The standards of one of the world’s most respected works of musical reference are slipping. THE past two decades have not been an era of blazing musical progress. No comet has risen to replace Britten and Shostakovich, let alone fill the void left by Igor Stravinsky in 1971. Among pop ephemeralities, there has been no creative phenomenon to match the Beatles or Bob Dylan. The epoch’s advances amount, on the serious side, to minimalism and, on the commercial, to rap, dance and techno. It is, therefore, hard to see how the editors of the world’s most substantial work of musical…

Election year offers a chance to change radically Britain’s flawed and outdated relationship between government and the arts. LIKE old war-horses to a bugle call, columnists feel a tingle in their extremities at the dawning of an election year. Not that much is likely to change – least of all in the arts, which no party has ever placed at the heart of its programme. Peckham library: foyer events can be organised to introduce young people to artPoliticians fear that fighting for culture on the hustings would risk a demotic backlash. Also, any debate on the arts tends to get…

Ten years ago this month, I finished writing a book called The Maestro Myth, which argued that the ‘Great Conductor’ was a thing of the past. A reckless pursuit of power and wealth had destroyed the mystique on which their authority was founded. Easy-come, easy-go maestros with posts on three continents and a chalet in Gstaad no longer commanded the awe of musicians or the spiritual aspirations of dwindling audience. The fame of a Leonard Bernstein and the fortune of a Herbert von Karajan would never be seen again; conductors, in future, would occupy a more modest niche on the…

Why are our composers being overlooked? THE term “English Composer” was for so long an oxymoron that even after a century of high achievement it retains something of the pejorative. Preface it with the adjective “lesser-known”, and a mighty wave of mediocrity arises from the musical unconscious – a wave of meadowy pleasanteries, warm-ale songs dressed up as symphonies and contrapuntal correctness masquerading as creative inspiration. Unlike Germany’s, ours is not a culture that tolerates derivation. Two of the English lesser-knowns are about to turn centennial, which is generally the last chance a composer gets to pitch for posterity. Posterity,…

AS the world awaits a puff of white smoke from Covent Garden, where the announcement of a new chief executive is expected daily, events are moving rapidly above and beyond the cardinals’ ken. A friend of mine was approached last week with a view to becoming the next ROH chairman. This was not a seasonal, party-time, would-you-consider sort of approach, but a serious solicitation from a very senior figure, asking to make an appointment to discuss the intended vacancy. Others, I gather, are also being interviewed. At this point, the runes go a bit runny. Nobody I have spoken to…

Next month is the centenary of Verdi’s death. Italy is planning lavish celebrations – but is ducking the uncomfortable questions they raise. IT was Milan that set the ball rolling, kicking off the Anno Verdi with (as Rupert Christiansen reported in these pages on Monday) an all-Italian Il Trovatore, which is several times rarer than an all-Italian Serie A football team. It is commonly bewailed that Italy has lost the art of breeding big voices. At the most symbolic national moment since the last World Cup, La Scala struck a swaggering chord of self-belief. Forlorn ideals: Giuseppe Verdi, ‘the man,…

As we approach the Royal Festival Hall’s 50th birthday, there is still no discernible renovation has taken place there in 14 years I HAVE tried biting my tongue, buttoning my lip and binding the fingers of my right hand. But, try as I might, I cannot keep mum any longer on the longest-running blot on Britain’s cultural landscape. As another year ends, it seems almost unimaginable that stagnancy still prevails at our premier arts centre. It has been 14 years since the South Bank, freed from the abolished Greater London Council, was handed to an unelected board of the great…

In February Michael Kaiser will leave his post at the Royal Opera House, the fifth chief executive in as many years. But with the top post in UK arts management now artistically neutered and at the mercy of a meddlesome board, who would want to replace him? ADVICE to those contemplating taking the top job at Covent Garden: don’t. Only the desperate and the dumb would apply to occupy a hot seat that has roasted five chief executives in as many years – not because of their ineptness but because the job is no longer do-able. Trouble in the Garden:…

A one-man brand Chamber Orchestra of Europe Vienna Symphony Orchestra Nikolaus Harnoncourt is the antithesis of the modern star, yet he has become the first conductor since Karajan to sell records on the strength of his name alone. Interview by Norman Lebrecht FUTURE archaeologists of the classical record industry will trace its collapse to the deaths, a year apart, of Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. For half a lifetime, these two busy batons monopolised orchestral output, saturating the racks with self-repetitions. When they died, a decade ago, the public refused to recognise the next pharoahs and precipitated industrial wipeout.…

THE next time you hear the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (they play in London on December 7), watch out for the trombonist – he’s British. For the first time in almost 160 years, the self-selecting and not famously cosmopolitan members of Europe’s most elite ensemble have offered one of their gilded seats to a graduate of the Darwinian school of cold showers and funding scrums that makes British orchestral players the hardiest on earth. Ian Bousfield, trombonist of the London Symphony Orchestra, was solicited earlier this year to audition for Vienna’s principal position. He blew away 14 competitors in a screened…