John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point
When Beecham dashed off to America within a couple of weeks of war breaking out he left behind his London Philharmonic without too much concern for its survival. Together with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the LPO shared the title of ëbest orchestraí in the country. But, whereas the LPO was made up of freelance players, with no obligations on Beechamís part to engage any of them for an agreed amount of work, the BBC had over 100 musicians on its books with contracts and pension funds and all the trappings of security made possible by the State.
After the war when Beecham came back to pick up where he had left off he found ëhisí orchestra had become ëtheirí orchestra, for the players had formed themselves into a workersí co-operative in imitation of the LSO. As a limited company the LPOís players were also its shareholders and they were in no mood to be told by a former benefactor, who many felt had betrayed them, who could and who could not play with them. So, having flirted with Walter Legge and his brand-new Philharmonia, Beecham did what he always did at such times, he formed another orchestra, this time the Royal Philharmonic, forgetting to mention to anyone that on his death the use of the title would die with him!
In 1946 it was still possible to start an orchestra and, with luck and a small amount of spare cash, run it profitably. The LPO and the LSO continued to pay dividends to their shareholding players until taking the new Arts Councilís shilling in the late 1940s and becoming registered charities.
This story may come from another age, but it does show how far we have come in 60 years from a time when orchestras were still seen as being transient, coming and going with the conductors who formed them or with the engagement for which they had been assembled and all subject to the takings at the box-office. In other words, they functioned within a market for their music.
Today, with one or two exceptions, the orchestral music scene is transfixed by great billets of steel. No Beechams (if we have any) even think of forming an orchestra. Instead their agents charge extraordinary fees to the Stateís creatures, the permanent orchestras which send the bills to the Arts Council. Until recently these fees were argued to be worthwhile as the conductors of the London orchestras, at least, were expected to bring recording contracts with them. Today, the justification is the infamous need for ëa world-class orchestra to have world-class conductorsí, whatever that means.
Where, before the State reduced the value of great music by making it freely available (indeed, in many cases literally so) orchestras gave a handful of concerts during a brief winter season. The notion that players would be members of huge, top-heavy organisations stuck on playing Mahler every week of the year would have been laughed at because the money was not available to be thrown away so foolishly. We are having wall-to-wall Shostakovich, with the CBSO for one desperately trying to paper over the swathes of empty seats in Symphony Hall because few people actually want that amount of the great Soviet masterís works in so concentrated a span. Had it been their money, would the orchestraís management have gone through with the project once they realised their shirts were at risk? I donít think so.
Today, concerts are put on by State-supported orchestras because that is what they do. Not because they need to satisfy a demand from audiences, but because of the burning desire of the players to stay in work and because the State will increase its grants whenever one of the national icons announces its imminent death.
This is the world of the Soviet sewing-machine company which made machines no one wanted, but which still met its norms (an old Communist word for New Labourís targets) by sending the machines off to be recycled for the company to make into yet more sewing machines. Everyone was happy as the manufacturer and the recycling company had all hit their targets. Only the consumers were fed-up because they never saw the machines or didnít want them when they did.
The Soviet Union collapsed through its failure to recognise the real world. Our orchestral world is falling apart for the same reason: unless one is cynical enough to believe that the world of committees and councils and grants and undertakings is now the real world. When an orchestra is run by an ëadministratorí or a ëChief Executiveí it is artistically moribund. Beecham championed modern music, the works of Delius and Sibelius and they are still with us today. The last great work of serious music to command widespread interest was Brittenís War Requiem and that was over forty years ago.
Which state-supported orchestra has made a point of commissioning new works that might appeal to audiences in the thousands and tens of thousands? Donít say the BBCSO. Thirty years ago I had several meetings with Robert Ponsonby when he was in charge of the BBCís music output and he claimed that the vast majority of the players of the BBCSO loved playing challenging music. I had a close friend in the orchestra at the time, Jack Gorowski a violinist I had known since childhood, so I asked him how many of his colleagues loved performing the avant-garde. He thought for a moment or two and said three. Out of a 100 players there were three who actively enjoyed playing it.
To be honest, even had Robert been right in his belief, it would not have helped if the audiences didnít like what they heard. Concerts should be mounted for audiences not for the players. Obviously it is wonderful when the players enjoy a concert, but that should not be the driving force. It is the fact that orchestras have no new repertoire to play with the broad appeal of even 40 years ago, let alone 60 or 70 that should worry us. It certainly shows how unlike the cinema or the theatre serious music has become. Both the stage and the cinema depend on new works. Can anyone seriously imagine that the theatre would have survived on a diet of Bernard Shaw or Ibsen or the cinema on silent masterpieces or Greta Garbo?
So the BBC model won after all and the LPO model lost. Until, or unless, these great barriers to change and opportunity are deprived of their funding we must accept that the very lifeblood of music as Art has dried on the corpse of a once-living entity that drew oxygen from the unlikeliest sources.
Views expressed in “Talking Points” are
not necessarily agreed with or shared by The Classical Source.
Previous Talking Points
Idiocy
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point [click
here to read]
Music for Children?
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point [click
here to read]
Another Concert Hall Blight?
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point [click
here to read]
A Spliced Creation
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point [click
here to read]
A Fair Field?
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queenís Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, poses another Talking Point [click
here to read]
Orchestras in the UK
John Boyden, Artistic Director of the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, and formerly the first Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, argues for a change in how orchestras are funded [click
here to read]