Blackball
I apologise for the absence of any review this week of Britten's new work The Burn- ing Fiery Furnace. Unfortunately our music critic, Charles Reid, has been refused a press ticket to this year's Aldeburgh Festival. Mr Stephen Reiss, the Festival manager, tells me that the principal reason for this blackball is the offence caused to Britten by a review written by Reid in another paper of a performance of Mahler's 4th symphony conducted by Britten at the Aldeburgh Festival five years ago. In this review Reid complained that the coach laid on to take the audience from Aldeburgh to the Orford church hall where the concert was held was full up and he had to hire a car at consider- able expense, that the seats were expensive, and that the event as a whole 'was not a patch on Festival Hail value.' Britten's ostensible objec- tion, according to Reiss, is that a music critic Should confine. himself to the music and has no right to comment on any other aspect of the Festival arrangements. Reid's professional com- petence as a music critic is not, of course, in
question; nor are his feelings for Britten as a composer. Indeed, twenty years ago when Brit- ten was unfashionable and largely unknown, Reid was one Of his foremost champions.
Not that we have been the only victims of Britten's childish and petulant behaviour. The Observer's music critic, who was invited to cover the Festival, subsequently had his invitation withdrawn when he revealed that he would be able to attend only the main work, The Burning Fiery Furnace. The New York Times, however. which was given, by Reiss, a ticket for The Burning Fiery Furnace alone then had its ticket withdrawn when it disclosed that it intended to send Mr Peter Heyworth, who is also the music critic of the Observer.
Apart from depriving the readers of three newspapers of the chance of reading an informed appraisal of what might conceivably be an im- portant new work, it is difficult to see what this absurd behaviour achieves. But one thing is clear. The Aldeburgh Festival is supported by the tax- payer, through the agency of the Arts Council of Great Britain. Until those responsible for the Festival learn to conduct themselves in a more adult and responsible way it might be better for the Arts Council to reconsider its support.
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