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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #90 on: 06:10:43, 25-05-2007 » |
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I wasn't suggesting for one moment that devolution ought to extend to the level of boroughs. All well and good - but as I said, there IS no "London" any more. That level of regional Govt was abolished by Mrs Thatcher. The Mayor of London has authority over transport and emergency services only - everything else is devolved directly to Borough level. Many disagree with that and the chaos it's caused, of course. But restoring a central authority for London would be a far greater battle than redistributing the Music budget  |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #91 on: 08:09:25, 25-05-2007 » |
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I wasn't suggesting for one moment that devolution ought to extend to the level of boroughs. All well and good - but as I said, there IS no "London" any more. That level of regional Govt was abolished by Mrs Thatcher. The Mayor of London has authority over transport and emergency services only - everything else is devolved directly to Borough level. I'm sure Richard is aware of that. |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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time_is_now
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« Reply #92 on: 09:49:47, 25-05-2007 » |
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"... The fagotti are sponsored by Islington"  But Vauxhall, surely? Sounds like you've been out of London for a while too, Reiner!  |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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time_is_now
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« Reply #93 on: 09:58:20, 25-05-2007 » |
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The basic problem seems to me much more fundamental. Earlier in history, such things as orchestras were paid for by wealthy persons (princes etc.) and institutions (the Church, principally) and the people making the "funding decisions" were the same people who actually wanted the orchestra to exist and who wanted a new symphony by Haydn or whoever every couple of weeks. Now that wealth and cultural literacy are divided in a different way, the funding decisions are no longer taken by people who are or might be interested in the work being produced (I don't know anyone who owns an orchestra), but by government bureaucrats on their behalf, who often seem to behave according to agendas of their own which have little to do with the music or its audience but actually stand between them (your story about Ealing and Brentford is a good example). Removing this "obstacle" would appear to require a more democratic kind of society than the one we have. I may be being naive, but wasn't what you describe possible in earlier centuries because the people who got what they wanted (and whom, as the great Walter reminds us, history remembers ...) were the ones with the money to pay for it? No amount of democracy is going to bring about a situation in which we all get to pay for our own desired musical entertainment, and talk about 'funding decisions [being] no longer taken by people who are or might be interested in the work being produced' seems slightly to obscure the fact that the original C17th/18th sort of 'funding decisions' you're talking about had little in common with present day Government-devolved, Arts Council-administrated financial distribution, democratic or not. But maybe you had something more subtle in mind. I'm all ears if so. Certainly there's an attractiveness to the earlier system you remind us of (I was thinking about this while watching a rather wonderful production of L'Orfeo at St John's Smith Square last night, how even more wonderful it must have been to witness the work come into being) - but, as I suggested above, our view of it may be coloured by the fact that we don't see all the people who weren't princes and didn't get the music they wanted to hear even then. |
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« Last Edit: 09:59:59, 25-05-2007 by time_is_now »
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #94 on: 10:01:03, 25-05-2007 » |
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"... The fagotti are sponsored by Islington" But Vauxhall, surely? Sounds like you've been out of London for a while too, Reiner! I would have thought that nowadays Islington would have sponsored the spinets? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #95 on: 10:08:56, 25-05-2007 » |
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No amount of democracy is going to bring about a situation in which we all get to pay for our own desired musical entertainment, and talk about 'funding decisions [being] no longer taken by people who are or might be interested in the work being produced' seems slightly to obscure the fact that the original C17th/18th sort of 'funding decisions' you're talking about had little in common with present day Government-devolved, Arts Council-administrated financial distribution, democratic or not. That is the thing - a more democratic approach to arts funding by definition involves a greater degree of say in the matter not just from arts lovers but from the wider population. Putting control exclusively in the hands of classical music lovers, without their having any wider accountability, isn't more democratic, it's more exclusive. Government bureaucrats may seem a long way from being actually accessible via the democratic process, but they are in some sense accountable to a democratically elected government (if civil servants) or elected themselves (for ministers). Incidentally, anyone have any bets on who will be Tessa Jowell's successor when Brown takes over (or might she stay in her post)? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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richard barrett
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« Reply #96 on: 10:14:53, 25-05-2007 » |
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restoring a central authority for London would be a far greater battle than redistributing the Music budget And creating a more democratic kind of society would be an immeasurably greater battle than either. As I said, I'm thinking aloud. I may be being naive, but wasn't what you describe possible in earlier centuries because the people who got what they wanted (and whom, as the great Walter reminds us, history remembers ...) were the ones with the money to pay for it? No amount of democracy is going to bring about a situation in which we all get to pay for our own desired musical entertainment NO amount? Try this for naive then: if everyone did some useful/essential work for two or three days a week, all the useful/essential work would get done. Everyone would then have the rest of their time to spend on artistic pursuits if they felt like it, and would be sufficiently remunerated (presuming that such a thing as money would be thought relevant at all) from their other work that no funding of any sort would be necessary. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #97 on: 10:37:19, 25-05-2007 » |
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Try this for naive then  Bless you, dear.  if everyone did some useful/essential work for two or three days a week, all the useful/essential work would get done. Everyone would then have the rest of their time to spend on artistic pursuits if they felt like it, and would be sufficiently remunerated (presuming that such a thing as money would be thought relevant at all) from their other work that no funding of any sort would be necessary. Well, you might get an (entirely welcome, I agree) explosion of Freedoms of the City that way but I doubt you'd get many large orchestral pieces out of it. Or maybe we wouldn't need them in such a brave new world (I'm not being ironic, btw). That's what I meant by 'no amount ...'. Tell me if I'm being thick. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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richard barrett
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« Reply #98 on: 10:45:25, 25-05-2007 » |
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I doubt you'd get many large orchestral pieces out of it. That, if it were to happen, might be taken as proof that the orchestra is a fundamentally anti-democratic thing. But we'll probably never know... |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #99 on: 10:46:21, 25-05-2007 » |
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Try this for naive then: if everyone did some useful/essential work for two or three days a week, all the useful/essential work would get done. Everyone would then have the rest of their time to spend on artistic pursuits if they felt like it, and would be sufficiently remunerated (presuming that such a thing as money would be thought relevant at all) from their other work that no funding of any sort would be necessary.
I suppose a key question there is what is defined as 'useful/essential', and in particular which work does not get done by virtue of being excluded from those categories? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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richard barrett
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« Reply #100 on: 10:47:55, 25-05-2007 » |
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I suppose a key question there is what is defined as 'useful/essential', and in particular which work does not get done by virtue of being excluded from those categories?
That is for our comrades of the future to decide. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #101 on: 10:49:44, 25-05-2007 » |
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I suppose a key question there is what is defined as 'useful/essential', and in particular which work does not get done by virtue of being excluded from those categories?
That is for our comrades of the future to decide. Yes, but how can we know that two-three days per person will be sufficient without some definition of that category? |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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