Editorial ~ 2009: September

This month we give our opinions on bums on seats, 40 years of percussion and praise good baton work...

Bums on seats

To use a pretty crude term to describe a pretty crude truth – it’s bums on seats that count.

So where have all the bums gone?

30 years ago it was reported that the British Open at Belle Vue was played out to a packed audience of ‘5,600 souls’, whilst getting a ticket to bag a seat at the Royal Albert Hall was an almost impossible task.

And there aren’t as many seats to fill nowadays either.

Symphony Hall may be bigger than the King’s Hall, but is unable to pack them in like the sardine crush of Belle Vue, whilst the Albert Hall is no longer hired out on an exclusive let basis, so not all the boxes are available and you can now play ‘spot the fan’ even in the cheap seats.

Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago we heard one someone in the British Open hierarchy proclaim that the event ‘…was always sold out’, whilst off the Albert Hall stage the hollow claim rang out; “Brass bands are back…”

Well not now they are not – and the rows of empty seats that will been seen at both events this year will be the surest sign that if major contesting doesn’t change and change soon, then their viability as going concerns at the biggest and best concert halls will disappear too.

Forget the claims of musical excellence, or the change in consumer listening habits; the simple fact is that the supply of the contesting product no longer has enough demand to sustain itself at these given rates of decline.    

In this day and age it is bums on seats if you are to survive. Without them nothing else matters. 

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com     

Percussion progress 

Amazing as it may seem, but it is now 40 years since percussion was first officially introduced to the British Open, when Gilbert Vinter’s ‘Spectrum’ caused an almighty fissure in the banding movement of 1969.

Those with musical ‘flat earth’ beliefs were outraged; those with more liberal tastes welcomed its introduction and potential.

40 years later it would be impossible for a band to win a major contest without a percussion team every bit as good, if not better, than any of the traditional ‘star’ cornermen who for over 100 years were the fulcrum to any band’s potential contesting success.

The same applies to any band picking an own choice work to win a top section contest either.

Where Vinter blazed his trail, others followed (and in some cases perhaps ran riot), to a point where even Vinter’s own works now seem quaint relics of a bygone era.

Could any elite band really consider ‘Spectrum’ as an own choice work at the Europeans for instance? Would the British Open really ever consider picking the piece once again to test the very best bands in the world?

The simple answer is no.

So? 40 years for the better then? 

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com      

In praise of good baton work 

Where have all the good conductors gone?

Not ones who just win contests, but those who can actually do the basics of conducting without making themselves look like a cross between an octopus falling out of a tree or a comedy Zorro impersonator.

Good basic stick technique in British banding is rare – even at the very highest levels of the movement. 

Perfect technique is no reflection of true conducting talent, (some of the greatest were no portraits of aesthetic beauty) but it is hard not to feel dismay at some of the puerile antics of many an MD – as will become clear at the forthcoming British Open we are sure.

Cheap theatrics, pointless posing, over egged responses to meaningless effects, the stamped feet, rictus smiles, flaying elbows, Messianic outstretched arms, the crouched wicketkeeper stance to signify whispered dynamics, the ‘Reach for the Stars’ baton point to illuminate a stratospheric ear piercing entry. 

And all that before the procession of curtain calls and collective self congratulatory tosh following yet another mediocre performance.

It’s enough to make you want to stab the egotistical MD in the neck with his baton.    

It reminds you of the occasion when Dustin Hoffman sought ‘inspiration’ for his performance as he sat in the dentist’s chair in the film ‘The Marathon Man’.

A bemused Sir Laurence Olivier simply reminded him: “Why don’t you just try acting dear boy.”

Perhaps a few conductors at Symphony Hall should take note.

What do you think?
Send an email to: comments@4barsrest.com     

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