11 OCTOBER 1997, Page 66

Music

What's the best?

Peter Phillips

The proposed televising of the Gramo- phone Awards ceremony (ITV, 28 Octo- ber) brings to fruition something I mentioned on the Today programme ten years ago: that this ceremony could become the record industry's equivalent of the Booker Prize, with all the accompany- ing razzmatazz. Of course, these awards can never rival the sheer impact of a prize which has only one winner — there are at least 15 Gramophone winners — but, you never know, a room full of musicians just might make good television for once and certainly the general profile of serious music-making will be boosted.

There are two discordant notes sounding as this initiative gets under way. The first is probably short-term. It came to me in the form of a press release from Tower Records which announced that 'Tower has taken the unprecedented step of boycotting the Gramophone Awards in protest at the event being sponsored by the Britannia Music Club'. The writer of this dyspeptic communication continues: 'Music clubs are like supermarkets, they cream off profits from the popular works and do nothing to encourage investment in a wider range of music ... Tower and other specialists have a real commitment to classical music and offer the public a genuine choice. The organisers of this year's awards should take more care about who they get into bed with.' Much as one regrets the slang, the bad grammar, the misinformation and the wilfulness of these words, there is some truth in them; it would be in the overall interest of our brave new world if this quar- rel were patched up.

The second is much longer-term, involv- ing the question of what one actually has to do to win one of these things. As I under- stand it, the 'best' record in a number of different categories receives a prize. No one has quite defined what 'best' means, but it must be something like: the greatest number of right notes played or sung with the greatest feeling and recorded with the greatest attention to detail in the most ideal location.

It is just possible that these tenets are the ones which have been applied, for example, to the category which has interested me most (Early Music) over the last few years; but the facts hint at something slightly dif- ferent. Since 1991 no group has won the award twice, and those that have won it represent a roll-call of some of our most talented younger performers (in order from 1992 to 1996: The Sixteen, The Gabrieli Consort, The Tallis Scholars, The Cardinall's Musick and The Orlando Con- sort). This year the choice will be made between groups on a short list of three: The Gabrieli Consort, Gothic Voices (who won this award three times in the 1980s) and The Clerkes' Group. The Clerkes' Group are the newest of the three on the block, have never won the prize and have been runners up in previous years. It is my hunch that they will win this time.

If they do (and I don't know that they have), it will reinforce the impression that there is another agenda than pure excel- lence in the minds of some of the judges. In effect they have turned this particular award into something not dissimilar to being given a grant by the Arts Council: the winner must be British, young and being preferred for the first time. Now, on the face of it, nothing is more admirable than this. How could anyone object (unless they happened to be foreign or old)? One could even argue that the Gramophone is generously using its position to advance the careers of our youngsters where otherwise this would have to be done with public money.

The only objection is that this is not what the Gramophone actually claims to be doing. It says that it is giving prominence to an outright winner in every category of classical music-making. Now perhaps those responsible for the judging have admitted that it is actually impossible to say that one record is 'better' than another, which of course is often true. Perhaps the system I describe is reckoned to be more construc- tive than saying that the whole process is futile and should be discontinued. Perhaps variety is held to be refreshing (though the television cameras, thirsty for celebrities, may bring their own logic to this one). But, if I'm right, there is something not quite straightforward here — which would include the pretence that the judges come to their conclusions in isolation.

What does it matter? There is plenty of evidence to show that winning one of these awards makes very little difference to the sale of the record concerned. The best that can be hoped for is as much short-term publicity as possible — which is exactly what the cameras will bring.