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ALLEGRO CON BRIO
Clasical muisc is booming, contrary to the pessimism of most in the business
Dull, elitist and expensive, classical music in Britain is in its death-throes, the pundits say. The young prefer Boyzone to Beethoven. Punters shun the plinkety- plonk modern stuff, and stick to the same tired old repertoire, stifling innovation. Recording work has slumped, partly because of the CD's relative indestructibility, partly because orchestras in central Europe are cheaper. Corporate sponsorship, particularly from the City, has slowed sharply.
A true largo doloroso, then -- were it not for the awkward fact that in the things that
matter most, classical music is actually healthier than for decades.
For a start, London is more than ever the uncontested classical capital of the world, with some 20 professional orchestras and five music colleges. Many of the world's great soloists choose to make their home there, as do home-grown musicians in great quantity and quality.
In 1985, for example, the Association of British Orchestras had just 12 members; now it has 50. Up to half of this growth has come from new orchestras, says Russell
Jones, its director, such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment -- an outfit that
specialises in music from that eponymous 18th-century era.
For all the much-bewailed changes in state subsidy policy towards more popular causes, plenty still flows. The Arts Council recently rescued several ailing bands with money from the National Lottery. Over the past three years it has pumped �30m ($49m) into orchestras to get rid of their deficits. Strings were attached: orchestras had to produce detailed future plans. Mostly these seem to be working; a handful is even making surpluses, says Hilary Boulding, the music director for the Arts Council of England.
In the great cacophony of government spending, �30m is a mere tinkle. Yet its effect is far-reaching, because necessity has made Britain's orchestras and musicians astonishingly flexible. Until recent years many of those who went to Britain's ten music colleges expected to make a living performing. Now even those with a relatively secure orchestral job realise they have to teach, too. Such work is usually a condition for getting money from the state.
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), for example, is spending �18m on an education programme based in St Luke's, a disused inner-city church. Clive Gillinson, the LSO'S respected manager, claims that its programme reaches 30,000 children. Almost all orchestras now play to and teach some locals; Manchester's Halle has set up its own youth orchestra.
That partly explains why, despite all the handwringing, and the lack of music-making at state schools, there is no evidence that audiences are ageing. Instead, people still seem to warm to classical music as they age, much as they always have.
The CD market is also showing hopeful signs. Orchestras are finding new ways to entice people to buy fresh versions of works they already own. One is to play by-gone music on bygone instruments (or copies). Trumpet players these days are likely to finish music college able to play both the modern instrument and the (valve-less) natural trumpet, for which Baroque trumpet parts were written. Another is orchestras' own-label recordings of live performances. That cuts the cost of recording studios, and fees too-players, soloists and conductors all get a slice of the
royalties. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic started this trend, with a recording business run by the principal oboeist.
Sponsorship is more difficult to come by, especially now that the economy is weak, but far from impossible. There is still money for those that "tick the social responsibility box", says Mr Jones. Much of the �16.5m that the LSO has already
raised for its St Luke's project has come from companies.
The purists' best-grounded lament is that top-selling classical CDS are such an unchallenging lot, chiefly film music "Harry Potter", "Lord of the Rings", trite compilations (Classical Chillout Gold), and cheesy tenors and the products of eye- catching artistes. But if people like the ear candy, they may develop a taste for better fare thereafter.
What would really change things would be more listenable modern music. That may be happening, thanks to composers like John Taverner or Thomas Ades. Jeremy Summerly, a musicologist, says that the "new complexity" of the 1960s has given way to "new simplicity". Few went to premieres when he was a student, he notes. Now, by contrast, "even normal people go".
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At 03:13 31/05/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Was a man who didn't love a wall. Do you wear clothes Kieth? Do you live in a house? Do you live in a city of walls? There are always payments. And something is always being taken from another. You are making the same argument against tariffs that the Christians make against abortion. It isn't natural and it is against life. Well of course but so is civilization. Systems are never pure and you decide the consequences and decide what the good is that you will get. There are a great many more goods than just economic ones and that is what you don't address.
As for the Industrial revolution? Yes it would. We stole from the Soviets because they were the competitors and they did the same for us. If there wasn't competition across borders there would have been another type. What do you think all those wars in the 18th and 19th centuries were about? The 20th century was the mean one, the one about patronization and race. You yourself made the point about novelty and the need to invent things. We have a lot more to develop and control than just dollars and dollars have proven a very poor measure of value. That is why we have the mess with aesthetics that we have and the mess in your educational system as the aesthetics have declined since the 1960s and your blessed Liverpoole gang. Before they were through they were writing second rate choral music as well and now we have Sir Phantom of the Opera. Now that is a decline in education. But he is the highest payed composer in the history of the world. That must mean that he is the greatest right? He has the most monetary value. Culture for Dummies anyone?
Ray Evans Harrell
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
