SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 26 Report by Martin Cooper
The B.B.C. have recently appointed p new Director of Music in succession to Sir Steuart Wilson. Supposing that any great character of the past were available for the post, a prize was offered for an imaginary letter from the character best fitted for the post to the Corporation, setting out his qualificalions and the policy he would pursue if elected.
J. S. Bach was by far the most popular candidate for the post. Handel was next, and after him Wagner. Then came a most im- probable assortment of 'names, tanking from Jubal to Sousa, and including OrlandO Gibbons, Paganini and Sir Hubert Parry. One competitor (from Glasgow) even advanced the claims of Robert Burns, not convincingly
Almost all entries suffered from the same faults, erudition and propaganda. Anyone can copy the list of Bach's appointments out of Grove, though very few, it seems, can write a convincing pastiche of an eighteenth-century letter. More serious was the cavalier attribution of the writer's personal !ikes and dislikes to the composer he was supposed to be representing. Thus one writer made Liszt say that his policy had always been " to combine populareRppeal with musical worth—whole-tone scales with fiorituri [sic] and so forth " ; and Orlando Gibbons was made to compare the pleasures of the cinema and the dance-hall unfavourably with those of madrigal-singing and to commit himself,. by implication, to the opinion that Brahms was the last composer whose chamber-music was worth performing. I found it difficult to make an award. Several entries contained excellently imaginative points. Thus James Fidgen, dating Rimsky- Korsakov's application from the Novodevichi Monastery, where the composer lies buried, proposed to make the same " scholarly emendations " in Hugh the Drover and Teter Grimes as he had made in Boris and Prince Igor. Messrs. G. Smith and John McHardy both tried, with some measure of success, to think them- selves into Wagner's state of mind_and to imagine the policy which he might wish the B.B.C. to adopt. I finally decided to divide the award between Colin Shaw, whose candidate was Orpheus, and H. A. C. Evans, who wrote a good pastiche letter from Purcell in an appropriately ancient script.
PRIZEWINNERS (COLIN SHA To• the B.B.C., London :—
DEAR SIRS,—I must apologise for to lateness of my application. I have only recently returned from a prolonged tour, during which I was playing continuously, following the death of my dear wife. I hasten to put forward my qualifications. I am a singer of the greatest ability, and, as a performer on the lyre. I have perhapp-no equal. 1 have unsurpassed powers, frequently demonstrated during my recent tour, of moving all kinds of audiences. Throughout my life,'with one exception always to be regretted, my outlook has been progressive, but my policy would be based primarily on a revival of the_Massics. I have had sufficient experience of Hell to deal capably with The most modern of composers.
From a dististe for the sex in general, I would ban all works by women composers, but the inevitable paucity of compositions by women would not make.the ban apparent for many months. My good friends, Gluck and Offenbach. will gladly furnish you with further references. I must stop now and silence a crowd of women at my front-door.—Yours, &c.,
ORPHEUS.
(H. A. C. EvANs)
July ye 6th, 1950. SIR,-1 have the honour to offer myself as a candidate for this Position and append certain of my qualifications.
I am an Englishman of not unworthy lineage, brought up in the service of Musick and the employment of the Church and of His Majesty. I am well experienced in composing Musick for a diversity of occassions, which has been generally. esteemed. Being long a student of ye best French and Italian masters, I am not insensible to modern developments in the Art ; so that, whilst I may be reckoned an English composer, I should think 'twere a pity if this island failed to enjoy the benefls of a due exchange of ideas with the best of ye foreign composers.
Should you see fit to appoint me, I should make it alike my duly and my pleasure to encourage the making of the best Musick of all kinds ; and especially would 1 nourish our native composers ; whilst not neglect- ing the Ancient Musick I should bring before ye Publick uniNflapn works both new and old, and I should endeavour, by taking advantage of the re-appearance of Poetick Dramatists, to renew the tradition of Musick wedded to serious Drama.—Sir, Your must humble Servant, •
Previous page
