Gordonstoun, the exclusive school in Moray (the king is an alumnus), has just bought 17 brand new Steinway pianos. They don’t come cheap. A Steinway concert grand takes over a year to build and may cost well in excess of £100,000. I dare say the pianos purchased by Gordonstoun will not all be nine feet long, and surely the school got a discount and a good deal for a job lot. But still, they must have cost a pretty penny, at a time when many state schools are struggling to afford books, jotters, and a lick of paint. I gather Gordonstoun is off-loading all its old pianos onto neighbouring schools – the trickle down effect.
It all serves to bolster the idea that music, classical music, is for the prosperous. You only need to look at the ads in the current BBC Proms brochure. Winchester Cathedral (be a chorister), Alleyn’s, City of London School for Girls, Wellington College, The King’s School Canterbury, Knightsbridge School, Westminster Abbey Choristerships, Brighton College, The Pilgrims’ School, Dulwich College, City of London School, Merchant Taylors’ School, Rugby… Young talent can be nurtured by EFG Private Banking, and, at the other end of life, world-class, personal healthcare can be offered by King Edward VII’s Hospital, Marylebone. It’s all there in the brochure. But mainly the ads are for schools. You can read the same thing north of the border. Periodically, The Herald publishes a series of ads for private schools in Scotland, featuring pictures of young people in a state-of-the-art laboratory, wearing safety spectacles, engrossed in a scientific experiment; or out in the rugby field (the playing fields are enormous), learning team spirit and esprit de corps; and most of all in the school orchestra. First and second violins, violas, celli, basses, harp, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, and percussion (this sounds like an outline to Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra) all represented. Something for everyone, and another chance to learn, literally, how to act in concert, while forming lifelong friendships and enthusiasms. Without doubt these ads are effective. Even the tone-deaf parent will recognise networking (that which Jane Austen termed “useful connection”) when they see it, if not hear it.
I don’t knock it. But I’m sorry that classical music seems to be becoming more exclusive. It wasn’t always thus. There was, for example, a golden age in Glasgow when music tuition was free to everyone. I was handed a viola, and received lessons from a brilliant player in the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. I attended summer schools, free. There were three Glasgow Schools’ orchestras, as well as ensembles for brass, wind, and jazz. When I left school and went to university I had the enormous privilege of becoming the viola tutor in the Glasgow Schools Third Orchestra. Some of the young people who came through went on to have very distinguished musical careers. Much of this has gone. Instruments and tuition are no longer free, therefore beyond the reach of many. I guess with austerity, when the city fathers told us we all had to tighten our belts, music was the first thing to go. It was, so it was said, a luxury, an adjunct. Nowadays a young person is much more likely to be handed a tablet, than a violin. A violin is very nice, but it’s not “value added”. It won’t “create wealth”. Of course the private schools know this is not so. They make music an integral part of the school ethos.
But it can be remarkable how the musically gifted will find a way, no matter the disadvantages of their starting point. A couple of weeks ago I attended a recital in Dunblane Cathedral, the inaugural concert of the newly established Three Rivers Festival, given by the extraordinary young Scottish pianist Ethan Loch. He played a varied romantic programme of Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, as well as a suite of his own (he composes) which I found rather reminiscent of Rachmaninoff. When he plays, he himself sounds a bit like Rachmaninoff the pianist. His encore was an improvisation.
And the disadvantage of his starting point? Ethan Loch has been blind from birth. His achievement defies comprehension. How could he possibly have learned these pieces? Well, he learned them first, by listening to them. He is the ultimate exemplar of somebody who plays “by ear”. But even putting an impediment aside, his performance was remarkable.
He didn’t play a Steinway. It was a Bösendorfer. Other brands are available.
jamescalumcampbell 