Victor Olof

Victor Olof (born Victor Olof Ahlquist; 12 July 1898 – 3 November 1974) was an English musician, known first as a violinist and conductor and later as a record producer for Decca Records and subsequently for His Master's Voice.

Among the artists whose recordings Olof supervised were Karl Böhm, Erich Kleiber, Carl Schuricht, Sir Thomas Beecham, Lisa della Casa, Cesare Siepi, Victoria de los Ángeles, Clifford Curzon, Wilhelm Backhaus and Yehudi Menuhin.

Life and career

Early years Victor Olof Ahlquist was of Swedish descent. He was born in St Pancras, London, the youngest of five children of Michael Ahlqist, a tailor who retained his Swedish nationality, and his wife Elizabeth. He attended the Guildhall School of Music in London, where he won the Melba Scholarship in 1916. His violin professor was Kalman Ronay. Among his fellow students were the singers Dora Labbette and Lilian Stiles-Allen. In 1928 he married Phyllis Robey; there were two sons of the marriage. In the 1940s he was an orchestral manager and conductor, working with the London Symphony Orchestra and especially the National Symphony Orchestra, an ad hoc ensemble of top orchestral players assembled for the wealthy musical amateur Sidney Beer. In between supervising sessions of music by composers from Eric Coates to Richard Wagner, Olof conducted some recordings for Decca, mainly of overtures and other short orchestral pieces. Olof was in the thick of this international programme, supervising sessions in all six locations with the exception of Bayreuth (according to Culshaw, Olof did not much like Wagner's music). Among the recordings produced by Olof that have seldom been out of the catalogues are Das Lied von der Erde with Bruno Walter and Kathleen Ferrier, and a series of Mozart operas made in 1955 with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and singers mostly from the Vienna State Opera. Having had substantial influence over the choice of repertoire at Decca, Olof was more constrained at EMI, where he was subordinate to the head of the company's International Artistes Department, David Bicknell. The latter, Fred Gaisberg's successor, was responsible for decisions about the artists and repertoire recorded by EMI, and was more inclined than Olof to go along with Beecham's choice of repertoire.

Later years In 1969, Olof was appointed as a member of the Arts Council committee of inquiry into orchestral resources in Britain under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Peacock.

In retirement, Olof lived at Milford on Sea on the south coast of England. He died at the age of 76.