Return
to Chapter 20
21
Learning
and Teaching
Opportunities
for learning an instrument – in Brass
and Military bands. Music colleges and
Teacher Training colleges. The Calouste
Gulbenkian Foundation – Making Music(1965)
– Enquiry into Training Musicians
(1975). The BBC Training Orchestra.
The National Centre for Orchestral Studies
(NCOS).
Perhaps,
because orchestral musicians had not
passed any examination or test to prove
they could do what they were actually
doing (though some of them were doing
it extremely well) and therefore had
not received any diploma or credentials
their skills were unrecognised. Since
becoming a performing musician was not
considered a suitable occupation for
a gentleman it was nearly always the
children of relatively poor families
and immigrants who became professional
musicians. To do so they had to learn
how to play their instruments and it
was to be a long time before an adequate
music education was available to everyone.
In the
18th and 19th century learning to play
the piano to a reasonable standard had
become an accomplishment that every
young lady from a ‘good family’ was
expected to be able to demonstrate.
Many a young man who fancied himself
as a tenor or baritone was lured into
marriage by an attractive young lady’s
prowess at the keyboard, which in the
homes of the well to-do would normally
have been a grand piano. By 1900 the
very much less expensive ‘upright’ piano
had become very popular and because
of its size could be accommodated in
quite a small room. When bought second-hand
or third-hand they had become affordable
to most families. For the first half
of the 20th century one could expect
to find a piano in the homes of both
the well-to-do and those of quite modest
means and find that quite a considerable
number of children were having piano
lessons – some teachers charging as
little as one or two shillings (5/10p)
a lesson.
The
piano has the advantage of being an
instrument on which one can make ‘pleasing
sounds’ immediately, in contrast to
most other instruments on which the
beginner may have difficulty in making
any sound at all or produces noise rather
than music. In the 1950s the guitar
emerged as another instrument on which
one could quite quickly play simple
chords, again with a pleasant tone.
It is sad that although so many children
start to learn an instrument not very
many have ever progressed beyond a quite
elementary stage. In the past I often
met people who when they learned that
I was a musician told me that they had
had piano lessons as a child and now
wished that they had not given it up
so early.
A keyboard
instrument also gave players the opportunity
to make music satisfactorily on their
own; not only music written for the
piano, but arrangements of popular songs
of the day, selections from operettas
and musical comedies (now called musicals)
and light and symphonic orchestral music.
Arrangements for two players, four hands
at one piano, of overtures, symphonies,
oratorios and even operas were for very
many years extremely popular. In the
first half of the 20th century if there
were a member of the family who could
play the piano they would provide the
accompaniment for a ‘sing-song’. It
wasn’t necessary to be able to play
all the notes: a friend of mine used
to say it was enough, if you could ‘put
up a framework’. Sometimes there would
be other members of the family or friends
who had some skill on other instruments
– perhaps the violin, flute, clarinet
or cornet, so that with the pianist
‘filling in’ the missing parts or the
basic harmony it was possible to have
a most enjoyable time. The old ‘joanna’,
often beer-stained and in need of tuning,
was to be heard in many pubs and of
course a piano was essential from around
1910 in every silent film cinema.
More
often than not it will be the parents
rather than their children who will
suggest that it might be a good idea
to start having lessons on an instrument.
A few children, once having heard a
particular instrument, will give their
parents no peace until they have been
bought the instrument that has caught
their ear. As a rule they will usually
prove to be exceptionally talented –
Yehudi Menuhin is a good example. If
there is no one in the family or a friend
who can start them off a teacher will
have to be found. As well as there being
plenty of piano teachers, because the
stringed instruments had been acceptable
instruments for well-bred people to
play, there were also a good many teachers
of the stringed instruments. A great
deal of chamber music – the string quartets,
trios, piano quartets and quintets by
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and
many other composers had been written
for and played in their homes by amateurs.
There were therefore a number of really
excellent violin teachers as well as
many giving lessons of varying quality,
some for as little as two shillings
(10p) a lesson. During the 1920s a few
secondary schools began to provide group
tuition on the violin for sixpence (2½p)
a lesson. Perhaps it is not surprising
that in general the standard of this
tuition was not very high. At the same
time one could buy a perfectly adequate
‘violin set’ – that is a violin and
bow – for £1.50, much cheaper than the
cost of a piano. Those violins, without
a bow, now sell for £300 to £400. Emanuel
Hurwitz, leader of the English Chamber
Orchestra for 20 years, told me that
in about 1927 his father bought him
a violin for which he paid £8. Fifty
years later when he was a professor
at the Royal Academy of Music some of
his pupils had similar violins for which
they had paid £4000.
Between
1880 and 1914 as a result of the Pogroms
a considerable number of poor immigrant
Jewish families had come to Britain
from all over Europe, in particular
from the Pale of Settlement, the area
between the Baltic and the Black Sea.
They had lived in shtetls, small
towns and villages in Russia and Poland,
where there had been a long tradition
of violin playing within the Jewish
communities. The majority settled in
the large cities, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester
with the largest number in London. Many
families took the opportunity to buy
an inexpensive instrument for their
sons and daughters and paid for them
to have lessons. This led to a number
of the most talented going into the
music profession where from 1909 until
1928 there was so much employment for
musicians playing in the small orchestras
accompanying the silent films. They
were then able to earn much more than
their parents ever had. In 1943 there
were still a great many Jewish string
players in all the symphony, chamber
and light orchestras.
It will
probably have been less easy during
the first decades of the 20th century
to find a teacher if one wanted to learn
a wind instrument. Unless you lived
in one of the few towns that had an
orchestra for part of the year the only
person available will probably have
been a player in one of the theatre
orchestras who would not as a rule have
been a player of a very high standard.
Anywhere else it is likely it would
be someone who themselves would probably
be an amateur of limited ability who
would be able to show you the very basic
elements.
I was
surprised to find that even in the 1950s
when I was asked to give clarinet lessons
at the Central School of Dance Music,
where I was the only teacher who was
an orchestral musician – all the others
were jazz or dance band musicians, how
many of my pupils had been self-taught
until they came to me. They had taught
themselves by listening to and watching
others, perhaps finding information
in an instrumental tutor or books and
listening to broadcast and recorded
performances. Later, when I interviewed
a number of full and part-time musicians
in the 1980s and 90s as part of Music
Preserved’s Oral History of Musicians
in Britain, I found that quite a few
had only had perhaps two or three lessons,
usually after they had already acquired
sufficient skill by themselves and had
undertaken some professional or semi-professional
work.
This
was true not only for musicians in the
field of popular music. I have known
several outstanding orchestral musicians
who either had had very few or no lessons
at all. Jack Brymer was one who never
had any lessons. Another very fine player,
a timpanist, a principal in the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, told me that he
taught himself while he was in his teens
and living in Nottingham. As there was
no one in Nottingham to give him timpani
lessons he decided that he would have
to find a way to get into the concert
hall whenever any orchestra was rehearsing
so that by using his father’s binoculars
he would be able to see the timpanist’s
hands and find out how he tuned his
instrument and used the drum sticks.
However,
because of the brass band tradition
that had started in Britain in the 19th
century, in 1900 there were brass bands
all over the country. There were also
Town, Military and Salvation Army bands.
All these bands were able to provide
boys with an opportunity to learn a
wind instrument. Boys would usually
join a band when they were between ten
and fourteen years old – depending on
the size of their hands or the length
of their arms. It is unusual to start
any of the wind instruments much younger.
They would receive basic instruction
from the bandmaster or one of the older
players in the band. Girls were also
welcomed in the Salvation Army bands.
On joining
a band the young musician would usually
be provided with an instrument – not
always of their choice as it would depend
on what instrument was available. Arthur
Wilson, the very fine principal trombone
in the Philharmonia for many years,
told me that when he first joined a
band he had wanted to play the cornet,
but as they were short of trombones,
had a spare instrument and he was tall
for his age with quite long arms, he
was given a trombone and told to get
on with it.
The
bandmaster will frequently have been
a retired bandmaster from one of the
many Army Line Regimental bands. He
will probably have studied at Kneller
Hall, the Military School of Music,
where as well as receiving tuition on
his principal instrument and conducting
he will have gained a limited working
knowledge of all the instruments to
be found in a military band. I have
heard horror stories from a number of
musicians of how they had been taught
by someone whose own main instrument
was the clarinet or the flute but who
was teaching them the trumpet or trombone.
They often had no real understanding
of the difference between the embouchure
(the subtle formation of the lips and
muscles) required to play a brass instrument
and that required for the clarinet or
flute.
Whatever
the instrument, the main reason why
so few continue beyond a fairly elementary
stage is the need for regular practise.
Learning a musical instrument is very
similar to becoming an accomplished
athlete. As one progresses an increasing
amount of work and commitment is required.
On some instruments even to get to the
stage of making an acceptable sound
takes some time. Only the most naturally
gifted child will from the start make
an agreeable sound on the violin or
oboe. Until sufficient skill has been
acquired patience on the part of the
beginner is required when learning nearly
all instruments (those sharing the home
with them will also need patience, sometimes
a lot more). It can be some time before
something that sounds like music can
be heard. After a few months even gifted
children find the need for regular practise
every day becomes tedious. Without parental
support and encouragement (often rather
more than ‘encouragement’ is required)
excuses and reasons for not practising
become increasingly frequent.
The
majority who continue to play their
instrument beyond their school or university
years are very often those who had the
opportunity to play in a band, in an
amateur orchestra or to make music at
home with friends and family. The few
who go on to become professional musicians
very often come from a background where
a member of the family is or was a musician
or a keen amateur.
At the
time I joined the profession in 1942
quite a number of the brass and woodwind
players I played alongside in the London
orchestras and on sessions, men then
aged over 40, had come from working
and lower middle-class families. They
had left school at fourteen or at the
latest sixteen. Some of the best brass
players in the orchestras had been in
one of the brass bands. The best of
these bands such as the Grimethorpe
Colliery, Black Dyke Mills, Fodens and
Morris Motors were all ‘works’ bands.
The first was the Black Dyke Mills Band,
under another name, and the Besses o’
th’ Barn Band formed two years later.
Some factories would employ a man because
he was known to be an outstanding musician.
Most often he would play the cornet
and become the solo cornet in the band,
the equivalent of the leader in a symphony
orchestra. His contract would include
playing in the company’s band and he
would frequently be given a job in the
office rather than having to work in
the mine or the factory. Some of the
first bands had woodwind as well as
brass instruments, and like the old
New Orleans marching bands, in which
many of the early jazz musicians first
played, were often led by a clarinettist,
playing the small, high pitched Eb clarinet.
In the
past some of the finest principal trumpets
in the symphony orchestras came from
these bands: George Eskdale, for many
years principal in the London Symphony
Orchestra whose recording of the second
and third movements of the Haydn Trumpet
Concerto was a constant request
on programmes such as Family Favourites.
Harold Jackson, principal in the Philharmonia
was a wonderful trumpet virtuoso. During
the interval of one of the sessions
when the Philharmonia were recording
Wagner’s Tristan with Wilhelm
Furtwängler conducting, while the
orchestra were having a well-earned
cup of tea, my colleague Wilfred Hambleton
(he was using the interval to try to
find a better reed for his bass clarinet)
told me that Walter Legge came into
the studio to tell Furtwängler
that he thought that Jackson sounded
much too loud in one passage. ‘Yes’,
said Furtwängler, ‘but he is so
good – he plays so well – I do not want
to tell him.’ Harry Mortimer, Jack Mackintosh
and Maurice Murphy were amongst other
fine players from the brass bands. There
had also been many local Village and
Town bands (known as ‘subscription bands’)
in the early 1800s; the Police and Temperance
bands came later, (it is recorded that
some of the bandsmen were not always
as ‘temperate’ as might have been desired).
Another
route that led into the profession for
percussion, brass and woodwind players
was via the Army bands. As well as the
Guard’s bands, which had a long tradition
of producing fine instrumentalists,
many of the line regiments also had
their own bands. Boys from poor families,
and a number from orphanages, would
join the army at fourteen as band-boys
and graduate to the band usually receiving
tuition at Kneller Hall. When I came
into the profession I remember there
were some excellent flautists and clarinettists
who had been in one of the Guard’s bands.
Oboists and bassoonists with an army
background though technically good as
rule tended to have a thin reedy tone.
Ambitious
mothers have much to answer for but
a few must be given credit for recognising
that they have a musically talented
child and ‘encouraging’ and managing
a potential soloist towards a very successful
career. In the same way parents who
want their children to do well and teachers
who want to please their pupils’ parents
may feel that by taking the Associated
Board grade exams the children will
maintain more regular practise in attempting
to obtain a higher grade and this quite
often does have the desired effect.
On the other hand it not infrequently
produces resistance. A large number
drop out after Grade 5 when it starts
to get more difficult and demands more
daily practise if further progress is
to be made. Parents and teachers often
seem to forget that one learns an instrument
to play and enjoy music. Too frequently,
instead of playing for pleasure learning
an instrument becomes just another subject
to be examined. Those youngsters that
have formed themselves into pop or rock
groups, at school or later, have never
needed to be encouraged to meet together
to ‘practise’ because what they were
doing was fun and what they wanted to
be doing.
By the
1920s many more of those hoping to become
musicians were going to the colleges
of music. Many of the young string players
Sir Adrian Boult recruited when the
BBC Symphony Orchestra was formed in
1930 had only recently left music colleges.
You could then start at college when
you were as young as twelve, if you
were sufficiently advanced – I was sixteen
when I was accepted at the Royal College
of Music in 1941. That is no longer
possible. One must be eighteen and have
at least two ‘A’ levels.
In 1942,
the McNair Committee was set up to consider
the ‘supply, recruitment and training
of teachers’ and then in 1945 the Music
Panel decided that the training of music
teachers in schools was ‘already seriously
inadequate in every type of school’
and that it was ‘steadily worsening
in quantity and quality’. They were,
of course, commenting on class-room
teachers: there was still very little
opportunity for children to have lessons
on an instrument. By 1948 it had been
decided that only having the Graduate
Diploma from the Royal College or Academy
of Music or a Teachers ARCM or LRAM
was an insufficient preparation for
someone to be qualified to teach music
in a school.
The
first Teacher Training College to provide
a two-year course for teachers of music,
art and drama was Bretton Hall in Yorkshire,
in 1949. In 1950 Trent Park on the outskirts
of London established courses in the
same subjects. Eight years later, while
I was in the Philharmonia and also playing
for West Side Story, I received
an enquiry from Trent Park as to whether
I would take on teaching all the woodwind
instruments – flute, oboe, clarinet
and bassoon. It would be for three hours
on Wednesday afternoons. I accepted
their offer with some trepidation because
my knowledge of the flute, oboe and
bassoon was limited, to put it euphemistically.
On top of that, at that time there was
an MU rule that if you were playing
for a West End show you had to pay your
deputy 25% in addition to what you were
receiving. As there was a matinee on
Wednesday afternoon and I was being
paid rather well for doing West Side
Story and the fee for teaching was
going to be less I would be out of pocket.
Some of my friends thought I was crazy.
When
I went to Trent Park for the first time
I found I was faced with nine students.
They ranged in standard from near beginners
to a couple who had already received
their LRAM – they had been at Music
College for three years and had come
to do the one year post-graduate course
that would give them Qualified Teacher
Status (QTS). The others were either
doing the normal three year course with
music as their main subject or in a
few cases taking subjects other than
music – English, History, Maths, etc.
– and just wanted to learn to play better.
I managed to keep just a page ahead
of the non-clarinet students as the
general principles of playing all the
wind instruments is very similar: breathing,
articulation, moving the fingers in
the correct way and so on. I knew the
tone they should produce by virtue of
having played with very fine players
for so many years. This was a very steep
learning curve for me and, I am sure,
resulted in slower progress for my pupils.
My task was not made any easier by the
fact that three hours for nine pupils
allowed me only twenty minutes for each
one.
Happily,
for me and my pupils, a splendid man,
Philip Pfaff, had just been appointed
as the head of the music department
(it was he who invited me to teach there)
and there was also a far-seeing Principal
of the college. Within a year or two
we had appointed excellent teachers
for each instrument. I continued to
be a visiting lecturer at Trent Park
for twenty years and I arranged a very
fine colleague Gordon Lewin to take
my place when I had to be elsewhere.
Not only was he a very good clarinettist
and saxophone player but also a very
good composer and outstanding arranger,
especially of music for wind ensembles.
In fact, he wrote all the exercises
and arranged the tunes I used in my
clarinet tutor Play the Clarinet
published in 1969 by Chappell and Co.,
and still in print after more than thirty
years. It survived the take over of
Chappell, when all compositions that
did not sell well enough to pay for
the space the music took up on the shelves
were pulped and, finally, after subsequent
take-overs by other ever larger conglomerates,
it was rescued and reprinted by Peters
Edition in the late 1980s.
The
gamble I took in agreeing to teach at
Trent Park turned out to be a fortunate
decision. It led to a wonderful opportunity
for me to learn a great deal about teaching
in general and meet some interesting
lecturers in a number of other disciplines,
as well as to writing First Tunes
and Studies, a tutor published
in 1960 by Schott and Co.. It also prepared
me for my future position as Director
of the National Centre for Orchestral
Studies.
In time
it became necessary for anyone wanting
to teach in a state school, primary
or secondary, to have Qualified Teacher
Status. It was not and still is not
necessary for those teaching in an Independent
(Public) School. The normal route to
QTS is by taking the three year course
that leads to a B.Ed. or, for those
who have completed three years at a
music college, the one year course that
leads to the Postgraduate Certificate
of Education (PGCE). I had a number
of students who were taking the PGCE
course, who were going on to be Peripatetic
Instrumental Teachers and rather more
who were taking their B.Ed. which would
allow them to teach anything within
the state school system including music,
in class or as a peripatetic instrumental
teacher. I did not have QTS, and was
therefore not considered ‘qualified’
nor could I teach in a state school.
However, I could teach and examine those
who were going to do so. Like myself
virtually all my colleagues in the profession
including my fellow professors at the
Royal College of Music, were debarred
in the same way. Many highly qualified
musicians who could have been extremely
valuable part-time instrumental teachers
were therefore unable to impart their
skill and musical understanding, gained
from their experience of working with
fine conductors and soloists; they in
their turn were denied the opportunity
for self-examination that teaching others
can provide. A teacher will often become
a better teacher if able to perform,
and a performer a better performer when
challenged by teaching others.
At Trent
Park I had a class for all those on
the PGCE course who were considered
‘Professionals’, those who had been
to music college for three years, flautists,
oboists, clarinettists and bassoonists.
I decided to get the clarinettists to
teach the others the clarinet. My idea
was that the clarinet students, supposed
to be advanced players, would learn
more about their instrument while trying
to help beginners learn something about
the fundamental techniques required
to play the clarinet well. As soon as
they could play in the bottom register,
the easiest, they would play duets and
trios (wonderfully and insightfully
arranged by my friend Gordon Lewin),
with a leading part that was interesting
and the others with relatively simple
parts suited to their ability. I insisted
that no one went on to the next page
of their studies until they had mastered
the current page. This was especially
important in regard to breathing and
clean, clear articulation. At the end
of about six months I always had some
of the so-called ‘Professionals’ coming
to me crying because the beginners,
though they did not have their technique,
could play the simple parts with better
articulation than they could. As far
as learning the absolute essentials
on any instrument it is the first lessons
that are the most important. Sadly,
these vital lessons were at that time
too often given by those insufficiently
qualified.
The
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, concerned
with the examination and educational
system in schools and music colleges
and at advanced level, set up a committee
under the chairmanship of Sir Gilmour
Jenkins. Their report Making Music
published in 1965 recommended that there
should be earlier identification of
talent and an increased number of specialist
schools at primary and secondary level
leading on to the Junior Departments
at the music colleges. In 1971 the Inner
London Education Authority did establish
a specialist music course at Pimlico
School, the only one of its kind in
the maintained sector. It was extremely
good and provided first-class tuition
for gifted children. A number of specialist
schools were also established in the
years following the Report – the Purcell,
Chetham, Menuhin, Wells Cathedral and
St. Mary’s (in Scotland) schools.
The
report also recommended that the Royal
College of Music, the Royal Academy
of Music and Trinity College of Music
should be amalgamated to form a National
conservatoire with four to six year
courses that would lead to a Diploma
in Performance. Not surprisingly there
was no enthusiasm on the part of any
of the conservatories to give up their
individual autonomy. As usual the majority
of the problems the Report highlighted
were not solved.
By 1975
it had become apparent that the situation
had deteriorated rather than improved.
The Foundation decided that it was time
to re-examine the problems that remained
unsolved. This committee The Committee
of Enquiry into the Training of Musicians
with John Vaizey as Chairman – he became
Lord Vaizey in 1977 not long before
the report was issued – was much more
broadly based. It included representatives
from the music colleges, education establishment,
professional organisations, the BBC
and the Musicians’ Union. I was chosen
to represent the MU because I was a
professor at the Royal College of Music
(I had been since 1964), was a member
of the Executive Committee and Chairman
of the Philharmonia Orchestra Council
of Management.
The
Enquiry’s report Training Musicians
published in 1978 considered every
aspect of teaching and performing but
paid particular attention to the standard
of instrumental teaching with considerable
emphasis on the preparation of musicians
for the orchestral profession. In the
committee’s opinion there were still
not enough top class soloists being
produced and an extension of training
was needed for those wishing to join
an orchestra. In fact one of the prime
movers urging the enquiry was the ABO,
the Association of British Orchestras.
The Association was particularly concerned
that its members were unable to obtain
‘sufficient recruits of the required
standard – particularly string players
– and that the training of those they
did take was, in their view, incomplete’.
They felt there was too much concentration
on playing the solo and chamber music
repertoire. In fact many students, particularly
the string players were given the impression
that playing in an orchestra was something
to be avoided.
It was
also reported to the Enquiry that many
professional musicians, in particular
the members of the regional orchestras,
felt that their status, income and working
conditions did not compare with those
of their contemporaries abroad. The
situation was much better for the free-lance
musicians, mainly based in London. One
reason why the members of the four London
Orchestra earned considerably more than
their colleagues in the regional orchestras,
who were on full-time contracts, was
because they were paid separately for
each engagement and were therefore considered
to be ‘free-lance’, which brought the
benefits of being on Schedule D for
tax purposes..
I had
been a member of the MU negotiating
group involved for some years in negotiations
with the ABO on behalf of the musicians
in the regional orchestras and knew
how poorly paid and hard working the
musicians in those orchestras were.
At that time the salaries for the rank
and file string players in the regional
orchestras was under £4000 a year (a
pint of beer then cost 20p) for a thirty
hour week, plus a good deal of travelling.
It was clear to me that this was significant
cause of the orchestras’ recruiting
difficulties. As a professor at the
Royal College of Music I was also aware
that criticism of the extent to which
students were prepared for the orchestral
profession provided by the music colleges
was justified.
Having
taken part in discussions with the managements
of the regional orchestras for some
years I also understood the financial
constraints under which they were forced
to operate and that it was unlikely
that the salaries of the musicians in
those orchestras would be likely to
improve to any extent. In fact, more
than twenty five years later nothing
had changed and once again, in 2004,
the low remuneration received by all
orchestral musicians, in particular
those in the orchestras outside London,
was once again being aired in the press.
Their salaries had increased six-fold
to just under £24,000 – but beer was
nine times more expensive at £1.80 a
pint.
The
committee recognised that since the
previous Enquiry in 1965 the opportunity
for most children in primary and secondary
schools to learn an instrument was very
much better. Nearly all Local Education
Authorities had Music Centres and peripatetic
and part-time teachers. There were youth
orchestras, brass bands and even jazz
bands in which they could play. Some
of the County Youth Orchestras were
becoming increasingly good, and the
National Youth Orchestra, in which the
most talented played, was really excellent.
The annual concerts they gave under
very good conductors were outstanding.
The
standard of those applying for entrance
to the music colleges kept rising and
I was aware from my teaching at the
Royal College that the standard of instrumental
performance by the best students was
now extremely high. In fact over the
years I had a number of pupils who when
they finished at College were better
players technically than I had been
when I started in the profession. By
1980 I was auditioning entrants to the
Royal College of Music who when still
seventeen were offering the Carl Nielsen
Clarinet Concerto, an
extremely difficult virtuoso work that
only a few of the best clarinettists
of my generation would tackle. We were
in a situation now that was the opposite
to that I have described as being prevalent
eighty and ninety years ago when there
were only a handful of very good players.
Now virtuosity, especially on the wind
instruments was becoming relatively
commonplace.
But
still preparation for the orchestra
was less than satisfactory. The BBC
Training Orchestra, at first called
the New BBC Orchestra, was established
in 1966 as part of the deal that allowed
the creation of BBC Radio 1 and 2. It
was never really satisfactory for several
reasons. The orchestra’s status was
always ambiguous: the members of the
orchestra were no longer students and
though employed on contract by the BBC
to give a broadcast each week and a
public concert once a month, they were
supposed to be there to learn how to
play in an orchestra. In fact, they
received no ‘training’, only more rehearsal
time for what were clearly professional
engagements. Many free-lance musicians
felt that this ‘student orchestra ‘
was being used to reduce employment
for them; some members of the BBC orchestras
were concerned that these young musicians
would be brought in to replace them.
It was seen by the students who applied
to join as a stopgap before they got
a ‘proper job’. They had no real commitment
to the orchestra and could leave at
any time if they were offered a place
in an orchestra. Conductors were uncertain
how to treat them – were they professional
musicians or students? By 1972 the BBC
decided it could no longer afford to
maintain an orchestra of 65/70 and decided
to reduce the orchestra to 35 and rename
it the Academy of the BBC and then in
1976, before the Enquiry started considering
how the preparation of musicians wanting
to play in orchestras might be improved,
the Academy of the BBC was disbanded.
Whilst
we were discussing how the situation
could be improved it was clear to me
that the orchestras were not going to
receive sufficient additional funding
in the foreseeable future that would
allow them to pay their musicians substantially
higher salaries. However, I could see
no reason why something should not be
done to create a post-conservatoire
or university course that would provide
the opportunities for orchestral preparation
everyone agreed was required.
I therefore
decided to prepare an outline for a
course for post-graduate students to
include the way it should be organised,
the staff required, the financial support
it would require and where it might
come from and give a copy to Robert
Ponsonby, Controller, Music, BBC, and
John Morton, General Secretary of the
Musicians’ Union, for their comments.
Now that the BBC scheme had been abandoned
the BBC and the MU were both ready to
support another initiative. For the
BBC it would be very much cheaper and
the MU hoped to ward off suggestions
from its members that it had allowed
the BBC to break its agreement. Ponsonby
and Morton responded well to my ideas.
I felt
that this scheme needed to be attached
to an organisation that could provide
a Diploma that would provide those students
who completed the course satisfactorily
with some credential to show their future
employers.
I went
to the House of Lords and told Lord
Vaizey of the plan and the approval
it had received from the BBC and the
MU. I asked him if he was able to suggest
an organisation to which the proposed
post-graduate course might be attached,
somewhere the education authorities
would approve and that could award a
diploma of worth. He immediately said
he would contact his friend Richard
Hoggart, Warden of Goldsmiths’ College,
University of London. Two weeks later
I met Dr Hoggart. His enthusiasm for
the project resulted in it being agreed
within a few weeks that the course should
be established at Goldsmiths’ College.
This
gave me sufficient confidence to propose
that the scheme be recommended in the
Gulbenkian Enquiry Committee report.
As might be expected there was considerable
opposition from some members of the
committee, especially representatives
of the music colleges who saw any scheme
as a rebuke to what they were offering.
There were also those who held the view
that the Youth Orchestras provided sufficient
experience for those who would later
go into the orchestral profession. They
did not understand that in a professional
orchestra the conductor/orchestra relationship
and the inter-personal relationships
between members is very different from
the short-term ‘holiday’ atmosphere
of a youth orchestra. Often, with minimum
rehearsal time or under pressure to
learn new repertoire, extremely blunt
and sometimes wounding criticism can
be experienced. It was preparation for
this that the proposed intensive year-long
course would seek to provide. This was
not in any way to diminish the value
of youth orchestras in giving so many
young musicians the joy of making music
together and sometimes taking part in
wonderful performances.
After
a considerable amount of discussion,
in the end there was sufficient support
for the Report to include the statement:
We
also understand that there is a possibility
that a post-diploma training scheme
for orchestral players may be established
in London at Goldsmiths’ College as
a result of talks now taking place between
representatives of the BBC, the Musicians’
Union, the ABO, the Arts Council and
certain educational interests. We think
a proposal along these lines is worthy
of support.
In July
1977, before the Report Training
Musicians had been published, the
Advanced Orchestral Training Working
Party was set up and while I was still
playing in the Philharmonia and Chairman
of its Council I was invited to be its
Secretary. The Working Party held its
first meeting on the 1st
August 1977 with 3 representatives from
Goldsmiths’ College and two each from
the BBC, ABO, MU and the Arts Council.
A year later in August 1978 the Working
Party was able to agree the Terms of
Reference and Membership for the Executive
committee of the National Centre for
Orchestral Studies (NCOS) and in September
an advertisement for the post of Director
of the NCOS was inserted in the usual
national Daily and Sunday newspapers
and periodicals. By November the many
applicants for the post had been reduced
to twelve and finally to four. When
the decision as to who should be appointed
had been decided a Press Conference
was held at the Royal Festival Hall.
My appointment
as the Director of the National Centre
for Orchestral Studies in December 1978
was exciting, but frightening. I had
been a professional clarinettist since
I was 17 – for 36 years –
and
now I was taking a leap into the unknown.
Once I stopped playing there would be
no way back. I have often been asked
over the last 25 years by acquaintances
when they learn I was a musician, ‘Don’t
you still play for your own pleasure?’
When I tell them that I don’t they are
surprised. I explain that a musician
is like an athlete. One has to be in
training – that is why however good
one is one has to keep practising. The
better one has been the less pleasant
it is to do it so much less well.
I hoped
that my experience on the MU committees
and as Chairman of the Philharmonia
would be of some use. Now I would have
to manage staff, be responsible for
the administration and budgeting and
make decisions about which conductors,
coaches and examiners to engage and
what programmes we should play. As Director
of the NCOS I would meet people and
become involved with music organisations
beyond my experience as a performer.
After
a month’s holiday with friends in San
Francisco I returned ready to embark
with enthusiasm on this wonderful opportunity
I had been given.
Chapter
22
