WALTON-BRITTEN, a musical north-south divide? By Arthur Butterworth
Now that Walton’s centenary year has arrived
there has been interesting critical comment in the past few weeks; from
the drab and dour musical waste lands of the north, with its clapped-out
mills, steel works, derelict coal mines, flat-vowled choral societies
forever bogged down in ‘Messiah’, or Priestley-like perceptions of yet
another performance of ‘Elijah’, to say nothing of that disgusting noise
made by brass bands that so nauseated Sir Thomas Beecham, all of which
- like nasty PVC double-glazed
window frames in Victorian terrace houses to be observed in such dreary.
places as Cleckleywyke - have
been overtaken by the even nastier sounds of nightly soap opera theme
music; all this as it were, championed by such as Michael Kennedy’s
perceptive ‘Sunday Telegraph’ article. From the opposite corner in this
debate, should one say south of Watford, where life is really lived
to the full: greenfield industrial estates with vast computer-age business
parks, modern service undertakings, International conglomerates, snazzy
glittering neon-illuminated fast food outlets, boutiques, executive
car parks, sleek glass-walled offices of financial service, all enhanced
by a cultural night life of opera on an internationally prestigious
scale, jet-setting world-class conductors, soloists, intellectually
superior cognoscenti, fashionable dinner parties and the like. (No cheap
replacement double-glazing here; the plastic comes already built in
with the modern detached, double garaged, landscaped property) a different
view (the estuary-English perception, as it might be) is taken, the
rival claims of Britten is lauded by Norman Lebrecht.
So what is the situation in reality ?
Certainly both writers make perceptive comment and each imbues his assessment
with a credibility born of long and wide experience. Norman Lebrecht
has made some sensational exposures in recent years; probably in essence
they have been true, and have opened the eyes of most of us not having
the privilege of Lebrecht’s own contacts in the musical world. On the
whole I am inclined to think that his kind of journalism has about it
something of the sensational demands of the tabloid press. This has,
admittedly, often aroused some of the nonchalant apathy of those who
claim to have an interest in music and cultural matters generally. On
the other hand Michael Kennedy, a dyed-in-the-wool, no nonsense Mancunian
- like myself - does not generally
resort to the tabloid-press kind of journalism so characteristic of
Mr Lebrecht. Instead he writes in an informative, elegant way, reminiscent
of his great Mancunian predecessors in the field of journalism: Samuel
Langford, C.P,Scott, Herbert Thompson and Sir Neville
Cardus.
Walton’s widow herself has been inclined to write rather
in the manner of a gossipy socialite reporter in the biography of her
husband. This has not done Walton’s cause all that much good. Some of
Britten’s literary acolytes have often done much the same. I take issue
with Lebrecht though, for his way of pointing out things about Walton
which seem to be of such little musical relevance (no matter that such
revelations might often titillate). He rightly makes comment about the
way Walton seemed to fall on his feet as a result of that quite remarkable
championing by the Sitwells, and all the privilege that it led to. Britten
was hardly less fortunate: in the first place he would seem to have
come from an already more privileged social background, and although
he is said not to have enjoyed Gresham’s School, at Holt, Norfolk, it
cannot have been without its advantages.
It is a matter then, for each of us to form a personal
assessment based on what we have indvidually experienced of these two
rival composers as practical musicians, their attitudes towards the
performers who in various capacities, worked for them: singers, conductors,
soloists and orchestral players, and of course how we individually respond
to their quite different musical voices. Both of them had distinctive
styles, the kind of personal originality that all creative artists strive
to attain.
I am not a fan of opera, (years ago I
flatly turned down an invitation to consider joining Covent Garden Orchestra
- not for me playing in the
pit -my realm has ever been
the concert hall), so that Britten’s considerable achievement in this
field, which seems to send opera buffs into
such spasms of exaggeratedly ‘precious’ emotional
convulsions, those 'raves' about world-class (much over-rated and vastly-overpaid)
singers, leaves me quite unmoved; I hardly give a fig for the whole
tribe of them. Britten’s orchestral style, though individually original,
has never appealed to me all that much either: a bit spiky, dry and
lacking that heart-warming quality that so assuredly and immediately
captivates an English person’s response when hearing Elgar. On the other
hand Walton (and not at all because he was born in Oldham, less than
five miles from where I myself was born) has ever had found a resonance
in my own musical responses I find enormously stimulating and exhilarating.
This is by no means in the same way that Elgar’s music moves me. Elgar
has that at times, inexplicable lump-in-the-throat tide of rising emotion.
Walton (and Britten hardly ever at all) rarely ever does this for me.
Walton has an outdoor, mid-l930’s aura for me; that exhilarating -
though with hindsight ominous time -that
I recall from boyhood.
Although earlier in this commentary I took issue with
Lebrecht for making so much out of Walton’s affairs with the women in
his life, I must say that for my part I feel this is a far more natural
source of inspiration than that morbid obsession Britten had with other
men. Although it is now so sensitive an issue, and politically incorrect,
or said to be unacceptable for comment, I still feel there is something
not quite right about homosexuality: I am always uncomfortable with
the un-natural association of homosexuals or lesbians; tbey seem to
e to be warped in some way, no matter that they are so often said to
be sensitive, inspired, pure-minded, creative, and all the other high-minded
jargon phrases. If Britten had perhaps written at least something inspired
by a normal man-woman relationship instead of all this ‘male victim’
gush that seems to go like an inerradicable thread through his music,
perhaps I would have taken to him more. Whereas Walton evokes the real
human relationship with its agonies and ecstasies: the violin and viola
concertos especially so,
I only had the very briefest personal
encounters with both Walton and Britten: In neither case did I find
them attractive as people. Unlike Vaughan Williams, one of the nicest
and kindest of great men, both Walton and Britten exuded a feint, though
indefinable air of arrogance and superiority in dealing with the musicians
who 'sat
below the salt' -the
patient and willing orchestral players who served them so well.
Though commentators and critics will
probably be self-assured as to predict just what the attitude of a future
generation will be - as Norman
Lebrecht seems to be so cock-sure about Britten -
I cannot offer any firm opinion other than to say
that, for all his personal arrogance, and unsmiling haughtiness when
I came into brief contact with him, I believe that, despite all these
shortcomings, so-called lack of genuinely new inspiration, there remains
for me something quite individual and truly unique about Walton. For
me he is infinitely more significant than Britten. After all he comes
from a place where they really do know how to make music, despite all
the clapped-out mills and flat caps.
