Quality | 2010.02.08
No time to cut Britain's musical culture | Charlotte Higgins
An abundance of events evidences our appetite for classical music. It is no time for political neglect
Audiences have been struggling to remember the last time there was a week quite like it. Over the past several days, and continuing this week, Britain has been playing host to an exhilarating series of classical music concerts, the density and quality of which have been utterly staggering.
In London last Wednesday there was the tricky choice between the Takács Quartet \'s latest instalment of its Beethoven cycle at the Queen Elizabeth Hall or, at the Royal Festival Hall, the first in the cycle of Sibelius symphonies from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä . Both received five-star reviews. In the Guardian, Andrew Clements praised the Takács\' "supreme music-making". George Hall found the Sibelius "spellbinding".
On Friday, Daniel Barenboim and his orchestra, the Berlin Staatskapelle , turned up at the Festival Hall for the first in a revelatory cycle of Beethoven piano concertos paired with great works by Arnold Schoenberg. More rave reviews followed. The same night, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were up to a rather different, but no less successful project – a late-night concert at the Roundhouse in London, conducted by their music director Vladimir Jurowski. With question-and-answer sessions between the pieces, an audience of largely under-35s turned out in their droves: there was standing room only.
The following evening, while Barenboim and co performed in Birmingham at Symphony Hall, Vänskä and the LPO played the second of their Sibelius concerts. Then, on Sunday, Barenboim was greeted by a standing ovation back at the Festival Hall, while the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment began a cycle of Beethoven symphonies at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. More five-star reviews.
Exhausted yet? If anything, the pace accelerates this week, as the Vänskä and Barenboim cycles reach their climax, and the New York Philharmonic appears at the Barbican in London. Meanwhile, in Leeds you could catch the five-star production of Ruddigore from Opera North or, tomorrow night in Birmingham, hear Andris Nelsons perform Strauss\'s Alpine Symphony with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra . Next week you might be torn between catching the first night of Prokofiev\'s The Gambler at the Royal Opera House, or Valery Gergiev conducting Strauss with the LSO. Or comparing Barenboim\'s performance of Beethoven\'s second piano concerto with Maria João Pires \'s (on 10 February). I could go on, but you get the picture.
Compared with Austria and Germany, where the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mahler and Schoenberg flows in the veins, what does Britain have? A rather less distinguished line-up of Elgar and Britten, Purcell and Handel (and we adopted him from Germany). In blunt numbers, Germany trumps us on opera houses, concert halls, orchestras, contemporary music groups: there are more of them and they are better funded.
Yet Britain is in prime form musically. The exceptional concerts have come thick and fast, and found audiences to spare. These have been the kind of don\'t-miss events other conductors have ventured out for. Even politicians have been attending – culture secretary Ben Bradshaw and his shadow, Jeremy Hunt, have been in evidence.
What can we conclude? That Britain is a mature musical culture. That in times of uncertainty, audiences are hungry for the emotional revelations and intellectual rigours of complex scores. That live performance is vital: this was music people had chosen to savour together. That if the tiny amount of money the public purse puts towards the arts (0.07% of public spending) were substantially cut, the loss to eager and curious minds would be incalculable.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]cal-music-funding-cuts-britain
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