The Musicians’ Union is facing a long, cold winter IT has been clear for some while that all is not well at the Musicians’ Union. Four years ago, we reported that the union was being sued by about 200 of its members over a huge royalties fund – as much as £67 million, by some accounts – that it was supposed to be distributing among former players in recording bands. The union refused to divulge how the money was divvied up, and to whom. Many of the musicians concerned were needy; some died before receiving payments they believed were due…

The changing tides in artist management FAMILIARITY can breed many things, none more pernicious than passive acceptance of power. For 70 years, America’s classical music business has been dominated by a huge management agency, Columbia Artists (CAMI), whose head office is menacingly situated opposite Carnegie Hall. For the past 30 years, CAMI’s president, Ronald Wilford, has effectively monopolised the conductor market. The shadowy Wilford, known as the Silver Fox, has more than 100 batons on his books – as well as 800 singers and 300 instrumentalists. He has made millionaires of maestros by slashing the time they spend with orchestras,…

Three American maestros are about to inherit the world’s richest orchestras THE Great American Maestro Chase has reached its climax amid scenes of wild indifference and dismay. Three of the world’s finest orchestras have spent the past two years seeking new music directors who might lead them into the new Millennium. Since these are also the world’s richest three orchestras, they had the field to themselves. Every upwardly mobile conductor from Roberto Abbado to David Zinman awaited an audition call for what should have been a searching test of talent in a haze of high excitement. Instead, the process has…

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Election year offers a chance to change radically Britain’s flawed and outdated relationship between government and the arts.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,…