The Economics of Early Music

Author(s): Nicholas Kenyon

Source: Early Music, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct., 1976), pp. 443-447
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3126159
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The economics
of
early
music
NICHOLAS KENYON
Music is
expensive.
Most
professional
concerts run at a loss.
Early
music is not an
exception
to this
rule;
but it is a new
and
special
case. For at a time of acute financial
difficulty
in
all the
arts,
there are some
problems
which are
particular
to
early
music
groups.
Central are those caused
by
an unsatis-
factory system
of
funding
devised with the needs of
wholly
different
groups
in mind. The London Orchestral Concerts
Board (with
money provided jointly by
the Arts Council and
the Greater London Council) will subsidize small
groups
only by
means of
guarantees against
loss
covering
a
specific
series of concerts.
Only expenses
relevant to the
perfor-
mances themselves are
allowable,
and these are
judged by
the
same criteria which are
applied
to,
say,
a chamber orchestra.
Yet a concert of renaissance music for voices and instru-
ments* will include at least five or six times as
many
items as
a conventional
concert,
mostly
for different
groups
of
per-
formers. Each
piece may require
as much time as a far
longer
work to
rehearse;
it is often not
possible
to co-ordinate com-
pletely
the schedules of those involved.
In addition most of the music will have to be
specially pre-
pared.
Even if it is
published
in
scholarly
editions it has to be
edited for
performance;
more often the work starts with the
source material and includes reconstruction and
editing
of
both the musical and
literary aspects
of the
piece.
This
may
be done
by
the concert's
conductor,
but Musica
Reservata,
for
instance,
have a director who does this work
quite
separately
from
directing
the
performances,
and all
groups
have
frequently
to use outside
help
in
specialist
matters.
(Then there's the whole
question-too large
to be discussed
here-of
providing
instruments for these ensembles.)
These factors
point
towards the need of such
groups
to
take on a
permanent,
continuous form. But in the 'two
rehearsals and concert' situation created
by
the
grant-giving
bodies,
this is
impossible.
There are still few
enough good
players
for the best to be in continual demand
by
several
groups-this applies
both to the renaissance and
baroque
fields.
Though they might
wish (and
many
of them do) to
devote themselves to
developing
their
playing
within the
context of the
style
of one
particular group,
much as a
string
*
For
example,
Musica Reservata's 'Florentine
Celebration',
QEH
27 October 1975, or the Consort of Musicke's 'Music in Renaissance
Venice', QEH
24
February
1975.
quartet player
does,
they
are forced in order to earn a
living
to
go
from
paid
rehearsal to
paid
rehearsal. This
depresses
standards in two
ways-not only
is ensemble
rough
because
the exact combination of
players
is often
different,
but
style
becomes more and more
anonymous:
a lowest common
denominator of
playing
has
emerged
whose chief attribute is
that it will not
'jar',
whoever the other
players
and con-
ductors are. Chamber musicians are
being
forced to act as
session
players.
In
reply
to these
points, John
Cruft,
Music Director of the
Arts
Council,
stressed that it was not the function of the
Council or the LOCB to commit themselves to
supporting
the livelihood of
any groups
of
artists,
and that
they pre-
ferred to
keep
as
many
as
possible just
alive than to make life
comfortable for a few. Yet he made it clear that the Council
gives
no
specialist
attention to the
problems
of
early
music
groups.
Decisions are made
by
the Music
Panel,
of which Mr
Cruft could think of no-one who was
specially qualified
through
an intimate
knowledge
of the scene to comment on
early
music
groups
(Thurston Dart was
perhaps
the
last,
he
said,
though
the
panel
now includes Simon Preston and
Stephen
Plaistow). However,
Mr Cruft said that outside
experts
could
always
be called
upon
to advise the
panel:
it
would be
interesting
to hear of
anyone
who has advised in
this
capacity.
If no one has been called
on,
it is difficult to see
what basis the Council can
possibly
have for its work. I asked
what the reaction of the Council and the LOCB would be if
faced with a realistic estimate of the costs of music
pre-
paration
and
editing
for an
early
music concert: Mr Cruft
was uncertain
because,
he
said,
the
problem
had not arisen.
A
difficulty
here is that
early
music activities have
grown
up
so
recently
that no
guidelines
have been evolved to deal
with them. I raised the
parallel
with
contemporary
music,
for
whether
consciously
or
not,
the Council and the LOCB does
accept
that different
principles
must
apply
in
subsidizing
new
music
groups.
It
accepts
the need for more rehearsal
time,
and it
accepts
the
inevitability
of lower box-office
takings.
John
Cruft
argued
that the
analogy
was not
very
close,
for in
that case the
problems
were linked to a
particular
con-
cert-assimilating
the
material,
and
compensating
for the
lack of attendance. Which is
quite
correct: the contem-
porary
music
problem
can at least
partly
be solved on the
Council's own terms rehearsals and box office-whereas
443
7- - ........ .. .. . -.... ... . ..
i
:a
i r.
the
early
music
problem
involves unfamiliar
concepts.
(And
at
present early
music
groups
lose out both
ways,
for
by
the
conventional calculation
they
are
penalized
for
having
such
large
box-office
receipts!)
Mr Cruft said that the matters I
was
trying
to
qualify
for
subsidy-learning
to
play
instru-
ments in the
right style,
and so on-were outside the
Council's
scope. They
were
'quasi-educational'.
Which is the heart of the matter. Almost
every pro-
position
with a
long-term perspective-for
instance Andrew
Parrott's recent
request
for
subsidy
for a
baroque string-
playing
seminar directed
by
an international
figure-can
be
turned down
quite genuinely by
the Council on the
grounds
that the
project
is educational. It
may
be an
impossibly
false
distinction to
maintain,
but it is written into the Council's
charter. Such
propositions
are
likely
to be considered more
sympathetically by
an
organization
like the Gulbenkian
Foundation which has educational aims. But here the
limitation,
as
Anthony Wraightes explained,
is that the
Foundation does not
usually
involve itself in
continuing
support
for
groups-it prefers
to
help get things
off the
ground.
And here
too,
with
very many
more
applications
than can be
satisfied,
the
problem
for
early
music
applicants
has been to
prove
the 'relevance and social
significance'
of
their work to an
organization
that
largely
subsidizes the
contemporary
arts.
It's not that these
grant-giving
bodies are
unwilling
to
help. Many
trusts,
some administered
by
the Arts
Council,
have
given grants
to individual
early
musicians for
private
study.
It's rather that (in the words of
Anthony Rooley)
the
long attempt
to break
through
the
organizations' prejudices
has a
brutalizing
effect on the most
persistent applicant.
Success is
possible,
but it's a
struggle. John
Cruft told
me,
for
instance,
of the
special grant
which the Arts Council
gave
the
Consort of Musicke some
years ago
for their administration
expenses-but Rooley
told me how
long
he'd had to
fight
for
it. One recent success which should
encourage
others is that
of the Yorkshire
Baroque
Soloists
(already
subsidized like
many groups
outside London
by
their
regional
arts
association),
who were
recently given
a
grant amounting
to
about
?1,000
by
the Gulbenkian
specially
for a week's con-
centrated rehearsal. This was
partly
linked to their
per-
formances of Handel's Orlando at the York
Festival,
and was
sympathetically
viewed because the
players
came from such a
wide area.
Nevertheless,
it's an
important precedent.
On the
whole,
early
music
groups
must find other
ways
besides
grants
to make ends meet. How can
they
do it? Sheer
business acumen is one
option.
When David Munrow died
the
early
music scene was
deprived
of the
only person
who
was
making
a commercial success in the field with a
profes-
sional ensemble. He subsidized his work in this
country by
frequent
visits abroad to countries where realistic concert
fees are
paid by promoters
(Pro Cantione
Antiqua
is another
group surviving by
this
method);
and he
planned
meticu-
lously
so that concerts and tours were linked as often as
possible
in both
preparation
and
performance
to
recordings.
Records can be another
major
source of income.
Though
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record
companies
exist to make
money
above all
else, an
enlightened
attitude on their
part
can be of real assistance to
early
music. While Decca's
Argo
label
appears
to have
suffered
recently
from the need to make
every separate
record
pay,
the same
company's L'Oiseau-Lyre Florilegium
label has served an
important
function
by supporting
on a
continuing
basis
Christopher Hogwood's Academy
of
Ancient
Music,
and the Consort of Musicke. But the line
between
support
and
exploitation
is a narrow one.
Regu-
lations
preventing
rehearsal for
recordings
have
proved
a
drawback for the
Academy,
for until
recently
it hasn't
given
public
concerts which coordinate with its
records,
and the
aim has to be to record about 60
per
cent of
every
session,
which
sometimes results (in
my opinion)
in
performances
acceptable only
in an
experimental
context. The
English
Concert,
on CRD
Records,
has
promoted
concerts
specially
to
rehearse,
as it
were,
for
recordings;
the Consort of
Musicke worked their Musicke
of
Sundrie Kindes album from a
London concert
series,
and are
basing
their
forthcoming
vast
series of the
complete
Dowland works on concerts
already
given.
This sort of
co-operation,
which benefits both
group
and
recording company,
is excellent if the benefits come in
equal
measure to each side. But fees still often fail to cover
the work
involved,
and have to be
fought
for.
Other
groups
have their
special
solutions to
problems
of
finance: a
particularly
successful one is that of the London
Pro
Musica,
which concentrates on a small
group
and
supplements
its work
by publishing
music used in its own
London Pro Musica edition-which
actually
makes
money.
But all the time there still remains in the
background
the
underlying
attitude to
early
music which dates from the
earliest
days
of the revival: that here is a
sport
for
gentle-
men,
a recreation for
amateurs,
and
why
does
anybody
need
money
for it?
'Why',
as an
experienced
observer of the
musical scene
put
it,
'can't
they just get
on and
play
the stuff?'
Are there
any hopeful signs
that the scene is
changing
in
ways
that
may
be beneficial? One
aspect
of the
proliferation
of
groups
and
players
is that
increasingly,
as more
good
players
are
available,
each
group
will derive a clearer
identity
from fixed
personnel.
A
group
such as the
English
Concert
now has its core of members without whom concerts are not
given,
and most of the ensembles which use
baroque
instru-
ments have their individual leaders. There are now
pro-
fessional
groups
conducted
by
Paul
Steinitz,
Lionel
Sawkins,
Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington, John
Eliot
Gardiner,
and the
English
Concert,
the Unicorn
Opera,
the
English
Bach Festival Ensemble and so on. Even
though they
vary
in
degrees
of
authenticity
from
completely
old instru-
ments,
through
the
'strings only' authenticity
of Steinitz and
Norrington
to the
baroque
bows which are handed out
before Monteverdi Orchestra
rehearsals,
it's
scarcely
sur-
prising
that
many
ensembles
overlap.
For
instance,
at the
City
of London Festival in
July
a
group
of
singers
and
players
conducted
by
Richard Hickox turned
up
who were
absolutely indistinguishable
from a
Roger Norrington
ensemble.
In
looking
to the
future, continental
analogies
are some-
times
helpful,
for in Holland,
Germany
and Austria the
early
music revival has been active for much
longer.
However in
Holland,
in
spite
of a new second
generation
of
specialist
baroque players,
the same difficulties of
overlap
are still
evident because each
group,
whether it is Musica
Antiqua,
La
Petite Bande or the ad hoc
baroque opera
orchestras, wants
the best
players.
The
problems
of rehearsal are eased
only
because
promoters pay generous
fees which include ade-
quate payment
for extended rehearsal. In
Germany
the
Collegium
Aureum is run with a fierce
professionalism
to
tight
schedules. Most of its members are
symphony
orchestra
players,
and the
compromises
of its
style
are such that
they
can
adjust quickly,
for concentrated
periods
of
recording,
to
the semi-authentic instruments used. In America the
Collegium
Musicum
system
is much in evidence-ensembles
based round
university
faculties and directed
by paid faculty
members as
part
of their
job.
These are ensured
continuity,
but because of the dominance of academics rather than
primarily practical
musicians,
performances
can become
indifferent.
Nevertheless this valuable
linking
of
early
music with an
educational
enterprise brings
us back to a
point
that
many
regard
as
important:
that what must be
recognized
in this
country
is the
fundamentally
educational nature of all
early
music activities at the
present
time-that concert
giving,
research,
study
of
instruments,
editorial
work, instrument
construction,
all have to be carried out in an
atmosphere
of
continuous
development,
rather than in a situation of
isolated and erratic
happenings.
Some would
hope
that this
sort of
progress
can take
place
within the established insti-
tutions-by
the
growth
of
early
music
departments
such as at
the Guildhall School of Music or the universities and their
extra-mural
departments.
But others insist that
only
in
specially
created
places
with
long-term
aims can
early
music
activities be
placed
in the best context. This is the
impetus
behind the
Early
Music
Centre,
at
present completely
unsubsidized, which is
leading Anthony Rooley logically
to
the establishment of a full-time centre
away
from London.
Certainly
there are small
things
that can be done now:
submit realistic estimates to the
LOCB,
approach
the
Gulbenkian and other bodies with educational
projects,
ask
for the
setting-up
of a
specialist
sub-committee on the Arts
Council Music
Panel,
propose
that at least one
university
supports
an
early
music
group
rather than a
string quartet.
Soon the
problem
of a
permanent,
subsidized
baroque
orchestra will arise-but the climate must be created in
which its existence will be an attractive
proposition
to bodies
whose
present
idea of an
18th-century
orchestra is a
group
playing Haydn
and Mozart
badly
to a sold-out Festival Hall.
Concerted
activity by many groups
will ensure that the one
or two who have been active in this field hitherto are not dis-
missed as eccentrics. The
longer
term
projects
will,
one
hopes,
follow
gradually
from the overdue
recognition
of
early
music as a
positive
and
important
force in
England's
music-making.
447