Rattle’s rant: why British music matters
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It isn’t often that a classical musician makes the front page of both the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian. But last week, that was Sir Simon Rattle’s luck. It wasn’t for the remarkable performance of Mahler’s 7th Symphony he gave with the London Symphony Orchestra, but for a 5-minute speech he gave before that. With this short intervention, Sir Simon denounced the cuts that had been made in the classical music sector. For that, he traded his customary debonair demeanour for a serious, worried and at times angry tone. What prompted “Rattle’s rant”?
As a part-time musician myself, I share his concerns about the state of classical music in this country. Having played in France, Germany, and Switzerland in the past few months, I can see that a tightening of the belt is happening everywhere, and although it doesn’t fill me with joy, I can understand it. We have just gone through a pandemic; the NHS is in continuous crisis; inflation is higher than for many years. People are having to pay more for food and fuel, or even to choose which one to favour over the other. In this context, subsidising the performance of symphonies and operas cannot be on top of the priority list.
However, it should be clear that if the country’s best arts institutions are dismantled during difficult times, they won’t be back once the economy is back and running. It has taken decades for them to become world-class, but if we are not careful these ensembles could all crumble within a few years.
In other countries, I have observed a wish to preserve a rich cultural heritage, even if compromise and sacrifice have been necessary as we steer through difficult times. The National Opera in Paris, for instance, called off a European tour, as the funds weren’t sufficient. Similarly, the Opera in Lyon cancelled a few performances and will close between July and August. Unprecedented? Probably, but the increased cost of energy and the slow recovery of audiences since the pandemic are also markers of unprecedented times in which running an opera house is proving tricky. However, unlike the UK, France and Germany have not seen the existence of any of their flagship musical institutions threatened, as the BBC Singers and the English National Opera, to name just two, already have been.
Such institutions, unfortunately, require external funding; they always have done and they always will. In the distant past, funding lay in the hands of the aristocracy or the wealthiest in society. Such private philanthropy still plays a role, especially in the United States, but in the UK it is public funding that has allowed wider audiences to visit opera houses and concert halls. If public funding for the arts were to disappear, classical music might become the preserve of a small elite only. It is funding from the Arts Council that has allowed the ENO to give out free tickets to all under 25s, and similarly, it is the BBC’s support for classical music throughout the last century that has allowed for cheap tickets at the Proms. This vibrant musical scene has contributed to the cultural powerhouse that is the UK. This is one sector where we truly are “world-beating”, but even that now seems to be fading.
It is undeniable that classical music and opera are, like other arts, too heavily centred around London. As part of any sensible “levelling-up” agenda, important cultural institutions should be encouraged to move out of London. This is why moving an institution such as the ENO, a world-class opera company, to a part of the country that hasn’t benefited from the support the capital has is an idea that we should all welcome with open arms. However, that is different from telling the ENO that unless it relocates within the next year, its funding will be scrapped. The cultural development of other parts of the country should not be seen as a punishment, or else it will fail. Like so much of “levelling-up”, if done to make headlines rather than to enrich the country, it will actually result in serious levelling down, sending the message that other cities don’t deserve the quality that London enjoys.
Classical music is unavoidably “elitist”, insofar as it requires highly trained professionals, with expensive instruments or carefully cultivated voices. However, the results do not have to be enjoyed only by a social “elite”: the tragic beauty of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde or the glorious optimism of Beethoven’s Ninth speaks to all, across time, age and class. This in itself is a reason to make such music accessible to the greatest possible number, without compromising on the highest quality. When a strong classical music tradition is supported thoughtfully, it provides the basis for a rich cultural life, where pinnacles of human achievements are for all to experience. Sadly, when such a strong tradition is lost, it is hard to retrieve. Sir Simon Rattle had good reason to vent his frustration: not just about individual musicians and singers losing their jobs, but about this country losing some of its finest and most irreplaceable cultural institutions.
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