{"id":19554,"date":"2022-10-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=19554"},"modified":"2022-10-06T11:41:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T09:41:44","slug":"richard-morrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/2022\/10\/04\/richard-morrison\/","title":{"rendered":"Richard Morrison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Richard Morrison<\/h2>\n\n

In this time of financial crisis, we must all do our part to support the arts<\/h4>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

The American newspaper columnist Don Marquis once observed that \u2018an optimist is a guy that hasn\u2019t had much experience\u2019. I disagree. Experience can make you more optimistic. Being able to look back decades reminds you that what seems terrible now wouldn\u2019t even feature in the premier league of human catastrophes. <\/p>\n\n

If ever there was a time to test that thesis, it\u2019s now. Whatever help the government provides to struggling households and businesses, it appears inevitable that there will be hardship this winter for millions. In those circumstances it seems a little crass to fret about what happens to a \u2018luxury\u2019 such as music. However, you wouldn\u2019t be reading this magazine if you didn\u2019t care deeply about that very question. <\/p>\n\n

And there\u2019s plenty to care about. Concert halls, theatres and rehearsal spaces are already being clobbered with electricity bills far in excess of their public funding. Musicians, unlike railway workers, have no industrial muscle to force their pay upwards in an attempt to keep pace with inf lation. <\/p>\n\n

Nor are orchestras and opera companies able to raise ticket prices. Audiences are only just returning after the pandemic, and many people are already reducing their leisure spending. So performers and backstage staff are trapped in a spiral of decreasing living standards. \u2018The outlook is as grim as I\u2019ve known it,\u2019 one orchestral manager told me recently \u2013 and I had always thought of him as one of the cheerier members of his frazzled profession. <\/p>\n\n

So how can \u2018experience\u2019 make us marginally less gloomy about what the winter holds for music and musicians? Well, my experience includes writing the centenary history of the London Symphony Orchestra, which was founded in 1904. It\u2019s fair to say that, in the century that followed, this illustrious band teetered on the edge of obliteration almost every decade.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

During the two world wars it lost players, several killed in action. It lost instruments when the Queen\u2019s Hall was bombed during the Blitz. It had to make deals with shady financiers and industrialists to survive the Depression. And even as late as the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher\u2019s antipathy to subsidised arts unfortunately coincided with the LSO\u2019s dreadfully planned move to the Barbican, the orchestra was at one point just a few hours from bankruptcy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Wonderful music-making can happen in times of hardship if people want it enough <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

But it survived \u2013 as did the other British orchestras who played on through recessions, wars and pandemics (and don\u2019t forget that the 1919 flu epidemic killed more people in the UK than have died from Covid-19). <\/p>\n\n

More than that, it was often when economic conditions were hardest that visionary individuals devised bold new projects. Consider, for instance, the remarkable list of arts institutions founded in the three years after the Second World War. They include the Royal Opera, Third Programme (forerunner to Radio 3), Edinburgh Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Arts <\/p>\n\n

Council, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra. <\/p>\n\n

And remember the state of the nation at that time. Britain was almost broke. Cities were flattened by bomb craters. Basic groceries, household items and petrol would continue to be rationed until the 1950s. What a leap of faith it must have taken to start up a new festival or orchestra. Yet all the organisations listed above are still alive and kicking today. <\/p>\n\n

The secret of their success? They fed a real hunger for classical music and the arts. After six years of war, people wanted to enjoy the fruits of peace. And when I write \u2018people\u2019 I mean a much broader cross-section of society than had enjoyed the arts before the war. Ordinary people felt they had just as much right as the toffs did to enjoy \u2018highbrow\u2019 arts. People like my father, a battle-scarred young soldier on leave from Germany for a week, who wanted to impress his girlfriend (my future mother) by buying opera tickets for the first time in his life \u2013 and ended up attending the first night of Peter <\/em>Grimes. <\/em><\/p>\n\n

Yes, wonderful music-making can happen in times of extreme hardship, if people want it badly enough. So my message to all readers is: want it badly enough! If you can afford it, buy more tickets, not fewer. Support adventurous programmes and young musicians trying to get their careers going. Join a choir. Get your kids involved in your local music hub. The fact is that the survival of classical music isn\u2019t just in the hands of classical musicians, inspirational though they can be. It\u2019s in our hands as well. If we don\u2019t support it now, we will assuredly lose it. <\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Richard Morrison<\/strong> is chief music critic and a columnist of The Times <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richard Morrison In this time of financial crisis, we must all do our part to support the arts The American newspaper columnist Don Marquis once observed that \u2018an optimist is a guy that hasn\u2019t had much experience\u2019. I disagree. Experience can make you more optimistic. 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