistics consistently show that our readers continue to visit the old site and to read the material there; he had overseen the creation of an invaluable archive resource. All this material remains accessible on the old site which can be accessed by clicking on the ‘MWI 1995-2022’ button on the home page.
Len’s achievement in creating MusicWeb was a great one. Just as important, it could be argued, was his achievements as an enabler. That was a role he played, of course, during his career as a lecturer. He did the same at Charlecote, helping visitors to appreciate the house and its contents. Unquestionably, he acted as an enabler through MusicWeb – and in several ways. First and foremost, he enabled our large, worldwide readership to learn about a great number of newly issued recordings, some of which might otherwise have passed them by, and to read knowledgeable appraisals of many new recordings each month. Secondly, MusicWeb ranged widely in the releases it covered and it gave publicity to a lot of recordings of unfamiliar works and releases by small independent labels which otherwise might have struggled to gain attention in a crowded marketplace. Thirdly, Len gave multiple opportunities to his team of reviewers to hear recordings that might otherwise have escaped their notice and to write about the recordings, sharing their enthusiasm with our readers. Truly, Len Mullenger was a great enabler.
All of us who had the good fortune to work with Len over the years know his worth. It’s very pleasing, though, to record the extent to which he was valued and appreciated within the recording industry. Since his death was announced several leading figures in the industry have written to express their appreciation of Len. Among them, Robert von Bahr, the Founder of BIS Records wrote: ‘Len belonged to the few persons in the business that I really cherished, with his integrity, thoughtfulness, kindness and sheer intelligence. The musical world has lost yet another main asset with Len’s passing.’ From Siva Oke, the Founder of SOMM Recordings came this: ‘I was so sorry to receive your message with the sad news of Len’s sudden demise. He has done so much for music journalism and the record industry by founding an online music magazine which is hardly to be equalled for its professionalism, and we all owe him a big sense of gratitude. He will be sadly missed and I am glad you and your colleagues at MusicWeb will be able to continue his wonderful legacy.’ And Antony Smith, Managing Director, Nimbus Records, said this: ‘Len was one of the pioneers of our age, he built the platform which was NEEDED, he put the print magazines to shame, and he changed the face of music comment and review forever. I held the greatest respect for Len, his work and the team he created. On behalf of us all at Nimbus, Lyrita and Wyastone I offer our deepest sympathies to his family and colleagues.’
All of us at MusicWeb extend our heartfelt sympathies to Len’s wife, Barbara and to their children, Elizabeth and Tom, of whose achievements Len was so proud. We are determined to honour Len’s memory by building on the very firm foundations which he established and by maintaining MusicWeb’s high reputation with our readership and within the recording industry.
Chris Thomas, a close friend for many years and also a past contributor to MusicWeb, has posted his own tribute to Len on the MWI Message Board.
John Quinn, Editor in Chief, MusicWeb International