Kenneth Wilkinson

Kenneth Ernest Wilkinson (28 July 1912 – 13 January 2004) was an audio engineer for Decca Records, known for engineering classical recordings with superb sound quality.

After working for small recording companies, Wilkinson was taken onto the staff of Decca, where he engineered many recordings, working with producers such as John Culshaw and conductors including Sir Georg Solti, Hans Knappertsbusch and Benjamin Britten. He trained a whole generation of celebrated Decca engineers.

Wilkinson so closely identified with the Decca sound that he retired when the company was absorbed into the PolyGram group in 1980.

Life and career Early life Wilkinson was born in London. He attended Trinity Grammar School, Wood Green in north London, on a scholarship. He left school at the age of sixteen in 1928, and worked for the publishing house Cassell's. When one of the firm's accountants left to join the World Echo Record Company, Wilkinson went with him, and was present at the company's first electrical recording at the old Clerkenwell Sessions House off Farringdon Street in London. The company folded, and Wilkinson took a job in charge of the recorded music at an ice rink in Brighton. and the producer John Culshaw made his name and reputation known to record reviewers and audiophiles. His legacy was extended by the fact that he trained every Decca engineer from 1937 onwards.

Wilkinson, always called "Wilkie" in the music business, was known as a straight-talking man, interested only in the quality of the work. Among other recordings engineered by Wilkinson were Wagner's Parsifal recorded live at Bayreuth in 1951, of which the critic Andrew Porter wrote, "...the most moving and profound of spiritual experiences ... Decca have recorded, superbly, a superb performance", and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique with Sir Georg Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in May 1972 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Krannert Center.

Wilkinson retired from Decca when the company was taken over by the PolyGram group in 1980. He made no free-lance recordings.

Among the popular performers whom he recorded over the years were Mantovani, the Ted Heath Band, Vera Lynn, Edmundo Ros, Jo Stafford and Rosemary Squires.

Personal life and awards Wilkinson married Miriam Tombs in 1938, and they had four children (two sons, two daughters).

On retiring, Wilkinson received a special gold disc produced by Decca with extracts of his recordings. He received three Grammys for engineering: 1973, 1975, and 1978. He also received an audio award from Hi-Fi magazine in 1981 and the Walter Legge Award in 2003 "…for extraordinary contribution to the field of recording classical music".

Wilkinson died in Norwich at the age of 91.