Saturday 24 June 2006

near Tetbury, Gloucestershire
Alison and I are here as the guests of Martin and Elise Smith to give a private concert tomorrow afternoon to the Friends of the Tetbury Festival (I think they're called Dolphins - don't ask me why), and today's been a very luxurious long rehearsal day after the drive over from London. We've been trying things out and choosing a programme in the company of the house's three dogs. And sitting out in the sun, and having a swim. It's a very calming place to be: lots of space, and no responsibilities whatsoever other than tomorrow's concert. I'm usually very disparaging of those 'get away from it all and be artistic' places in the country, but I'm going to have to review my prejudices a bit in this case I think. 

It struck me today that you often see old pictures of harpsichords played with the lids either fully open or completely shut. But never on a short stick. When did that idea originate I wonder? I quite like the sound of lid shut for accompanying a cello. I hope Andrew Garlick (the maker) isn't too offended when he comes tomorrow. But a reasonably bright sounding mid 18th century harpsichord can be made to sound a bit like a later one just by shutting it up. So it's shut for Schetky, propped up with a couple of books for Vivaldi and Geminiani, and fully open for my solo bits. 

I'm sufficiently relaxed now (10.25pm) not to want to get annoyed by anything, but I've saved up yesterday's rant for here, so here it is. I've had my train of thought seriously disturbed twice in the last two days by singers' agents writing or calling me up in the hope that I might book one of their (often very talented) charges to sing with us. Well, it just doesn't work like that. People only get to play or sing with this group through personal contact, albeit sometimes second- or third-hand. I don't care how good a musician someone is, there's no way I'll let them in the room unless I've some idea what they're like as a human being and can guess how they might fit in. Besides, engaging with the side of the music business that sells singers to opera companies makes me ill; I leave that stuff to the professionals. Fortunately for me, Andrew's very good at it indeed. 

The other thought left over from this week, and from 24 May, is what a dreadful social model for work an orchestra is. A room full of extremely highly skilled people, following someone else's very detailed instructions on bits of paper, and goaded into action by someone much more highly paid than them (usually by at least a factor of ten) wielding a stick. A stick! It's a scene from the early Industrial Revolution really. No wonder so many musicians are alcoholics. I'm very fond of a great many orchestral musicians personally, but I find the whole business of orchestral life increasingly difficult to comprehend as more than a historical relic. Why we still have so many symphony orchestras as pillars of the musical establishment really is a mystery to me, when as a model for creativity, it is so obviously deeply flawed and inappropriate for today's society.

On Thursday morning I called a cellist friend who plays in a very successful quartet (now recording for ECM). As she put it, 'These days, I'd much rather work in the bakers down the road than play in an orchestra.' 
ConductorWatch is still developing nicely, by the way.