Stephen Pollard (who?) writes in the Times:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4601922.ece

Yes indeed, though it's hard to miss such a bloated and petrified target as that which Pollard provides.

(Shouldn't this thread be in "21st century"?)

*snort*

Indeed so, Ron.  It's sad that newspapers commission people with little or no knowledge of music - and on the basis of this piece Pollard clearly falls into that category - to write this sort of polemic.  Would it happen with football?

Well, when 'people with little or no knowledge of music' are still expected to subsidise it through their taxes, aren't they allowed to have their say as well? Of course I totally reject Pollard's characterisation of post-RVW English music (and actually wonder how far a lot of it really has moved on from the deadweight of that tradition that RVW and others represent), but on the other hand:


and


are statements I would find hard to refute. However, the extent to which even RVW and others (and many much greater composers who were their contemporaries or preceded them - not least Beethoven) were primarily 'writing for their public' is open to much question, as is the question of whether writing to please a mass audience, as opposed to seeking some sort of musical 'truth' (not that by any means all or even most contemporary composers necessarily do the latter), has to be the best option a composer can take? As for Service's reply, he must move in very narrow circles if he's unaware how small is the percentage of the population who have heard a note of Stockhausen or Ferneyhough - or would be likely to respond positively to it if they did. Cardew and Cage wrote for their own cliques, even if they weren't the ones holding the public pursestrings. And Cage's career was built primarily through the support of publicly subsidised festivals and radio stations in West Germany. Cardew did withdraw from the mainstream musical world in order to write odes to arguably the biggest mass murderer in history, but he certainly wasn't outside of that up until the late 1960s.

I was thinking of Mao, as I'm sure you know. Cardew did write settings of various Maoist songs, and a piece entitled Long Live Chairman Mao in 1975. I haven't checked news coverage from the period leading up to that time, but I'm pretty sure he could hardly have been unaware of the unspeakable atrocities that accompanied the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution when he wrote that piece.

Rzewski, Wolff, Takahashi and others also wrote Maoist pieces, of course. I know Rzewski has definitely moved away from his earlier Maoism, and he suggested to me that Christian Wolff wouldn't be unsympathetic to criticisms of the (cringe-making) Accompaniments (in which a pianist reads a text praising the improvements in women's sanitation under Mao, for those who don't know it). No idea of Takahashi's views, but he certainly doesn't compose in that vein any longer.

There's the world of difference between having one's say and offering an authoritative and argued viewpoint.  Pollard's piece is a succession of sweeping unsupported generalisations, for example:

"Their dominance of the subsidy racket meant that not only were composers freed from any obligation to secure an audience for their music, but they were pilloried and starved of funds also if they did attempt to do that."

"Vaughan Williams was the last composer to speak directly to a wide audience, with music that could be appreciated by listeners who did not have degrees in musical theory."

Where's the evidence?  It's just incredibly sloppy, and in one respect represents a peculiarly English type of dilettantism; the belief that culture is not to be taken seriously.

Perhaps that's true of some composers in some repertoires, but it's not universally true.  Many more composers have lived on their royalties from publishing, and on box-office receipts..  Handel acted as his own impresario when the Royal Academy Of Music folded - in fact he produced works more along his own choosing once no longer in thrall to Rolli and the Italian poets installed by the Academy.  (He'd already incurred their fury by discarding their libretti in preference to Haym's). It does not invalidate the financial model based on subscriptions & ticket sales that many attending were rich or nobles - they paid their dosh at the door or in advance.  If they disliked the music then there was the option to enjoy other pastimes - or start their own opera house. (It remains uncomfortable reading for Handelians that Porpora and Bononcini consistently outsold Handel's runs by a large margin). In fact the open commercial competition encouraged Handel to his boldest reforms of the opera seria genre.  His first opera 'against' the Senesino company was ARIODANTE - stage-directed by John Rich (who understood how to stage musical spectaulars professionally - Senesino's company, by contrast, were directed by the libretto-authors, few of whom had any training or background in theatre..they were poets). ARIODANTE introduced opera-ballet, and moreover as a plot-device...'Ginevra's nightmare' closes Act One (all forbidden by 'the poets') - and choreographed and danced by a troupe especially recruited from France (anathema to the Italians). Musically it sees the end of the DC aria domination - there are duets, and ariosos (even more in SERSE).  

I'm not sure mention of Beethoven is helpful - we can mention Bizet, Massenet or Verdi too, but they weren't active in England... the topic under discussion