The Institut de Recherche et
Coordination Acoustique et Musique (IRCAM)
In Paris in the 1970s President George
Pompidou invited Boulez to create and direct IRCAM and provided the
funds and suitable accommodation for it within the newly built Pompidou
Centre. Boulez’s objective was to bring science and art together in
order to widen instrumentation and rejuvenate musical language. He
made certain that one of the organisation’s major objectives would
be the interface of computer technology and acoustic performance and
he therefore encouraged composer/performer collaboration at various
stages of the creative process. The software IRCAM has developed for
sound modelling, transformation, and synthesis has been designed for
use with instrumentalists and singers as the sound input for music
compositions
Because of his own compositional methods
and those of a number of his contemporaries Boulez was the first,
as early as the mid-nineteen fifties to propose that orchestras should
be reorganised. The normal layout of the ‘romantic’ 19th century orchestra
was no longer suited to the very different assembly of instruments
composers now required. For example: a score might not require any
violins and violas, but call for considerably more brass or woodwind
instruments than are found in the normal symphony orchestra. Or the
score might require only one flute but call for six clarinets (including
an Eb, a bass and a contra-bass clarinet), two cor anglais and a contra
bassoon. At times a composition would require no more than about 25
or 30 of the players in a normal symphony orchestra and at others
a far larger number divided into two or three separate ensembles.
In 1968, in a lecture, Boulez was
already putting forward the notion that ‘the orchestra should be
replaced by a kind of consortium of performers drawn on for ad hoc
purposes. All that is very easy to say; and it is true that solutions
of this kind can well be imagined … (and of course) there is an economic
factor in music, and this factor always tells in favour of conservatism.
By this I mean that in any organisation qualified for an activity
of this kind it is very difficult to persuade people – simply from
the point of view of intrinsic organisation – that things can be organised
differently without creating major problems in any well-regulated
economy.’
IRCAM has three primary missions:
to promote both the creation and the development of contemporary repertoire
by commissioning new works and performing them regularly; to increase
the audience for the music of 20th and 21st centuries, through a diffusion
policy which features a season of concerts in Paris, as well as international
tours and audio-visual recordings; to contribute to training and professional
placement for young musicians, instrumentalists, conductors and composers
through workshops and score-reading sessions.
The instrumentation of IRCAM’s Ensemble
Intercontemporaine comprises thirty-one soloists (two flutes,
two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, two French
horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, three percussion, three
keyboards, harp, three violins, two violas, two cellos, contrabass).
Except that it has a very small string section it remains to the present
day very much like many chamber ensembles that only play the classical,
romantic and early 20th century repertoire.
The Future for Symphony Orchestras
The financial problems facing the
costly, labour-intensive symphony orchestras everywhere, especially
in Britain, the demands by the critics for the performance of more
contemporary music and the increasing dominance of pop music on the
air-waves and recordings, were by 1980 beginning to cause some concern.
When, in 1985, the NCOS Orchestra was invited to play at the XVII
International Society for Music in Education (ISME) Conference in
Innsbruck I was asked to deliver a paper. I decided that the question
of the symphony orchestra’s future was important and was a topic on
which I might be able to make a useful contribution.
Even though Boulez had tried while
in charge of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra to effect some changes, he had – as he had predicted – been
unsuccessful. As a former orchestral musician, and at that time Director
of the NCOS preparing young musicians for a profession that was already
recruiting far fewer musicians than the number of students who were
at conservatoires all wanting to become orchestral musicians, I was
naturally more concerned about their future than Boulez had been.
He wanted to create the conditions that would make it possible for
the performance of new compositions that the rigidity of conventional
symphony orchestra does not allow.
I chose as the subject for my talk
‘The Symphony Orchestra: into the 21st century’. I thought that in
this forum of educators it might be possible to bring my ideas to
those who in their turn might influence younger musicians to consider
how the symphony orchestra might be reorganised so as to become sufficiently
flexible to respond to the demands of present-day composers.
The repertoire of the symphony orchestras
was also being restricted by the ‘baroque’ orchestras playing the
music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven in what they claimed to be the
historically ‘authentic’ style of performance, on the kind of instruments
that would have been available when their compositions were written.
The idea that perhaps the music of later composers, Liszt, Brahms
and Tchaikovsky should be played on instruments still in their time
less perfected than those now available was being contemplated. The
music of the period before the rise of the orchestra as we have known
it from about the time of Haydn was also becoming more popular.
At the same time young musicians,
especially the best of them, were increasingly preferring the freedom
of expression that playing ‘chamber music’ provided. Not only in string
quartets and the like, but in string, wood-wind, brass, percussion
and mixed ensembles of various sizes, playing baroque, classical,
romantic and contemporary music. Quite often they performed in venues
other than those normally associated with concert giving: hospitals,
old people’s homes and prisons, as well as for music clubs.
At the Conference I put forward the
idea that the orchestra should become a ‘resource centre’: a much
larger group of musicians who would have the opportunity of playing
a number of different kinds of music in various sized ensembles. It
should no longer be necessary to decide to play in an orchestra and
have little or no chance of playing chamber music: nor should those
choosing to play chamber music be denied the delight of playing the
great orchestral repertoire. And this resource centre should also
include composers. Some might be composers-in-residence, as we had
at the NCOS, others might also want to play in the orchestra or an
ensemble. Their compositions could be tried out, with experiments
and changes made in circumstances where there would be no risk to
their reputation. Nor would there be the cost of rehearsals and mounting
a public performance which might attract only a small audience. Within
the area in which the ‘centre’ was resident those who wished to teach
could provide advanced tuition in whatever branch of music they had
expertise.
The Wheatland Foundation
The following year, 1986, I was invited
to be a participant in another conference. This was to be organised
by the Wheatland Foundation, which had been founded in the previous
year by Ann Getty and Lord Weidenfeld to support programmes in the
arts and the humanities. Ann Getty’s husband, Gordon Getty, was then
the head of Getty Oil, which he had just sold that year to Texaco
for 10 billion dollars. He was also a classical music composer. This
may be why the Foundation’s first conference, held in Venice, had
been about the future for opera. Jerusalem had been chosen to be the
venue for this conference. It was to consider the future for the symphony
orchestra.
Those of us from London flew to Jerusalem
by El-Al, the Israeli air-line, in the kind of comfort I had not experienced
before (nor have I since). My wife and I had three times as much space
as is normally provided on Business class or that I have seen walking
through First class. We each had a large armchair and there was another
one between us on which they placed the tray when they served us a
splendid lunch. On arrival at Jerusalem airport we were whisked away
by taxi to the King David Hotel. Our room, overlooking the Old City,
was extremely large and luxurious and when we arrived we found a large
bowl of strawberries and a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket awaiting
us. The next four days were spent in similar conditions and included
a traditional Friday Shabat Dinner with the ebullient Mayor of Jerusalem
Teddy Kollick, an Arab-style Dinner where we were seated on floor
cushions and served by waiters in traditional costume, a splendid
meal in the Dormition Abbey and finally a grand Farewell Dinner.
On one day our meetings were held
in a hotel near the Dead Sea. While our sessions were in progress
our spouses were taken on a guided tour of the Dead Sea and Masada
Rock, where Herod’s royal citadel had been. The citadel was the site
of the most dramatic and symbolic act in Jewish history, when the
rebels chose mass suicide rather than submit to Roman capture. The
day after the conference ended we had a reception at the Knesset where
we met President Chaim Herzog. To our surprise he addressed us in
English with a pronounced Irish accent. Only later we learned that
he had been born and lived in Belfast until he was seventeen.
The Foundation had invited a number
of composers, conductors, performers, orchestra managers, producers
of music programmes in radio and TV, agents and a critic. The conference
director was Peter Diamand who had been Director of the Holland and
Edinburgh Festivals as well as General Manager of the RPO for a few
years. At the time of the conference he was the artistic adviser to
the Orchestre de Paris. Also present were Mr and Mrs Getty, Sir Isaiah
Berlin and Lord Weidenfeld.
It was intended that the conference
should examine and define the role of symphony orchestras in the changing
environment for the performing arts; consider whether the contemporary
orchestra was, as it had been called ‘an obsolescent instrument’;
how it might evolve and change to meet the new needs of composers
and performers and how it should come to terms with its dwindling
audience and sometimes difficult relationship with the recording industry.
How the education and training of orchestral musicians might be improved
was also on the agenda.
The largest number of those taking
part in the discussions were managers of the major orchestras in Europe
and the USA. They included those from the New York Philharmonic, the
Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic,
the Royal Concertgebouw, the Orchestre de Paris, the Zurich Tonhalle
Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London and two youth orchestras,
the European Community Youth Orchestra and the German Philharmonic
Youth Orchestra. There were four composers Pierre Boulez (also, of
course, a conductor), Henri Dutilleux, Alexander Goehr and Joseph
Tal. The conductors were Gary Bertini, Semyon Bychkov, Lawrence Foster
and Catherine French and the performers Isaac Stern, who also acted
as chairman, Alfred Brendel, and three orchestral musicians.
There was general agreement that the
present orchestra structure needed to change in some way if it was
to satisfy the many composers who no longer found the standard classical/romantic
orchestra met their needs. What so many composers now wanted was an
assembly of instruments, very different for each piece, that they
had decided their composition required. Unless the repertoire the
orchestras now relied on to attract an audience was to be abandoned
how could the symphony orchestra satisfy those who were demanding
that the orchestras play what composers were now writing? The fact
that even those contemporary compositions that were written using
the conventional orchestra did not attract an audience was never faced.
The conservatoires were blamed for not encouraging students to learn
enough music composed after 1950: their education was too limited
and composer/performer co-operation was not encouraged; the musicians
in the orchestras needed to change their attitude to performing new
music; the unions had to be persuaded to allow greater flexibility
in contractual agreements; and finally, audiences needed to be more
musically educated: they had increased in number (but were now declining)
though not in quality.
Anna Lindal, the assistant leader
of the Stockholm Philharmonic, thought that the orchestra should become
much more flexible, dividing into groups as required. Several managers
pointed out that additional woodwind, brass and percussion players
were nearly always called for and that these extras players would
be very expensive. Also that quite often a number of those contracted
full-time by the orchestra would be unemployed, but still have to
be paid. Pierre Boulez made the same point and referred to his own
attempts with the BBC Symphony and the New York Philharmonic. Because
of contractual difficulties and the resistance of some of the players
when they were required to play in positions and with responsibilities
they were not being paid for, it had not proved practical in either
of the orchestras.
Pierre Vozlinsky, the General Administrator
of the Orchestre de Paris, asked if the Foundation could take the
initiative and launch an international campaign, so that information
would reach professional circles ‘to gradually move over to a system
of individual service’. He pointed out that the discussions had clearly
shown that there was no other way if the expense of performing contemporary
music were not to be an insurmountable obstacle. This suggestion was
not taken up by any of the other orchestra managers. No doubt the
thought of having to engage an orchestra from a free-lance pool for
every concert was too daunting. Of course it is not in the power of
composers or performers to initiate action that would change the structure
of the orchestra. Only the Boards of management and their managers
were in a position to do that.
Even though Peter Diamand, as Conference
Director, several times drew our attention to the need to arrive at
a recommendation for the Foundation to consider, and after a very
great deal of discussion, the Conference remained unable to come to
any positive conclusion on the all-important and central question
regarding the future for the symphony orchestra: ‘how it might evolve
and change to meet the new needs of composers and performers’.
The Conference also devoted quite
a lot of its time to considering the training that should be provided
for those who wanted to become orchestral musicians. Several speakers
said that there was evidence that many of the very best young players
leaving conservatoires now no longer wanted to play in an orchestra
all the time or for the whole of their career. Anna Lindal said that
from her own experience, having only been in the profession for six
years, she knew what it was like for a newcomer coming into an orchestra
for the first time. After talking to many other young musicians she
felt that the training of musicians for the orchestra was inadequate.
She went on to explain that despite
the fact that one is already an expert on one’s own instrument and
comes with a great deal of enthusiasm, the training one has received
gives little guidance as to how to play in an orchestra. Very little
responsible orchestral work has been offered and students are seldom
required to work to a deadline or a target and never have the opportunity
of playing alongside a professional orchestral musician. ‘It is usually
the case that training takes place in the orchestra itself.’ Lindal
thought that it ought to be in the interest of orchestras themselves
to found their own orchestra schools so as to be certain of continuity
and quality in their profession. ‘But we need not only continuity
in the profession but also change, dynamism and new ideas.’ It should
happen naturally that the young generation brings this with them.
‘One must look far and wide to find training for a profession which
is more conservative.’ We are trained in a tradition, which at best
belongs to the preceding generation.
My own experience, teaching at the
Royal College of Music, bore out all that she had said. My pupils
left college unprepared for life in the profession. I also remember
that when I had been a member of the examining panel for the ARCM
Diploma some members of the panel were unprepared to give a good mark
to students who chose to present a contemporary work as their ‘own
choice’ if it employed some of the new techniques, on the grounds
that it did not give a proper basis for assessing their ability.
It was suggested that perhaps the
Wheatland Foundation might explore the possibility of supporting projects
specifically concerned with the education of orchestral musicians
and assist, politically or economically any developments that might
arise.
Having considered the preparation
of young musicians for the orchestral profession the Conference turned
its attention to the conditions then prevailing for those who were
currently employed in the orchestras. What were the musicians themselves
concerned about and were there ways the management believed things
could be improved?
Isaac Stern thought that orchestral
musicians were often required to work longer hours than was conducive
to good performance while Pierre Boulez felt that what was destructive
was playing ‘fifty-two weeks, concert after concert, in exactly the
same way, the kind of routine where one week cannot be distinguished
from another, one day from the next’. Peter Pastreich, Executive Director
of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, responded by saying that
‘everyone knows that routine means playing with boring conductors
and playing in a boring way. With the right conductor it doesn’t matter
how many concerts you have to play’.
A number of speakers were concerned,
as Isaac Stern said, ‘to ameliorate the tyranny of union rules, so
often binding in freedom of work preparation and time and cost’. Peter
Pastreich disagreed. ‘No recording session would end prematurely if
we just said beforehand that we’re willing to pay overtime. It is
a question of money rather than of union rules. The same is true for
rehearsals. If we just said to the orchestra "keep on playing for
as long as the conductor is conducting, we’ll pay’’, the rehearsals
would simply go into overtime’. I was surprised to hear this from
a manager, but I’m sure most players would agree – as long as the
conductor was not too boring!
The status of musicians in society,
the degree of stress players experienced and the degree to which self-management
could be acceptable, were all considered. Apart from the ‘tyranny
of the unions’ nothing stirred so much emotion as the concept of self-management
and far more time was spent on this subject than it probably warranted.
In reporting the views of the members
of a select committee formed to discuss Education and Youth Orchestras,
Joseph Polisi, the President of the Julliard School of Music in New
York, told the Conference that ‘one of the committee’s major assumptions
was that although proficiency must exist to ensure a successful professional
life, technical ability must be viewed as only a means to an end:
a conscious, creative process of music making. The concept of orchestral
self-governance was agreed to be one way to achieve a sense of personal
worth and responsibility as a musician and a member of society’.
Self-governance, the notion that the
members of an orchestra should do more than express an opinion, that
might or might not be followed up, was vigorously opposed by the majority
of the orchestra managers. However, the most outspoken opposition
came from Peter Heyworth, music critic of the Observer, who
for a number of years had conducted a campaign against the London
orchestras, mainly because of the lack of contemporary compositions
in their programmes. He told the Conference, ‘With regard to
musicians taking over the decision-making process: some unflattering
remarks have been made about the London orchestral scene, well justified,
I think, since it is one of the scandals of the Western world and
has been for a number of years. It was brought about by musicians
taking over the decision-making process’. Hans Landesmann, the Artistic
Director of the European Community Youth Orchestra, and a member of
the select committee, pointed out that though Mr Heyworth believed
the situation in London was so bad because the orchestras were self-governed,
the Vienna Philharmonic had been self-governing from when it was established
(as had the LSO) and had neither been managed badly or done too badly.
As the only one taking part in this
discussion with first-hand experience of playing in both a managed
and self-governed orchestra, it was clear to me that whether an orchestra
should be self-governing or not was usually beyond our control. Social
and economic circumstances and a number of other factors affect what
decision has to be taken. In the end the report from the select committee
was accepted unanimously – though no conclusion had been reached.
Another committee dealt with The Orchestra
as Workplace. This committee perceived that ‘there are major problems
which make the orchestra a less than optimal workplace for musicians
and administrators, resulting in interpersonal tension and inefficiency
of operation, a lack of motivation and often of commitment to the
institution. In addition, even when standards are high there is disaffection,
emotional stress and increased evidence of illness associated with
playing in a symphony orchestra.’ They recommended a pilot scheme
to identify what has an impact on morale and to what extent it affects
performance, to study work-related medical problems, to look into
possible changes in the organisational structure of the orchestra
and methods of professional development. In all they assessed the
cost would be about $400,000.
There was not a great deal of enthusiasm
for attempting to raise what was at that time a considerable amount
of money when orchestras were already experiencing the financial restraints
referred to several times during the conference. Naturally, there
was support for the idea that stress and medical problems should be
examined, though Humphrey Burton, the BBC TV producer of many performing
arts programmes, thought these recommendations were a very American
problem where bringing in psychiatrists forms a part of everyday life.
Christopher Bishop, Managing Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra
in London, said that because the orchestras in London were self-governing
and ran their own lives these problems did not apply. He thought that
the members of the orchestras and their managers worked together in
‘an atmosphere of unity and willingness to work together’. The report
of the Conference does not record whether the recommendations were
agreed or not. However, it does record that the Conference Director,
Peter Diamand, asked to be considered to have voted against.
Now, twenty years later re-reading
the book The Evolution of the Symphony Orchestra: History, Problems
and Agendas (Weidenfeld and Nicolson), a verbatim account of our
discussions during the conference, I see that in welcoming us Isaac
Stern remarked that our agenda was ‘long and comprehensive’ and that
it would be ‘something of a task to make order out of so many possibilities’.
It will probably not come as a surprise to readers who have had any
experience of conferences of this kind that such recommendations as
were agreed have not been implemented. However, I have reported the
proceedings rather fully because this was a unique occasion, the only
time as far as I know when so many performers, managers of orchestras
and a number of others with an interest and influence in the world
of the symphony orchestra have met to discuss its problems and future
prospects.
The Orchestra for Europe
My wife and I returned to Britain
on the 2nd of January 1987, just a fortnight before we set off for
Denmark and my visits to conservatoires around the world which I have
written about in an earlier chapter.
When during 1988 the BBC told us that
their own financial difficulties required them to make cuts in their
expenditure and that they would not be able to continue funding the
National Centre after the end of the !988/89 course, I found that
there were still a number of musicians and music educators in Britain
and elsewhere who continued to believe that students having completed
their studies at music college required further preparation before
joining the orchestral profession. If we were going to have another
attempt to provide orchestral preparation we should learn from our
experience. I was also keen to see whether the ideas I had put forward
a few years previously, at the ISME Conference in Innsbruck and in
Jerusalem, were practical and could provide opportunities for composers
and performers that did not exist in the inflexible symphony orchestra
structure.
It had been clear to me for some time
that to try to form an orchestra (or resource centre) each year, of
the standard that would make the exercise valid, from young musicians
in only one country and a few months after they leave their conservatoires
and universities, had been a flaw in the NCOS plan from the start.
Youth orchestras were able to draw on the most gifted from across
five or six years and any other orchestra could select from thirty
years or more. For ambitious students who had already done a few professional
dates while still completing their course the image of the NCOS was
unattractive. Why should they remain at college for an extra year?
Later some of them did come to realise, too late, that they still
required further preparation before entering the orchestral profession.
At the end of the section about the
National Centre for Orchestral Studies in chapter 22, when I was lamenting
the demise of the NCOS, I wrote that ‘In 1989 there was another attempt
to create ‘preparation for the profession’ or, as I have always preferred
to call it ‘a first year in the profession in sheltered accommodation’.
As soon as we received the bad news from the BBC I put the ideas I
had expressed in Innsbruck and at the Conference in Jerusalem to the
NCOS management committee. They realised that in any case the NCOS
would have to be wound up at the end of the next year’s course and
that my ideas gave the possibility of continuing the kind of education
they had worked so hard to provide for the past ten years. Goldsmiths’
College and the University of London both agreed that I should go
ahead to see what might be possible.
Before going any further I thought
I should approach the Wheatland Foundation, which had suggested that
it might support projects specifically concerned with the education
of orchestral musicians and assist politically or economically any
developments that might arise. I wrote to tell them that since the
Conference the previous year I had visited conservatoires around the
world and had meetings with directors, managers and administrators,
both public and private. The problems everywhere were similar to those
we had discussed in Jerusalem. Now we should obtain some hard facts
in regard to the economics, structure, administration and the education
we should provide for those wanting to become musicians then and into
the following century. I was disappointed to receive a reply informing
me that the Wheatland Foundation did not fund research projects. It
now administered a translation fund, which gave grants to British
and American publishers to assist them in translating works from a
foreign language into English.
In the autumn of 1988, as the first
term of the final NCOS course was beginning, I started the search
for money and a suitable venue for this new venture. I was incredibly
fortunate to meet Tony Goodchild, who had just come into a considerable
bequest that allowed him to retire from being the head of a large
school music department and concentrate on his first love, conducting
amateur choirs. With his customary generosity, he assisted me in so
many ways: paying for a number of trips around the country in his
splendid new car, a very large and incredibly powerful green Jaguar,
and on a few occasion the cost of going overseas. Without his financial
help the NCOS would have had to draw on its rapidly dwindling bank
account.
He also bought us a computer which
in 1988 meant a very large piece of equipment that required those
using it to learn a special language – this was quite a while before
Windows, click and drag, the Internet, etc. had become something that
children of five and six could operate with ease. The sight of it
sent my otherwise expert secretary, who was a very fast typist and
generally extremely resourceful, into a flat spin. Fortunately, a
young lady we also employed in the office who until then had only
undertaken very junior tasks came to our rescue. Quite soon she was
managing this new technology with which we were now able to prepare
the publicity material we needed for our new venture, The Orchestra
for Europe (O for E).
After looking at several places we
at last found what seemed could become the perfect home for the new
orchestra – a beautiful redundant 18th century church, St. Thomas
in Bristol, with a large hall attached. Both the church and the hall
were large enough to accommodate a full symphony orchestra. There
was also space for our offices, music library and to store the large
instruments, the timpani, percussion and the double basses. For our
purpose Bristol in the south-west of England would make an ideal base.
It is one of the very few cities in Britain that has the characteristics
of a mainland European city of the same size – about thirty-five to
forty thousand inhabitants. It has a fine concert hall, the Colston
Hall, where I had played many times, several theatres, including the
lovely 18th century Theatre Royal, an excellent library and a University
with a good music department. There was a fast and frequent one and
a half hour train service to London that would enable members of the
orchestra to attend a wealth of concerts and if they wished, arrange
lessons with many of the finest artists in Britain.
Bristol had other advantages as a
base for a musical organisation as well as its concert hall. It had
no resident orchestra of its own and there were several other towns
within a radius of fifty miles where it could give concerts: Bath,
Gloucester, Cheltenham, Swindon and Wells, all towns I had played
in with one orchestra or another. The members of this music resource
centre could make a real contribution to the cultural life of all
these towns and cities.
Throughout 1989 discussions with the
church authorities, the architects and our fund-raising efforts went
well enough for the NCOS management committee and the Delegacy of
the University of London to start taking the necessary steps to wind
up the Trust. In October three months after the last concert by the
NCOS orchestra at the Barbican in London, the NCOS Trustees and Management
Committee was disbanded. It had been agreed that the money remaining
in the NCOS Trust account, the music library, the musical instruments
and the office equipment should all pass to the new Orchestra for
Europe management structure and Charitable Trust, with Lady Evelyn
Barbirolli OBE as Chair of the Management Committee, which would take
on responsibility for the new orchestra. Lord Harewood (The Rt. Hon.
The Earl of Harewood, KBE) agreed to be the orchestra’s President,
bringing his invaluable experience gained at the Royal Opera House,
English National Opera and the Philharmonia Orchestra; the Vice-Presidents
Sir Yehudi Menuhin OM, KBE, Sir John Tooley, General Director of the
Royal Opera House and Richard Burke, with his knowledge of the European
Commission, each brought their wide experience of musical and political
affairs. Sir Charles Groves, CBE was Chairman, International Council
of Consultants and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, formerly Principal Conductor
of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Bolshoi and then Chief Conductor
of the USSR Ministry of Culture Orchestra was to be the Artistic Adviser.
I was appointed as Artistic and Executive Director.
We thought there would be enough money
in the new O for E Trust account for us to have time to raise the
funds required for the new orchestral course, this time for young
musicians from right across Europe, not only those in Britain. If
a number of countries within the EC contributed to the funding of
the enterprise we believed we this could achieve our goal.
Everything seemed to be going well,
but … I can do no better than to quote from the Bristol Evening Post
of 1 November 1989:
The much-vaunted plans to move
a European orchestra to Bristol (in 1990) have been put back
for a year – a victim of Britain’s medieval church laws. The Orchestra
for Europe intended to move into St. Thomas’ church, an elegant 18th
century building near Bristol Bridge, in January. But the change of
use of a church is a very complicated business. The city planners
have to agree – so do the diocese, the Church Commissioners, the Redundant
Church Advisory Board and the Privy Council. The St. Thomas’ scheme
is likely to be approved by the Privy Council, but only after it has
been advertised for a period of up to Christmas. This means the builders
can’t get inside to start the alterations necessary to house a 90-strong
orchestra of young musicians from all over the continent. The delay
means that hundreds of applicants for places for next year’s orchestra
have had to be turned away and their money refunded.
In the end the Privy Council did agree,
though first objections from the Georgian Society to anything in the
church being changed had to be overcome. There was also a campaign
against the hall adjoining the church being used by the orchestra.
It had for some years been used as a night refuge for the homeless
and a rather fierce correspondence against any change of use (though
other plans for the homeless were being made) ran in the local newspapers
for several weeks. With the help of the Church Authorities we also
overcame this problem.
As well as approaches to companies
and individuals I went to Brussels to speak to one of the EC committees,
the Comite Jeunesse of the European Parliament, where I gained the
impression that if we were to be based anywhere other than in England
we might well have received funds. Unfortunately, at that time Mrs
Thatcher had been busy wielding her handbag and the British were not
very popular. Other visits included Madrid and Istanbul, where I attended
the Conference of the Association of European Conservatoire and Academies
and spoke to them about O for E.
Though we raised a good deal of money,
1990 was as bad a time as we could have selected – the BBC was not
the only organisation to be making what Richard Hoggart called ‘candle
end’ savings. Everyone was cutting back. The conductors and soloists
we needed to book for the concerts we proposed to give in Europe had
to be booked well ahead, at least one or two years ahead, often longer.
We could have started but I was unwilling to risk having to cancel
concerts at a later date because of lack of money or run into the
kind of debt so many arts organisations have run up. At the beginning
of 1991 I felt I had to advise the management committee that we should
call it a day. Extremely reluctantly they did so. The letters I received
from artists, conductors and those who had hoped we could continue
our work, are testimony to how disappointed many musicians and music-lovers
were.
A few months after we had left a tramp
managed to get into the church and made a bed for himself on top of
the organ and then in the morning he went on his way leaving behind
him a smouldering cigarette butt. The very fine organ caught fire
and was completely destroyed, as was nearly everything else in the
church, leaving the whole of the roof and all the walls covered in
thick black tar, the result of the smoke. It would have cost us a
fortune to repair the whole building and in the meantime we would
have had nowhere to work. So, as it turned out we were saved from
what would have been a major financial disaster had we not decided
to call a halt when we did.
Chapter
24
Return
to previous page
