Reith Lectures
Just listened the first of this years Reith lectures given by Daniel Barenboim. The general theme or idea is ‘In the beginning there was sound’. Barenboim has a refreshing take on the role that music plays in society and he managed to sidestep, despite repeated questions from the audience afterwards, the usual issues that plague discussions about music and democracy in a public forum. At one cringe-worthy moment, referring to the conductor as Maestro, the cellist Julien Loyd Webber (offspring of that bloody awful composer), asked a question about inclusion in musical education in inner city schools - whether ‘educationalists’ lost their nerve with regard to introducing children to more challenging music. Though dressed up as neutral this seemed rather loaded to me, and what’s more, it really missed the point of the lecture. In Barenboim’s view music is in fact “nothing until it comes into contact with a human being”. There is no universality of meaning or understanding. His favorite definition of music by composer Ferruccio Busoni reflects this view “music is sonorous air”. It is therefore a mistake to attach to music some inherent moral value or impose a hierarchical structure. Classical music is to some extent a closed bubble. It relies on traditions and structures for its survival and can be a bit stuffy to say the least. So it was nice to here one of its great luminaries talk about it in a more open and post modern sense.
Barenboim also talked about the way in which the visual, in terms of the way in which we perceive the world has become dominant. It is certainly true that a whole new generation are growing up with a different way of understanding the world - one that privileges visual culture and that entails new skills and a different kind of intelligence. Whether this development is as alarming as Barenboim claims I am not so sure. People of his generation can tend to be a bit doom and gloom about the future. I was watching an interview with Jan Morris (older still) last night on the television, she seemed particularly pessimistic about the post 9/ 11 landscape.
I am looking forward to the other lectures to see if my understanding thus far is consistent with what else he has to say or whether I’ve got him all wrong.