Classical Gas: BBC Treats Classical Musicians Like Commoners, Columnist Aghast

classical gas

BBC Treats Classical Musicians Like Commoners, Columnist Aghast

The Guardian's Susan Tomes is horrified that the BBC's Young Musician Of The Year program treats classical wunderkinds like they're on Pop Idol. "The stupid interviews, the trivial questioning of the players and their families, the way the players had been asked to 'reprise' a movement of their concertos from the previous night - which saw the pianist having to start halfway through Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini. An interviewer larking about with the judges, trying to trip them into saying who they thought was best when we hadn't heard them all yet. The judges larking back, eager to show they were not stuffed shirts." Classical musicians shouldn't have to charm the rabble like some unpracticed harlot singing "Vision Of Love!" Classical music is difficult! It takes maturity! Kneel!

There's no point treating classical music as if it's trivial, jokey, and easy. Let's face it: playing this kind of music to this standard is serious work. It demands commitment and maturity. These young players had it in spades, but they hardly got a chance to show it, so intent was the BBC on making them look ordinary. Delivering classical music as lowest-common-denominator entertainment is never going to bring in new audiences.

Everyone who has tried popularising classical music will know there comes a point when you have to be honest. I belonged to a group, Domus, which gave informal concerts in our portable concert hall, a geodesic dome. We tried to make our audiences feel relaxed and at home, but we quickly realised we couldn't play our beloved music in the right way unless the audience could approach it in the same thoughtful spirit. Pretending it was all tremendous fun was a tactic we had to give up when we realised it was leading people away from the heart of the matter.

...which is that classical musicians are better than pop singers, and attempts to humanize them demean us all.

The BBC ruined the Young Musician of the Year [Guardian]

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2:45 PM on Mon May 12 2008
By Anthony Miccio
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8 comments

Comments

by RaptorAvatar at 03:20 PM on 05/12/08
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Fuck this noise and the powdered wig it rode in wearing!

In slighlty more seriousness, I still don't understand why the writer wants to make it sound like it HAS to be joyless. Also, big surprise, a TV show is acting like a TV show. It's almost inherently lowest common denominator. I don't know what he even expected in the first place.
by insideoutbox at 03:44 PM on 05/12/08
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"Delivering classical music as lowest-common-denominator entertainment is never going to bring in new audiences."

Il Divo, Vanessa Mae, or Sarah Brightman might possibly disagree.

Also, until the time I was 16, I was a dedicated student of classical piano, and I finished my full course at a prestigious conservatory. I love me my punk, hip-hop, and electro as much as the next person, and also happen to think classical music is extremely joyous and rich and it's really disappointing to see that someone jealous and possessive would try to ruin this beautiful music by treating it in the same stereotypical way that precisely causes people to lose interest... unless they're willing to put up with the endless drivel and pretense that folks like this writer insist on drenching the classical music world in.
by Clevertrousers at 04:08 PM on 05/12/08
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Wow. Susan Tomes is hillarious - she's like a cartoon of the prissy, stuck-up classical snob. Check out some her other blog posts, where she rails against standing ovations and, beleive it or not, FUN:

[blogs.guardian.co.uk]
by revmatty at 05:07 PM on 05/12/08
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She is a tedious and takes herself and likely everything else in life far too seriously. That is all.
by HuckNPluck at 05:51 PM on 05/12/08
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Ok, Tomes is definitely "soppy-stern" and stickupherass but is she wrong about this? Is it wrong to say that classical music shouldn't be dragged through the mud in such a context?
by Lax Danja House at 06:36 PM on 05/12/08
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Pretending it was all tremendous fun

I hate these kids that are just in it for the hard work and lengthy periods of concentration.
by Reidicus at 09:35 PM on 05/12/08
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This makes me even more proud that I occasionally donate my work to our local efforts to separate chamber music from its overserious straitjacket: www.fringeatlanta.org
by BakerStreetSaxSolo at 05:15 AM on 05/13/08
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@RaptorAvatar: but this is the BBC, which is funded by a state-enforced public tax (we Brits can go to jail for not paying £110 a year for BBC programmes like this). People only put up with this because guaranteed funds mean the BBC doesn't have to chase advertising fees by showing lowest-common-denominator shows. The BBC News, for example, is far more credible than the sensationalist ITV News (which relies on advertising).

but yeah, she's a joyless snob, etc etc etc