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Amateurs

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
 
Last weekend I attended a concert given by the local choral and orchestral society in the acoustically rewarding setting of the local church, a warm and welcoming 15th-century masterpiece among the finest of East Anglian buildings.

Eye Bach Choir, photo reproduced by kind permission

The flint encrusted tower outside and the magnificent rood screen and stained glass windows within are breath taking, and the prospect of filling it with a programme of music by Mozart made a temperate spring evening something of an indulgence. It was indeed a pleasure, and had me considering afresh my frequent relegation of the offerings of the amateur performer to a generally inferior status. My distinction between the musical amateur and professional orchestral player was that the former was content to remain within limits, both technically and artistically; the professional could not.
There was some safety perhaps in the rules of the 18th century Academy of Ancient Music, involving amateurs of social standing, which limited repertoire to ‘music at least 25 years old’ (which now would no doubt have increased to 100 years!). The plethora of ‘Gentlemen’s Concerts’ and the type of ‘Harmonic Meetings’ featured in Dickens’s Bleak House, presided over by that peerless comedian Little Swills, spread throughout England, and were apparently most profuse in East Anglia. My reluctance to acknowledge the skills of the amateur had historical provenance.
Philip Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who died in 1773, was careful to educate his son into cultural appreciation without the hard work. It was good to play the violin, he told him, but not so well as a professional as that would demand hard work and the pursuit of excellent which were ‘most unedifying companions for a man of fashion’. To be good at anything except behavior would suggest that one had made an effort, and such was not the business of a gentleman. So audiences tended to be made of those who listened and approved or disapproved. The intellectual or spiritual value of art was not the business of ‘a man of fashion’ who attended concerts and operas because society demanded it.
I could not help looking around at the full and predominantly aged audience to wonder how much of that 18th century attitude still persisted. Did fashion still require people to be seen at these events?  And were many of them competent but clandestine performers? What was quite certain was that there were able and confident performers in the orchestra I was hearing, for Mozart’s Coronation Mass has some devilish string parts, and the 50-strong chorus, though rather uncertain in places, produced a sturdy and well balanced sound when they were sure. We have become so exacting in our standards now, for recordings and broadcasts with even the smallest amateur errors cannot be tolerated, and composers now rely so much on performers who can play virtually anything placed in front of them that they have become not only technically inconsiderate but even disdainful.
Many of the greatest European composers of the past must have made do with very mediocre performances. It is evident from the letters of Dittersdorf, Spohr, Mozart and Beethoven that performances were put together with hardly any rehearsal at all, some without rehearsal, and with players so ill paid that they didn’t care even to arrive for a performance sober. It is startling to remember that as late as 1904, Sir Henry Wood made it a rule that players attending rehearsals should also turn up for the performance; the so called ‘deputies’ system meant that the orchestra ‘on the night’ may consist entirely of players who had not been at a single rehearsal!
Perhaps our skillful amateurs maintain a reality balance for us that the professionals have lost. It is sometimes good to hear the flaws just to remind us that perfection is unreal – like the hairline cracks incorporated into oriental ceramics to avoid being impertinent to the gods.
PS The Eye Bach Choir, to which Patric refers, is celebrating its 40th anniversary in the coming season.


Posted by author: Patric

One thought on “Amateurs

  • Bravo Patric. As an amateur conductor and organist I find I am more than aware of my failings because so much professionally performed music is around. So when I raise my hand to start conducting a choral piece I know that the intonation will be flawed, the rhythm occasionally dodgy and my conducting will lack expression and support. But my wonderful professional accompanist and the talented soloists we employ will help to raise our game and we will have the privilege of being able to take part in some of the greatest music ever written. In the end it all makes up for the grind of organising a concert and putting up with patchy attendance and all the other perils of running a choir.

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