The musicians who had recently joined
the orchestra, from the US, Britain and the Philippines were finding
that the cost of housing was so high that they suffered financial
hardship and this had led to various ‘deals’ having been arranged
creating conflict within the orchestra itself, some musicians feeling
that they were not being treated as well as others.
Coming from outside Hong Kong and
with some reputation as a trouble-shooter the Committee allowed
me to give them rather a hard time. The first thing they had to
do was to recognise that they could not manage the orchestra themselves.
Their task was to appoint the right people within the management
structure, try out a number of guest conductors before appointing
a principal conductor, or if the right person could be found – they
are very rare – a musical director. He should not be involved in
the management of the orchestra, as at present, and only be concerned
with musical matters. I persuaded the Committee that for the next
nine months they should give John Duffus the chance to do his job
without interference (I was confident that he could), engage a librarian
and an orchestral manager and regularise the pay structure on a
much fairer basis.
In most countries the members of
orchestras belong to a Union or Association of some kind that conducts
negotiations on fees, conditions and complaints on their behalf.
This was impractical in Hong Kong as virtually all the professional
musicians were in the HKPO or those used to supplement the orchestra.
I suggested that a proper orchestral committee be formed. There
had been a committee of sorts but no defined pathway between it
and the management. This had led as always to the situation getting
out of hand and turning into a public wrangle. A small committee
should be elected by the members of the orchestra to meet the General
Committee on a regular basis, at least three times a year and these
meetings should not be seen only as an opportunity for expressing
discontent. Rather, they should be the way in which players and
management could learn more about each other’s problems, aspirations
and intentions. The orchestra should be encouraged to make recommendations
and feel that they and their employers were engaged in a joint enterprise
to make the orchestra and its performances as good as possible.
Finally, and essential for the future,
better opportunities for local players must be created. Much improved
instrumental teaching was needed – they should use the best players
in the orchestra (mainly American) – and they should give as many
Hong Kong musicians as possible encouragement to join the orchestra.
Because the salaries for Chinese players was so low the best local
players were leaving for better-paid employment elsewhere.
For the next few years I was retained
in a rather informal way as a consultant. I was surprised (and delighted
because it is so infrequent) that nearly all the recommendations
I made in my report were implemented.
The Chinese Orchestra
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
was not the only orchestra in Hong Kong. For the Urban Council the
Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra was probably more important. The first
large folk instrument ensemble, The Broadcasting Company of China
Chinese Folk Orchestra (now the China Broadcasting Chinese Orchestra),
was created in China in 1935 and emulated the Western symphony orchestra.
By the time the Hong Kong Chinese
Orchestra was established in 1977 the instruments included both
traditional and modernised Chinese instruments that could now play
a chromatic scale, as well as a few suitable western instruments.
As well as arrangements of folk melodies the repertoire consisted
of many new compositions, overtures, symphonies and concertos, often
based on traditional melodies but increasingly using western harmonic
and rhythmic techniques.
The orchestra is extremely popular
and an important part of the musical life of Hong Kong. Some idea
of the interest in traditional Chinese instruments is illustrated
by two remarkable events. In 2001 there was a mass performance by
1000 erhu players of Music for a Thousand Strings and
then in 2003 three thousand Hong Kong citizens came together to
play a drum piece The Earth shall Move.
The instruments in a Chinese orchestra
are divided into four sections: bowed strings, plucked strings,
wind and percussion. Until the Chinese orchestra was created music
in China was normally played by small groups or by solo instrumentalists
following an oral tradition and using the pentatonic scale. Unlike
the usual folk groups the members of a Chinese orchestra sit in
a semi-circle and follow a conductor and play from written music.
Whereas the normal ensembles would have only one of each instrument,
the orchestra has numbers of each of the string bowed and plucked
instruments.
In China with its many regional
music traditions, thousands of years old, there are hundreds of
different instruments made from a great variety of materials: metal,
stone, clay, skin, silk, wood, gourd and bamboo. The instruments
mainly used in the Chinese orchestra include several two-stringed
bowed instruments of various sizes: the erhu and banhu
(both roughly violin pitch), zhonghu (viola pitch),
gehu and digehu (cello and bass); the plucked strings are the
beautiful pipa (or piba), a lute and the ruan,
another lute, round like a banjo, but beautifully crafted and with
a delicate tone; there are also two dulcimers, the yangqin,
played with two bamboo sticks and the zheng.
The wind instruments are the suona,
made of wood with a metal bell and a double-reed, a loud instrument,
and two kinds of bamboo flute, the transverse dizi, and the
end-blown xiao. Both these instruments come in several sizes.
The sheng, in the West often called the Chinese mouth organ,
has been known for more than 3,000 years and is one of the oldest
Chinese musical instruments. It usually has between 13-17 bamboo
pipes of different lengths, each with a free reed made of brass,
all mounted on a base which is traditionally a gourd-shaped, wooden
wind-chest. Music is produced by blowing and sucking the air through
a metal tube connected to the base. By virtue of its construction,
this instrument is capable of playing up to six notes simultaneously..
From the base the air is blown through the pipes and the player
decides the notes to be played by pressing keys near the base. By
covering two or more holes on various pipes, chords can be played,
a technique used in most Chinese folk orchestras.
The traditional Chinese percussion
instruments include gongs of many sizes, cymbals, bells and chimes
made of clay, stone or metal; clappers and temple blocks and many
kinds and sizes of drums. The modern Chinese orchestra can now also
include as many of the percussion instruments used in a symphony
orchestra as the composer wishes.
There are now similar orchestras
to those in Hong Kong and China in Singapore, Taiwan, Australia,
the USA and Canada; sometimes two orchestras will join together
as the Symphonisches Orchester Zürich and the China Broadcasting
Orchestra did to perform the East West Symphony. The modernisation
of traditional Chinese instruments required by the China Broadcasting
Orchestra in 1935 started the process by which Chinese music and
Chinese instruments are now used in pop music and are a popular
part of World Music. The instruments and style of performance have
been westernised and commercialised in the same way as so much folk
music has been.
Continuing my visits to conservatoires
It is only a two hour flight from
Hong Kong to Shanghai, but whereas in Hong Kong the shops were full
and the roads frequently traffic-jammed with buses and cars, in
Shanghai and Beijing in 1987 there were far fewer shops and very
few cars. I remember only a few big Mercedes taxis and when we were
in one it was hair-raising. The taxi-drivers threaded their way
with astonishing skill within inches of the thousands of bicycles,
sometimes with more than one rider. Frequently a small trailer will
have been attached, often rather dilapidated, filled with vegetables,
or second-hand furniture, pots and pans and other household bits
and pieces, and even an elderly relative with their legs hanging
over the tailgate.
Though we had booked our flights
to and within China and made our own hotel arrangements in Beijing
and Shanghai, contrary to what we had been told to expect we were
never asked any questions and were able to roam freely in both cities.
As soon as the young people serving in the shops and hotels realised
we were English they were anxious to practise the English they had
studied and, to our surprise, were quite open in their criticism
of the current regime. The increasing criticism of the regime we
heard in 1987 escalated and finally resulted in the tragic and terrible
events in 1989 when the students demonstrated in Tiananmen Square.
On the Sunday we were in Beijing
I had no meetings and so we took the opportunity to do some sightseeing.
We hired a taxi at the hotel – it was not possible to hail one on
the street. If one was visiting several places it was necessary
to keep the taxi waiting at each place, perhaps for some time. We
first went to an enormous market, even bigger than the Flea market
in Paris. There were stalls selling everything – we bought a large
tablecloth and twelve napkins all covered in beautifully embroidered
strawberries for a fraction of what it would have cost in Britain.
We then visited Tiananmen Square, where our very obliging taxi-driver
took some photographs of us, one of me standing in front of a large
portrait of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and the Forbidden City (now called
the Palace Museum). The Forbidden City, where an extraordinary collection
of many thousands of wonderful works of art, paintings, ceramics
and porcelain of the utmost delicacy, begun in the 10th century,
had been housed for five hundred years until the Japanese invaded
China in 1931, was now open to the public, though nearly entirely
empty. To preserve it the entire collection had first been moved
to Nanjing, then to Shanghai and then on to a remote village in
the south. In 1949 when it was captured by the army of Chang Kai
Shek, all but 700 items out of this enormous collection were packed
into ten thousand crates and as Chang’s army was forced to retreat
from mainland China it was finally shipped to Taipei in Taiwan.
In the evening we went to a concert
of Chinese music to which we had been invited by the Director of
the British Council in Beijing. This was the real thing; not a Chinese
orchestra, but a number of groups of four or five musicians and
individual soloists and singers playing and singing traditional
folk music as it had been played for hundreds of years. A delightful
end to a wonderful day.
My visits to the conservatoires
and orchestras in Shanghai and Beijing were extremely interesting
and, again, surprising. I was told by the Director of the Shanghai
Conservatory of Music and several professors that during the Mao
regime it was forbidden for them to teach western instruments or
play western music. They were not dismissed, nor did they cease
to receive their salaries. But they were obliged to come to the
conservatory every day to be lectured on the iniquity of their former
ways and to be instructed in the basics of the communist philosophy.
When I met them they were again teaching their instruments as they
had done before Mao’s injunction. The general standard of the students
in both conservatoires was technically good, but their performances
often seemed to lack any real understanding of the music. In Shanghai
I was invited by Chen Xie-Yang, conductor and Music Director of
the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, to a rehearsal and then to a recording
session the orchestra was doing that afternoon. The orchestra was
not yet up to the standard of professional orchestras in the West.
There were some good players, especially in the strings, but too
many of the members of the woodwind and brass sections were not
really quite good enough. Xie-Yang, who also conducted in Beijing,
arranged for me to meet the conductor of the symphony orchestra
of the Central Philharmonic Society, Han Zhong-jie, and to attend
one of his rehearsals when I was in Beijing. This was a better orchestra,
probably comparable with one of the BBC’s less good regional orchestras
in the 1950s.
We would have liked to have been
able to stay in China for longer. We found the people extremely
friendly and though we knew only one word in Chinese, ‘Kne-howe’
(that is how we pronounced it), meaning ‘Hello’ or ‘Good day’, we
managed by gesture and in one way or another to communicate with
people in what felt like a very relaxed atmosphere in both Shanghai
and Beijing. I was invited to listen to some young musicians in
their homes and found that the living conditions were, by our standards,
quite appalling. A typical flat consisted of two small rooms and
a tiny kitchen. The communal bathroom and toilet facilities were
shared with perhaps five or six other flats. Each of these very
small apartments with such limited space might be shared by three
generations; the husband and wife, their children and their own
parents.
When we arrived in Japan we were
to find that everything was very different. As our taxi hurtled
towards Tokyo from the airport, surrounded by large cars – no bicycles
here – the meter recording the cost of our journey also hurtled
forward. I wondered how long our money would last out. In Beijing
the cost of a taxi for a whole morning had cost about £1.50. In
Tokyo that amount of money took us less than a mile. I had been
to Japan with the Philharmonia in 1970 when the orchestra took part
in Expo 70 in Osaka and then went on to Tokyo to do two more concerts.
Even then the Japanese were vying with America to be at the cutting-edge
of technology; by 1987 it seemed to me that they had achieved their
objective, and yet at the same time retained much of the old-world
values that had so impressed me when I was there in 1970.
Without doubt the three conservatoires
I visited while I was in Tokyo presented the greatest contrast with
those in Britain or any I had seen anywhere else. All three, Kunitachi
College of Music, the Toho Gakuen School of Music and the Musashino
Academia Musicae were privately owned and appeared to be extremely
wealthy. Each had its own beautiful concert hall, recording rooms
and equipment and excellent facilities for students. The Kunitachi
College of Music Library has a remarkable collection of Beethoven
scores that includes more than a hundred original editions and a
number of manuscripts. A framed copy of a manuscript letter in Beethoven’s
hand, which I was given, has a prominent place in my music room.
The Musashino Academia has a very large museum of 3000 musical instruments
from all over the world. As well as a separate piano museum and
collection of European instruments there are collections from Africa,
Asia, the Middle East, Latin-America and Japan. The Toho Gakuen
School concentrated on inviting outstanding composers and performers
such as Aaron Copland, Henri Dutilleux and Heinz Holliger. More
recently in 2001 the Maazel/Vilar conducting competition was held
at the School, using the college orchestra.
At all three I was treated as
a visiting celebrity, fetched from my hotel and returned in the
biggest and most luxurious fitted cars I have ever been in, wined
and dined and shown the glories of each institution. This was very
enjoyable, but it was soon very clear that there was little chance
that we would attract any of their students to the NCOS. They sent
most of their best students, those destined to become soloists,
to the USA and a few to Germany. Those students who would become
orchestral musicians received considerable opportunities within
their own college orchestras.
My visit to Taipei, in Taiwan was
disappointing as far as recruiting students was concerned. When
I met Dr Chang, the Director of the Theatre and Concert Hall and
President of the National Taiwan Academy of Arts, it did not take
me long to realise that there were not yet any young musicians ready
to benefit from anything the NCOS had to offer. But while we were
in Taipei we had the opportunity to visit the National Palace Museum
where the treasures captured by Chang Kai Shek’s army in 1949 were
housed. The National Palace Museum had been built as an exact replica
of the Forbidden City in Beijing, where the treasures had been captured.
There we saw a wonderful display of part of the collection – only
a small part because it is so large that there is not sufficient
room to display it all at once. It is quite incredible that the
delicate Ming porcelain and other beautiful china ornaments, cups,
jugs and plates survived undamaged as they were transported so far
over land and sea by the retreating army.
Before returning to England we went
back to Hong Kong so that I could see how things had developed since
I was there in 1981 and cement the relationships I had made previously.
My first call was to the Music Office to meet the new secretary
of the Jockey Club, Mrs Ngai. She told me that the Hong Kong Academy
for the Performing Arts, which had only been at the discussion stage
in 1981, was now starting to accept students and that she had arranged
for me to meet Basil Deane and Angus Watson, the recently appointed
Principal, who would show me over the new building that was now
nearly finished. The following day I had the opportunity to inspect
what looked as if it would soon be ready. It was a fine building
and I looked forward in the coming years to a number of their students
applying to the NCOS and being supported by Jockey Club scholarships.
The manager of the Hong Kong Philharmonic
was now Stephen Crabtree who had been Principal Double Bass in the
LPO and an old colleague of mine. The orchestra was now well established
and its former troubles were forgotten. John Duffus the previous
manager with whom I had remained in contact since I had played a
part in helping him through a difficult time, was now a successful
agent managing concerts and theatrical tours throughout the region.
To celebrate the end of our travels
John Duffus took us for a fabulous Chinese meal on a Junk moored
in the bay where not only did we eat and drink well but saw a virtuoso
display of hand thrown noodles. The next day we set off on the long
flight home.
Back at the National Centre again
Three days after my return in March
it was time for the entrance auditions for the 1987/88 NCOS orchestra.
We were still unaware that events beyond our control would mean
that my travels had been too late to be of any lasting value and
that at the end of the 1988/89 course the NCOS would be obliged
to cease operating.
From the start it had been very
difficult for students who had been at a music college to obtain
a grant for a further year’s study at the NCOS. The courses at the
music colleges, which had formerly been for three years, had recently
been extended to four so that throughout the 1980s, as Local Authorities
experienced increasing financial restraint, it became even more
difficult. After five or six years the way in which the commercial
television companies had been organised changed and they were obliged
to substantially reduce the financial assistance they had been providing.
A year or so later it stopped altogether. The final blow was the
BBC’s decision that they could no longer afford to continue funding
the NCOS. In relation to the size of their overall budget the amount
they had been providing was minuscule, but its withdrawal was the
death of the NCOS. With only the money it was receiving from the
Musicians’ Union, some fees from a minority of students and one
or two private donations, it was impossible to continue.
There was also the problem that
though those musicians in the orchestras, who were also professors
at the music colleges, were happy to come and coach and constantly
told me how valuable they thought the course was, they were reluctant
to recommend their very best students to apply to join the course.
I understood their reluctance. After all, some 36 years previously
in 1942 aged 17, I had left the Royal College of Music to join the
Wessex Orchestra. Now I was myself a professor at the RCM and I
was suggesting to my pupils that it would, in 1979, be a good idea
to have this ‘one year in protected accommodation’. The standard
and conditions that prevailed in 1942 had given me the opportunity
to prepare myself so that in 1943 I was capable of holding down
the job in the LPO. Before about 1960 this is how most young musicians
gained experience in advance of joining one of the major orchestras:
by playing in small light orchestras, theatres and by providing
the ‘stiffening’ that most amateur orchestras required when they
gave a concert.
The reluctance a good many teachers
had was caused by their concern that if their pupils were not always
available to apply for an orchestral post as soon as it appeared
another opening might not come along. Unfortunately it was impossible
for students to obtain a grant, or even a partial grant unless the
NCOS made it a condition of the course that students must commit
themselves for the whole year. Nor would it have been possible to
run the orchestra if players were to be leaving – we did not have
any funds to replace them.
Between 1980 and 1990 the amount
of employment outside the pop industry continued to decline, and
has continued to do so since then. Nonetheless, most of those who
came to the NCOS did go on into the profession. I rarely go to a
concert, to the theatre or anywhere there is music – opera, ballet
or a musical – when I do not see a former NCOS student. Some of
my own RCM students came to the NCOS and are in various orchestras.
Now, in 2006, one is principal in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra,
and one who was Co-Principal Clarinet in the LSO is now Principal
in the Royal Opera House Orchestra. Other clarinettists who came
to the NCOS are now principals in the Stockholm Radio Orchestra,
the Malmo Philharmonic and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
This attempt to establish advanced
preparation for the orchestra probably failed because many of those
who could have made it possible believed that the Youth Orchestras
provided sufficient opportunities to gain orchestral experience.
Funds were found to enable the Youth Orchestras to go on overseas
tours and the National Youth Orchestra and European Youth Orchestra
were allowed to take part in the Proms, but the MU would not allow
the NCOS Orchestra to do so.
Naturally, everyone found the sight
and sound of the very young musicians exciting and felt that those
who had been at music college for four years should be ready to
take their place in the profession. Though the orchestra managements
did not think that the young musicians leaving music college were
ready, they wanted the best of both worlds – further preparation
for their orchestras, while at the same time being able to take
anyone they wanted from the course whenever they wanted to. In the
first year a few of the orchestra managements unwilling to wait
until their chosen player had completed the course tried to induce
them to leave. The young musicians, of course, wanted to start earning
as soon as they could. It may be that the existence and subsequent
demise of the NCOS did lead to the music colleges providing rather
more and better orchestral experience than they had previously.
The NCOS would probably be providing
the advanced education that many musicians still believe would be
valuable for the very best students leaving music colleges if the
grants for a further year’s study had been made available and there
had been sufficient money to replace students leaving the course.
In 1989 there was another attempt to create preparation for the
profession, not only in Britain but for young musicians throughout
Europe.
The considerable reduction in the
amount of free-lance work in broadcasting, recording and casual
concerts for orchestral musicians means that there is intense competition
for the few openings in the orchestras as well as in the free-lance
sector and only the most outstanding instrumentalists can gain a
foothold in the profession. Those that do are extremely gifted instrumentalists.
They have to learn very quickly how to respond to the demands and
pressures of life for an orchestral musician.
Competitions
As well as their concern for improved
preparation for orchestral musicians the 1977 Calouste Gulbenkian
committee spent a great deal of time considering music education
throughout the education system, in particularly the standard of
instrumental teaching at all levels. In their opinion there were
still not enough top class soloists being produced, even though
the 1965 Calouste Gulbenkian report Making Music had resulted
in a number of specialist schools being established in the years
following the Report – the Purcell, Chetham’s, Menuhin, Wells Cathedral
and St. Mary’s (in Scotland) schools. They felt 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.
Through my involvement in these
discussions I became much more informed about music education in
general even though I had learned quite a lot as a visiting lecturer
at Middlesex University. While at the NCOS I was invited to take
part in several forums on music education and to be a visiting speaker
at several universities and colleges of education. I was also asked
to be a member of the jury of a number of music festivals and competitions.
Two of the most important were the BBC Young Musician of the Year
and the Royal Overseas League.
The BBC hold preliminary auditions
for the Young Musician of the Year all over the country where a
great many young musicians are heard. I have only been involved
in the final two rounds for both these competitions. For the earlier
rounds there are juries for each category, keyboard, strings, woodwind,
brass, and in the BBC competition also for percussion. The winners
of each category then go on to the final, where they are pitted
against each other to produce an outright winner. At the final the
contestants must play a concerto with orchestra before an audience
as well as the judges.
By the mid-1980s the number and
variety of competitions had increased and has continued to do so.
There were competitions for composers, conductors, quartets and
for ensembles of all kinds – some for young performers, sometimes
very young, others for already established, or hoping to become,
established performers. The rewards varied considerably from relatively
small money prizes and trophies to awards that not only offered
much larger financial inducements but opportunities to perform in
major national and international venues. Whenever the question of
the value of competitions arose, as it increasingly did, it could
generate a good deal of heated discussion. As competitions continued
to proliferate an increasing rumble of discontent became apparent.
Not, as might have been expected, from the unsuccessful or disappointed,
but from distinguished performers and composers of national and
international renown.
The competition that attracted the
most critical attention at that time was the BBC Young Musician
of Year. The finals of this competition were shown on TV, and continue
to be. As a music programme they were undoubtedly popular with the
public, as they still are. For some years they attracted a viewing
audience second only to the Last Night of the Proms. It was the
size of the audience and the extent of the exposure to which these
very young musicians were (and still are) subjected that worried
many concerned musicians and teachers. The degree of publicity experienced
in the final rounds is greater than that to which even celebrated
artists at the peak of their careers are generally exposed. The
pressure to accept engagements subsequently is irresistible. The
effect this might have on young artists at a pre-conservatoire stage
and the unfortunate consequences this could cause was of most concern.
One of the first groups to complain
was the European String Teachers Association (ESTA). In its published
report the argument against competitions is put very strongly:
The notion of ‘winning and losing’
implies the possibility of measuring achievement in its most important
essentials. To allow the choice of a winner among many losers, it
is necessary to set a standard against which they can be judged.
Such a standard can only exist for simple, concrete attributes.
There is no problem about finding an acceptable standard for comparing
and making a judgement on the height of an object. If, however,
instead of height, we wish to judge relative grandeur, no form of
measurement is conceivable since too many intangible qualities are
involved.
In musical performance, the only
measurable attributes are aesthetically insignificant. In the unlikely
event of two listeners agreeing on the accuracy of a performance
in respect of pitch, rhythm and dynamic variation, this would still
leave out of account all the most important aspects of individual
interpretation, and so, in performance (as in music examinations)
the greater the accomplishment of the performer the less valid are
attempts at ‘grading’. The variety of performance in music is as
important as the variety of appearance and character in human beings.
Fashion, which plays such a deadening part in standardising appearance,
also attempts to lay down laws of the same kind for music, to standardise
interpretation. But art, like humanity, is individual and immeasurable
and the conclusion must be drawn that, in the sense of ‘winning
and losing’, artists cannot compete artistically.
The composer Alexander Goehr put
the anti-competition view even more forcefully. When asked what
he considered the essential characteristics of an ideal competition
he replied, ‘There are only un-ideal competitions. I cannot answer
as I am totally opposed to the competitive spirit in performance.’
Lady Evelyn Barbirolli, the conductor
Sir John Barbirolli’s widow, formerly an outstanding oboist and
then an adjudicator of a wide variety of events, expressed a very
different point of view. Though she did express some concern for
the effect over-exposure can have on performers of a tender age
as a result of winning some prestigious events, she said ‘I am in
favour of competitions. They are necessary, and like it or not,
they have become part of our musical life.’
Music in Time, published
by the Jerusalem Ruben Academy of Music and Dance asked several
famous international artists whether they thought there was a need
for competitions as a method of introducing artists to the public.
The composer and conductor Lucas Foss wrote: In former days the
teacher launched the young artist –then the manager. Now a manager
only takes you on if you have won a competition. And the cellist
Janos Starker, They are commercially important to accelerate
the careers of really exceptional talents. Isaac Stern, the
virtuoso violinist, felt that, ‘In recent years (he was responding
during the 1980s), unlike three or four decades ago, music competitions
have, regrettably, become something of a necessity in presenting
young talents to the international market. There has been such an
explosion of performing possibilities, longer seasons, and general
information available through radio and television that it has become
much more difficult to capture the attention of the potential public
and impresarios necessary to the young performer.’ He was then asked,
‘Can young artists really convey their abilities during competitions?’
‘The answer depends on comparison with their performances outside
the competitions. I personally could hardly have performed in the
tense atmosphere of a competition. Certain performers do play well
under these circumstances and yet fail to develop later when they
are on their own. Perhaps it is because of the enormous concentration
that they have given to the specific work demanded by the competition
to the exclusion of all else, and what may seem like outstanding
ability in general becomes particularised only for a certain series
of works that have been carefully prepared.’ The pianist Tamas Vasary
was more certain ‘Competitions suit the athletic types, less the
more introverted, sensitive types. Not all are able to show their
best in competition conditions.’
In an article in Classical Music
the production team responsible for the BBC competition responded
to the criticism levelled at that competition with considerable
vigour accusing their critics of a muddled attitude and having
consulted very few people either inside or outside the profession
and having consulted nobody who had participated recently in any
of the competitions they criticised. (though one of their production
team was on the ESTA group that published the report Music Competitions).
The BBC production team accused ESTA of having ‘a fundamental
flaw – they started with their conclusions already formed and wrote
the report to justify them’.
As a member of the National Music
Council throughout the 1980s I was involved in several seminars
the Council organised. The debate about the value or otherwise of
competitions was still raging and in 1987 the Council decided that
it should organise a seminar on this topic; a sub-committee was
formed and I was elected chairman. My own feelings about competitions
have always been somewhat ambivalent. On the one hand I feel very
like Tamas Vasary, perhaps because whenever I have been put under
that kind of pressure I have been conscious of my father listening
and finding my performance inadequate. On the other hand, the force
of the practical response from Lady Barbirolli and Isaac Stern seemed
to make good sense.
In my opinion competitions for young
musicians, up to the age of 18, all playing the same instrument,
with the minimum amount of media attention, or competitions for
those who have already embarked on a professional career, such as
the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, when publicity
for those taking part will be valuable, should be encouraged. There
are a number of competitions where musicians, still at school, playing
a variety of instruments, at times even including singers, are pitted
against each other. How does one judge the virtues of a violinist
playing a wonderful work such as the Brahms’ Concerto against those
of a trombonist playing the attractive, but light-weight, Larssen
Concerto, or between the qualities of a pianist offering the Beethoven
‘Emperor’ Concerto and a flautist playing the Ibert Flute Concerto?
Should judges assess candidates
only on how they perform on the day or is potential more important?
When Ginette Neveu was 16 and David Oistrakh 27 they both took part
in the Wieniawski Competition; Oistrakh came 1st and Neveu 2nd.
Does it make sense to grade artists of this calibre? Imagine if
one had to decide between artists of this standard on different
instruments.
By May 1988 a National Music Council
seminar titled Good Practice in Competitions had been arranged
with a panel of speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds: performers,
competition winners, adjudicators, teachers, competition organisers
and sponsors. The flyer for the event stated: In the afternoon
those attending the seminar will also have the chance to express
their views on a subject upon which most musicians and those concerned
with music have very determined opinions. Neither the opportunity
to hear what Peter Donohoe, John Carol Case, Lady Barbirolli, the
organisers of some of the major competitions – including those organised
by the BBC and the Royal Overseas League, nor the opportunity for
everyone attending to air their own views, proved to be an inducement.
Though the event had been widely publicised and was to take place
on a Saturday in a central London venue, it had to be cancelled.
Only three tickets had been purchased!
Why had there been no response from
all those who had been expressing either their hostility or support
for competitions so vociferously? I decided to write a letter for
publication in the Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) journal
of a kind that I hoped would stir up some controversy. This time
there was absolutely no response at all. Perhaps there are too many
vested interests for anything to change very much?
Had the seminar taken place the
Council had intended to issue a report that it hoped might become
a useful guide to all those interested in this important aspect
of contemporary musical life. In 1990 Rhinegold, the publishers
of the journal Classical Music decided to enclose a copy
of a lecture originally given the previous year by Peter Renshaw,
then Gresham Professor of Music, who had previously been the Principal
of the Yehudi Menuhin School for nine years. He called his lecture
Competitions and Young Musicians; the place of competitions in
the personal and musical development of young people. He was
strongly opposed to the way competitions were organised and presented
two views of these events – a ‘Marketing/Commercial’ model and an
‘Artistic/Educational’ model. The latter as expressed in his lecture
is idealistic and full of very good suggestions as to how it might
be done, but, sadly, quite unrealistic.
‘The utilitarian marketing model’,
he said, ‘reflects the values of a tough entrepreneurial world which
sees competitions as a sporting contest in which a potential ‘star’
wins. The form of life which underpins this model contains many
of the features associated more with the world of marketing: for
example, corporate sponsorship wanting a readily identifiable return
on its investment, through which a company can promote a ‘winner’
and raise its public profile by being seen to promote the arts.
In its strongest form this model is amenable to media hype and as
such it can distort the nature and content of a competition.’ He
goes on, ‘It could be argued, perhaps rather cynically, that by
mirroring the tough realities of the market place, in which the
‘‘survival of the fittest’’ becomes the central guiding principal,
this marketing model performs an invaluable service to the public,
the sponsor and the performer alike.’
Renshaw suggested, and my own experience
leads me to believe he was correct, that the conservatoires were
over-producing professional musicians, so that competitions could
be seen as a useful social mechanism controlling entry into the
upper echelons of the profession. He said ‘This might appear harsh,
but there is no doubt in my mind that some teachers in some institutions
are driven by a kind of ‘killer instinct’ which is then caught by
the more ruthlessly determined student.’
Now, fifteen years later, in the
Classical Music Guide to Music Competitions 2005, there are
over 250 music competitions listed. In an environment even more
commercially driven than when Renshaw gave his lecture, it is only
the ruthless student, soloist, chamber music player or orchestral
musician, that will survive. The pressures that so many are now
experiencing is felt as keenly by musicians. There are those, and
I include myself in their number, who, while recognising that competition
can play an important part in increasing technical skills, regret
the loss of sensitivity and individuality it so often causes.
Chapter 23
back to previous
page
