'.. he was a Harvard graduate who left a promising future in Gynaecology to become a composer.'
Wedged as I was between composers of note ('notes' surely, Ed.), it was impossible to ignore the involuntary wretching of Geraint Lewis to my right as Leroy Anderson's work reached its shuddering yet strangely worthless climax. During the interval, he politely blamed this on a rogue prawn he had consumed at a reception the previous evening. The whole dreadful experience did give pause for thought about the current state of music and the direction in which where the industry, composers and market are all heading.
If you apply the 'University Challenge Test', the omens are not good. Historical records do not go back far enough to note the last occasion on which a contestant ejaculated the correct answer to a classical music bonus. The gnomes who set the questions for the programme seem to have abandoned the subject altogether. To the obvious disgust of Paxman, all music bonuses are now pitched at an intellectual level somewhere between a laboratory rat and Gordon Brown. Would that his (Gordon Brown's, right? Ed.) knowledge of gold markets, insurance and the economy generally were matched by his near universal wisdom regarding the popular music combo, The Arctic Monkeys. Right on, Gordy!
A composer recently mentioned to me that he had visited his son's rooms at an Oxford college and had been shocked to discover that this second year undergraduate seemed to possess not a single book on music or any associated topics. Surveying the discs strewn across the floor in that carefree way the young have before they have to earn the money to buy the stuff, he could find just one containing classical music. It was a cover disc from the late Classic FM magazine and was, to his great sadness, unplayable as it had recently been used as an ashtray.
In his son's defence, he did mention that most students keep their music collection online and often use electronic texts for their studies. However, the scene hardly conjures up students reading widely in their chosen field and coming to a broad understanding.
So, the pessimist in me says, not much hope for the future, then. But surely the record companies themselves have some solace to offer? From here in fashionable Worcester Park, the record companies seem to be busily buying one another up and consolidating into an ever shrinking number of music production companies. Soon Philips, HMV, Sony, Deutsche Grammofon, Warners, Hyperion and Naxos will all be distant memories. The contents of their back catalogues will be cast onto the digital winds and offered for sale in disembodied, bleeding sound gobbets online from a single megasource.
This dismal prospect must to a certain extent be blamed on the classical music media; in particular, Classic FM. Time was when the music industry listened to Classic FM for light relief. Adverts for Alpine Salt interspersed sections of music which were, more often than not, incorrectly identified by the presiding media has-been. It was often apparent that despite the amiable chattiness, the DJ's had not a clue what they were talking about. The whole idea of playing individual movements from a symphony, string quartet or opera aria's seemed OK as it allowed you to catch your breath in between gaffs.
But how things changed. As the witless and ill-informed were removed from the broadcast side of things, they were replaced by presenters whose sucrose, syrupy approach to presenting resembled the bedside manner of Hannibal Lecter crossed with levels of sincerity and patronisation achieved previously only by politicians and their familiars.
But hey! Who am I to bitch on about this? The listeners love it especially the blue-rinse brigade. But accessing a new listenership comes at a hefty price. The music has suddenly been knocked into a subordinate role as it merely separates the sections of vacuous effusiveness from the 'nice young men' who present. Across the chintz-upholstered retirement homes of the South, the scene is played out:
Joyce: Betty do come and listen it's that nice young man on the wireless talking about music.
Betty (confused): I don't know who you mean. Is he a musician?
Joyce: No, dear, no. He used to be on BBC doing the gardening. Oh! What's his name?
Betty (even more confused): Then why's he talking about music if he's a gardener? It's not Monty Don, is it?
Joyce: No dear; no. You know him, Betty. You like him. He wrote that book.
Betty: He sounds multi-talented. We had a gardener like that once. He was very good with his hands.
Joyce: Oh, hush now, dear. There playing another 20 seconds of a piece by that nice man, John Rutter. Oh! What a surprise! It's in C major...
Betty: John Rutter's a composer, dear. Not a gardener.
Joyce: Nurse!
But deep in the bowels of the BBC Radio 3, something stirs. No, it's not an unchecked news story about a celebrity. It's the BBC Radio 3 Emulation Unit going about its business. If bleeding chunks of music ripped from the still quivering corpse of a Mozart symphony works for Classic FM, then BBC Radio 3 will, as the expression goes, 'fill its boots'. Imperceptibly at first, sections of music were broadcast just to fill the time available ( a bit like CBeebies but without the intellectual content); now the practice has spread across the BBC Radio 3 schedule like syphilis through the brothel-attending public of seventeenth century Venice. Unless this unspeakable evil is stopped, classical music broadcasting in this great country will be reduced to the state of multi-storey car park lift music (obviously without the smell of urine).
It's a scary prospect but the whole thing comes full circle. Generations of students with attention spans stunted by excessive computer use will be incapable of conceiving of a work longer than three or four minutes. Composers will write 'to a market' just to get any airtime at all. Online music stores will refuse to sell pieces which last longer than six minutes because of the download speed implications. Farewell the Brahms symphony! Adieu Bruckner, Mahler, Beethoven and the rest. In the future, if you want to download a symphony, it's William Boyce or nothing!
But just when all before me seems bleak, I bump into Rob Cowan's elocution coach. He reveals to me the classical music market of the future in all its complexity. It's true, he confirms, competing classical labels and retained artists and ensembles may be things of the past. But there is hope. Musical ensembles, disappointed with years of negativity from the shrinking, reorganising record labels, have grabbed the initiative. Not content with just making the music they are now making the recordings, packaging and marketing them digitally. There are some stinkers out there but most offerings are suprisingly competent and some very good. Perhaps, the music graduates of the future will find themselves looped by performers in the business of getting recordings to the consumer. Depressed? They probably will be. But the good news is, they will only be depressed for six minutes. If they pitch it right, their episode of depression might get broadcast on Classic FM.
