Music
Appeals for excellence
Peter Phillips
While altruistically trying to discover whether excellence flourished in our music colleges, I have since been told a number of other things about them besides. My conclusion, reported in this column a fortnight ago, that the Royal Academy of Music should not be given super-college status in order to be extra-excellent, has not exactly received the pass with distinc- tion from the authorities of that institution which they normally accord to well-tuned huffing and puffing. The note I struck was, apparently, discordant (though how a single note can of itself be discordant is one of those corners of aphoristic lore which defies analysis). They tell me they are not seeking government money for their plans, but have launched an appeal which should put them in a position to employ interna- tional stars like Anne-Sophie Mutter. Well, they were, until the other colleges got the drop on them and the DES drew back into its shell. The departure of Sir Keith Joseph has further made all this tergiversating of doubtful value.
The decision to hold an appeal has quite different implications from trying to corner a disproportionately large percentage of the government's dwindling annual hand- out to music colleges. There can be no possible quibble with it, and I recommend anyone who is concerned with music .education in England to attend the Academy's RAMathon at their premises in the Marylebone Road on 5 and 6 July, when every aspect of their training will be on display to the public for an entry fee of £5, as well as a sponsored Fun Run of two miles around Regents Park. The interest- ing detail, though, is what they will actually be prepared to spend the proceeds on. The Royal College of Music, in a spectacular year of centenary celebrations in 1983, raised £4.9 million. The trouble was that the DES would not permit the College to spend it on anything that they were already under-writing. For every pound spent in that way, the DES withdrew a pound from their grant. This means that extra teaching cannot be provided, extra masterclasses cannot be arranged, extra staff cannot be employed despite the fact that the College can afford, up to a point, to improve these things. There is much talk of having to fight with both hands tied behind the back, and considerable astonishment that a gov- ernment with a reputation for wanting institutions to take the initiative should operate such a self-destructive system. The money has so far been spent on a new Opera School, which will open shortly, and on the canteen, responsibility for which the government totally abnegates. I cannot say that the canteen has the aspect of having had millions spent on it, but then the Opera School has.
The specific complaint which led to this fit of founding centres of excellence was that England does not produce enough solo violinists of international stature. Set- ting aside the question of whether we produce enough singers or pianists or conductors or composers, the problem with string-playing is that you have to start younger than with most other musical disciplines. This has meant that the leading players in the world tend to be fiercely determined children from deprived back- grounds who have everything to gain from making a success of travelling abroad as famous soloists. Chinese, Korean and Rus- sian Jewish players spring to mind. The violin is in many ways their best bet because with other careers in music, espe- cially singing, maturity is reached much more slowly, by which age they may have lost their impetus to flee the home scene. At the same time educational systems like our own, that do not encourage excessive specialisation at the age of six but come to the boil when a student is in his twenties, tend to produce excellence of a different kind. If we really mean to train violinists as good as any we must look to the music education in our primary schools, for it is scarcely competitive at the moment. Mean- while we may be reasonably satisfied with the international standing of some of our musicians, especially singers, pianists and so on.
I notice that day to day life at the College, as the summer term draws to a conclusion, revolves around less weighty philosophical matters. The annual discus- sion about whether 'early' musicians and `early' singers are 'real' musicians (or in some cases real people) has come to the fore with its customary divisiveness. Not for many years has an issue caused such speedy and total entrenchment of opinion. It is a strange argument that reveals that one side (the non-earliests) are living in the 19th century, while the others are living in the 18th. The students are passing through a period of painful and unnatural febrility as examinations come and go, which will only enhance the inactivity of the coming months. One of my singers in the Chamber Choir posed me the following conundrum. Question: 'Why does a singer never look out of the window first thing in the morning?' Answer: 'Because he wouldn't have anything to do for the rest of the day'. Are we a Centre of Excellence? Strangely, I believe we are.
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