This was the shock-horror headline being put out by Normal Lebrecht’s Slipped Disc website this morning. Although Norman enjoys his shock and horror, I am sure his informant is correct. There are several and local reasons for this – Covid, rail strikes, heat wave, cost of living and also (big contributor in my view) the reduction in tourists. But I think there is a more general problem. Since the 1960’s the classical music ‘industry’ has allowed itself to take on more and more of the attributes of the wider culture of consumption and economic growth that we all live in. There are simply more concerts, more opera performances, more chamber music recitals than ever before, and more musicians coming, highly trained, out of the music colleges and universities. The industry, as in any other market, has diversified – more ‘country house’ opera, a whole range of resurrected music from Baroque opera to medieval plainchant, for instance. It has created new attractions – the ‘star’ conductors and soloists. But I think we are now at saturation point. There are simply too many professional orchestras in the UK, and they are playing insufficiently diversified programmes. There are too many Mahler 1’s, Tchaikovsky 4’s etc. The nudge of Covid has brought calamity to the industry because people are having to think about and justify why they are going to particular concerts. Yes, I will go to the operas I love, performed to a level I know to be high, and I will go to the LSO’s concerts and those given by ‘star’ conductors and soloists I admire – eg Vasily Petrenko, or Mitsuko Uchida. I go to something between 60 and 80 musical events a year so I think I am relatively uncritical in my affections. But why on earth should I plod into a provincial city on a wet Wednesday evening to hear an unknown conductor perform a Brahms symphony with an orchestra who can be inspired but can also lapse into routine with an indifferent conductor. I am just not music-starved enough to bother
So…..I fear the answer is probably as it is in the wider economy. Forego instant gratification, and having everything available. Reduce consumption, so that you really value what you listen to. And accept that the number of orchestras etc will have to reduce. Naomi Klein, in her book “This changes everything’ reckoned that we would have to go back to the 1960’s to have a sustainable lifestyle –and I am old enough to remember this was a perfectly enjoyable way of living. So should we do the same with classical music – ENO back in Sadler’s Wells, some provincial touring, more UK artists? And combine this with a massive attempt to bring in new audiences, without which the whole enterprise is doomed anyway
John's musical journey 