Siaccess Without Security
The Story of an Orchestra. By Boyd Neel. (Vox Mundi. los. 6d.)
THIS is a remarkable success story, but told with such personal modesty and such exclusively communal self-congratulation that only those accustomed to the English habit of under-statement will realise just how remarkable that success has been. In 1932 Dr. Boyd Neel was a general practitioner in South London ; in June, 1933, his string orchestra gave its first public concert ; and four years later it achieved a world-wide reputation at the Salzburg Festival. More than half the book is devoted to the orchestra's visit to Australia and New Zealand in 1947, the most spectacular and heart-warming, but by no means intrinsically the most im- portant, evidence of its musical quality.
The style and manner of telling his story are colloquial and un- assuming. The author tells us nothing at all about himself beyond the barest minimum of facts necessary to describe or explain his relationship with the orchestra. Two things arouse his resentment recurrently throughout the book. The first is the facile claim that a huge new public has appeared in England since the war with a passion for classical music ; the second (a bitter comment on that claim) the fact that the Boyd Neel Orchestra, which has indeed proved its worth, should suffer from a state of permanent financial insecurity so acute that its continued existence is often uncertain from one week to the next, and has, in fact, on several occasions been due solely to some generous, private deus ex machina. A string orchestra can never, it is true, have either the scope or the appeal of a " full " mixed ensemble; but this particular orchestra has shown its exceptional quality again and again, both in this country and elsewhere, and its disappearance would be a tragedy
which everything possible should be done to avert. Sub.sidies already given may be increased ; but the only permanent and satisfactory solution must, as in all such cases, be the creation of a large and discriminating public which appreciates the excellent fare provided by Mr. Boyd Neel and his admirable colleagues.
MARTIN COOPER.
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