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.
