At the Olympics: how to uninspire a generation…
…of potential classical musicians
Rebecca Hutter 4:37pm GMT 14th August 2012
Over the last two weeks we have all been inundated with praise for the organisers of the Olympics, the determination of the athletes, and the hard work of the volunteers involved. The Olympics have undoubtedly been a success, and despite the somewhat debated outcome of increasing competitive sports in schools, the profile of sport has been raised and celebrated.
But how was it celebrated? With a party of pop music. For the opening ceremony we were promised an ‘isle full of noises’ and for the closing ceremony, a ‘symphony of British music’. Instead, both occasions resulted largely in a cacophony of loud, uninspiring noise. For the closing ceremony, old stars were welcomed back as Sebastian Coe took us through all the sounds of the last 50 years. Except, he didn’t. Yes, One Direction, the Spice Girls and Take That were crowd-pleasers (despite some blatant miming) but what about all the rest? Emeli Sandé, for instance, had trouble with her tuning yet was given two solo opportunities!
Apart from making the athletes stand through all of this, the main problem with the closing ceremony was the distinct lack of classical music and showcasing of our classical musicians. Admittedly an extract from Thomas Adès’s opera The Tempest wouldn’t have been suitable (although Caliban’s aria could have been spectacularly appropriate given Adès’s London heritage and prominence of this particular Shakespeare work), but it seems unfair that among two hours of almost continuous music, classical music was only featured for three minutes and 20 seconds, less than three percent of the entirety of the evening.
Even ballet, which is widely accepted as one of the strictest and purest art forms, had a leading role, yet the token piece of classical music – Elgar’s Salut d’Amour, arranged for cello – was drowned out by Stomp’s drumming. Similarly in the opening ceremony, the limelight was stolen from the one snippet of classical music; Rowan Atkinson’s albeit hilarious spoof deterred from adequate acknowledgement of the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle.
Among all the ‘stars of today’, where was the renowned Nicola Benedetti? Fifteen-year-old Young Musician of the Year winner, Laura van der Heijden? Or even the National Youth Orchestra? Instead, we were shown Julian Lloyd Webber and a snatch of Bond, the all-girl classical crossover string quartet. ‘Inspire a generation’ was the Olympic motto. I have no doubt that young athletes will be inspired, but what about the children who have worked so hard to get into their county and national youth music ensembles?
It takes just as much practice and determination to play an instrument, and teamwork is crucial in any music ensemble. Of course the Olympics should have its focus on sports, but if the Olympic committee wanted to showcase British music, and even claim to have a symphonic resemblance, it should have paid a little more respect to the classical musicians of the country.
Comments
I agree, as will a number of posters on the forum. Yes, Britpop has been enormously successful over the last 50 years, but it is not the totality of British music or music making.
P
Like so much else in our society it was aimed at 'youf' (and to be fair Olympic athletes are by nature mostly young) which leaves us with the perennial problem of how to interest more young people in classical music.
I don't pretend to know the answer but I feel it involves education and starts at school BUT that it also does not involve telling young people that classical music is inherently 'superior' to other music (which some on this forum would certainly do), they need to be able to decide that for themselves.
I agree with Rebecca Hutter. There are many brilliant British classical artistes and composers so it is a shame that more of them were not featured in the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies. The same criticism could be made about the concert outside Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Jubilee, where there was only a token number of classical performers. Although the Olympians are young, I do not think we should assume that all young people prefer pop music to classical music. All these occasions would have been ideal opportunities for showcasing young classical musicians.
Yes, Rebecca, even as an outsider, a non-British, I can share your frustration. Even worse, I tend to think the whole matter of the role and place of Classical Music in our modern life (and lifestyle) is almost a "lost" case. Most of your people still claim that Classical Music is not "superior", in any possible way, than any other music. So, enjoy the result. I simply turn off my TV set (and I "missed" both -most of- the opening and -almost all of- the closing ceremonies!).
Not bad at all! I saved enough time of my schedule.
Parla
An excellent blog. The only surprising thing is that anyone should be surprised. Britain is today a shallow, media-driven society in which the chief god is the cult of personality. Pop music, with its banal lyrics and vacuous, brash noise, fits into this superficial scheme of things well. Classical music does not, because the media, using repeatedly the mantra 'elitism', has been brainwashing the public for 50 years. Thus we live in a sad society in which many richly talented young musicians who have devoted years to training and learning thier craft will in most cases never know a tiny fraction of the wealth bestowed on guitar-thrashing, drum-bashing pop 'musicians'.
Spot on Rebecca. The lack of classical music at the Olympics ceremonies was shameful. And wasn't it a Labour minister who came out with the idiotic comment that the Proms were "elitist"?
Thanks for all of your comments; I'm glad I was not the only one grimacing at the TV!
I agree, calling the proms 'elitist' does seem to be idiotic - especially when it can cost less than a cinema ticket!
To respond to Chris Waldren's comment; the issue of interesting younger generations in classical music is of course a difficult one. At University I was constantly persuading my non music friends to come to a concert, but there is such a stigma attached to classical music the task was often challenging. I believe that it all comes down to role models. The Venezuelan street music project 'El Sistema' seems to be the best example of this, with former students of the programme returning to teach and perform (or conduct, in the case of Maestro Dudamel), successfully relating to and consequently inspiring the younger students to follow in their footsteps. This is why the Olympic ceremonies were such a perfect opportunity to celebrate some musicians from our own country. Pumping money into schools is great (when it actually happens...), but ultimately we need to see role models celebrated on the big screen.
Just want to add to the chorus of disapproval and frustration Rebecca has provoked regarding the closing ceremony (didn't see the opening). They set the bar pretty low for an olympics. Elgar will be turning in his grave that his one beautiful moment was interrupted by dudes on ropes banging dustbin lids. Hey-ho. Does anyone know what colour Cheryl Cole's toe nails are this week?
Excellent post Rebecca.
But I do wonder if the Olympics is more representative of a bigger cultural problem than necessarily being the problem itself. The Olympic fortnight itself was like an hallucination: now it's over, all that's left are soundbites and images.
The real problem, though, is a culture that wants an Olympic games to be like that - the mass garb of land from the public sector, now irreversibly handed over to private interests, the low-brow middle-management anti-poetry of Olympic sloganeering (terms like 'Team GB'), the deeply unsettling feeling that the media was entirely in hock with the IOC's line about the way the Olympics 'must' be reported, the brutal corporate totalitarianism that prevented local shops from displaying Olympic signs etc.
Under those circumstances of course the opening and closing ceremonies were going to be like that: a crud, micromanaged spectacle of 'pretend' art in which authentically expressive music of any type would - hopefully - have felt out of place. That's why classical music was reduced to a footnote, why The Spice Girls et al ruled (and why one genuinely profound song, Ray Davies' Blakeian "Waterloo Sunset", felt so lost.)
In a healthier culture one could imagine an Olympic games more in keeping with its idealistic beginnings. I could respect that, even though I'd have no interest in watching it.
In short, we got the Olympic games, and the cultural trimmings (including a Freddie Mercury hologram and Barry from Auf Wiedersehen Pet giving us his Winston Churchill), our culture wanted and expected. And deserved.
As a foreigner admiring British understatement I could not believe the unanimous cheering of media and common citizens alike at Royal Weddings, Jubilee spree and, lastly, the Olympics. North Corean or Venezuelan regimes were gathering hard retaliations for violating copyright, not to mention Ecuador. Could anyone living in this base world imagine a one billion people tv show programming Britten's serenade? Is there no skeptical in the UK? By the way, and please excuse my naïveté, will it last forever the last night of the Proms? They call chauvinists the French!
Not just in the opening and closing ceremonies. I felt deep embarrassment and shame at the awful National Anthem arrangement that greeted those dedicated Gold medal winners every time. There was that ugly V-VI cadence of course, but who spotted parallel 5ths? A parallel octave? Horrid doubled third (B) on the last "save"? What bunch of idiots chose him? What criteria did they use? And what Royal personage approved the arrangement and such atrocious harmonisation?
High class? Gold medal standard? No way, it was a kick in the teeth for those worthy competitors. Somebody please tell me it's just an ugly rumour that we're landed with that for future Olympics.
Must have another listen to the NZ Anthem - that sounded dodgy......
I thought the "cultural" elements in both the opening and closing ceremony were frankly dumb, hum-drum and tedium. Watching the athletes walking into the stadium was far more enjoyable and entertaining than the show. Even beyond the exclusion of most of the great cultural achievements of GB, what is the history of British rock without eg Elton John, The Rolling Stones and something really significant from Pink Floyd. I have to admit that John Lennon singing 'Imagine' was a beautiful moment.
What amazed me is that so much money had been spent to celebrate the pinnacle of achievement in sport with mind-numbiing mediocrity in the arts.
But then, it has long been a source of wonder to me that world-wide we spend so much time, money, energy and concentration on developing our physical skills in sport, where we are fully out-classed by the animal kingdom, and which reaches it's peak in our 20s and from there on is in decline; whereas in the arena of intellectual and artistic achievement which are uniquely human, we celebrate the most trivial and simplistic. Ahh the wonderful power of the market. Where the dollar rules, mediocrity flourishes.
But then again, despite all that, I am constantly delighted and thrilled by the ongoing flood of extraordinary young musicians performing it seems at ever higher levels. So I have hopes that the new generations of brilliant and talented artists will continue to find inspiration to create and re-create great music.
Excellent blog and lots of encouraging responses.
Pasha Selim - I am one of those who thinks that perfect pitch is when the groundstaff have done their job before the match starts!
Not much to add as others have put it so well above. To agree with Philip and others, it was always going to be artifice rather than art. Perhaps we should have had the opening dance routine from the first Austin Powers film where the London PC Plod joins in. Groovy, funky, psychedelic sixties London baby - well it's a well-known part of our cultural heritage isn't it? There was no attempt at balance...
Mark
Maybe I'm jaded. I didn't really expect anything else. The days when classical music and classical artists were given due recognition are long over. In a culture which calls Katherine Jenkins and Russell Watson opera singers, even though neither has ever appeared on the operatic stage, where Bond and Il Divo are considered classical musicians, then what else might one expect?
That said, I did rather enjoy the Opening Ceremony, which, though populist, was at least quirky in a particularly British way. Unfortunately, though, Paul McCartney killed rather than crowned the finale. This is where we needed someone like Bryn Terfel to belt out an English anthem (maybe Holst's I Vow To Thee My Country?) with a huge chorus.
As others have pointed out, the Closing Ceremony, with a couple of exceptions, hardly represented the best of British pop music. To call it a Symphony of British Music was a joke.
Well I did quite enjoy the opening ceremony, albeit with some reservations. As a Beatles fan of the 60s, it was sad to see Macca struggling so badly and I'm not sure what the Arctic Monkeys had to do with anything. I thought it was a decent spectacle with some great humour - a US correspondent called it a huge British in-joke. The closing ceremony was completely dire in my opinion. I can't believe I sat through the whole thing in the hope that something decent would come along soon. A celebration of British music? Were they joking? When you think of all the wonderful singers we have on offer - and I'm not only thinking of opera/classical stars - they must have tried very hard to come up with such garbage. An embarrassment - nothing less. And don't get me started on the National Anthem - in ANY arrangement ...