“Wrong sex, Wrong
instrument" was the dismissive comment made by a music
adviser when the teenage Maggie Cotton suggested that she should
become a percussionist and seek support from the various educational
authorities. They could, and indeed ought to have helped her
in those early days when she most needed encouragement and help.
However, she was not, and still is not, a person to be put off
by blinkered bureaucratic authority. A more appropriate
title could not be imagined for this splendid, heartening and
truly stunning book about orchestral life seen and heard from
the inside. After immense determination and hard
work - not just at music, but at menial jobs to help with the
meagre finances at her disposal - she proved - ever so gloriously
- just how wrong that short-sighted music-adviser had been.
Sadly this is a tale too often told in those days and probably
even today. She became a member of the City of Birmingham
Orchestra in the days when it was just a provincial band; played
for many conductors, some not all that marvellous, others
more distinguished, but none more destined to become a
legend in his own life-time than Sir Simon Rattle. She
is able to tell the tale of this remarkable change in an orchestra's
fortunes with clear-sighted awareness of how it all happened.
The book is written with not only musical insight but with a
literary style and distinction that makes for the most compulsive
reading. Many years ago, something of a similar
book was written by the wife of a distinguished Halle player,
entitled "Not only music, signora!" and this
could well be an appropriate sub-title to Maggie Cotton's story,
for it is not one of those sycophantic "ghost-written"
glossy, coffee-table biographies where the celebrities are lauded
and swooned over - as many biographies of world-class conductors
tend to be - but is penetratingly down to earth. It is,
in the best sense of the word, a "human" book too:
telling of the problems, the joys and anxieties of family life
and a concern for others less fortunate than ourselves.
She was persuasive enough to get Simon Rattle, even amid all
his growing celebrity as a world-class conductor, to make
time to visit schools in the Midlands, to explore
ways of communicating the essence of musical experience to
deaf children, which, along with her enthusiastic prompting he
did. Musicians are often accused of being interested only
in their profession; their small talk taking little account
of the outside world; but Maggie Cotton's book touches so many
differing topics: world travel, as she experienced it
with the CBSO, and in this respect she is a most eloquent and vivid
travel-writer. She says what many listeners have
often thought about the misconceptions which young, inexperienced
composers let loose on a big orchestra, have brought to bear
on the art of music, so often a matter of "The Emperor's
New Clothes" - and the vast costs such often mindless experiments
have incurred. She brought up a family, and is keen
on cookery and gardening; all of which she relates with gusto
and immense good humour. She is aware that many in "official"
positions in the sophisticated world of professional music-making
might not like everything she says, because she reveals some
of the practices that go on which are hidden from the adoring,
starry-eyed public that star conductors, soloists, administrators.
concert agents and the like might not feel all that comfortable
about being told. But this should not put off the reader,
for many of the things she comments on are as true now as they
were when this writer was an orchestral-player a generation
ago.
I cannot recommend
this book highly enough, it should be required reading for EVERY
music student aspiring to become an orchestral musician; even
if, hoping to remain above the common herd, so to speak, they
only want to become a conductor! Not just music students
though: concert-goers, music-lovers everywhere, this is THE
book for you!
Arthur Butterworth
see also reviews by Rob
Barnett and Paul Serotsky
