Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

CLASSICAL MUSIC? DISCUSS.' (NOT MORE THAN 500 WORDS.)

'd Uke to start with a quick overview. Where is MUSIC? Where is its audience? Is it in crisis? And… Have I told you lately that I love you? Well, if you ask me, Classical music is…

and the audience is HERE. At the risk of labouring my point, let me go a step further. Look around you. You see that thing you can just see miles away on the horizon? Well, that's the audience, way over there. Classical music has, more or less, with a few notable exceptions, lost sight of them -the audience, that is. Or has it?

Well, on the one hand, the modern audience for what we have always called classical music is small, elite and, for the most part, made up of the musical cognoscenti - composers themselves, ardent musical followers of composers, people who colect locomotive numbers, academics, etc. I'm talking about the people who listen to what academics would call 'new' classical music. So, people who would turn up for the premiere of a Luigi Nono piece, or buy Pierre Boulez's Pli Selon Pli, the revised version, on CD. This is, officially, what the 'serious' set see as modern, newly written classical music. To these, I get the feeling people like Tavener-13 aren't really classical music at all, but mere fripperies.

It's as if classical music completely forgot that, well, it was also, at one time, the popular music of the day. True, there has always been change: startling new pieces - shocking even - that left the audience speechless, wanting to take their ball home. Remember Wagner, Beethoven, Bach - they all made audiences reel. Maybe not as often as they made them cheer, but it has always happened. What the avant-garde wave of composers did was, well, was to talk in a language that not so much left people shocked, but left them unaware that it was music in the first place and therefore deserving of a shocked reaction. In the same way that people could wander into an art gallery and not so much be startled by, say, a pile of bricks or a light flashing on and off as actually UNAWARE of it. So music, for a time, failed to even engage its audience. Whether it lost the power to shock or whether it was still shocking, but, like the flashing on and off light, no one even realized, well, it's a moot point. What I think is certain is that by going the way it did, modern classical music did two things. It paved the way for the obligatory backlash, which we'll come to later, but, and possibly more importantly, it allowed a whole tranche of composers, working in a specific and parallel world, to steal a march: to slip in, unnoticed, and claim the title 'the great composers' of today. More importantly, possibly, it allowed them to slip in unnoticed and claim the audience, too. So, who were these masked men and women? The Movie Composers. That's who.

So. Let me run through a brief menu of the people who now, I think, hold the title 'People's Composers' - the movie composers. But for now, allow me to sweep up a few of the corkers that came before.

1985, and the man who wrote the accompaniment to the moving gunsight that followed James Bond writes a gorgeous soundtrack to the Meryl Streep/Robert Redford movie, Out of Africa. The name? fijohn Tavener, a very spiritual British composer, born in 1944, and heavily influenced by Russian Orthodox music. He originally came to prominence on the Beatles' own Apple label. His music is hauntingly beautiful. Harry. John Barry. Then, in 1989… Ennio Morricone adds to his list Dl' great movie scores that include the Oscar-nominated The Mission and Once upon a Time in America with this year's oh-so-lovely noundtrack to Cinema Paradise

1990 and John Barry is back again. The year that saw millions watch, on live TV, the release of Nelson Mandela, sees the release of another Barry classic, the delicious John Dunbar's Theme for Dances with Wolves.

Right, we're up to 1998, the year the frequencies 100 to 102 opened up with classical music, calling itself Classic PM. Bit of a shock, it's got to be said. The man off 'game for a laugh' telling you to bet on 'Battling Beethoven' in the 2.30 at Sandown. But still, it worked. 1993, and the score is John Williams 2, Michael Nyman, 1.

John Williams - Schindler's List. This one is a corker. John Williams couldn't really have been anything else, really, other than a film composer, could he? He has the amazing knack of being able to write the perfect music to match the film. His music always sounds like the film. That may sound obvious, but some composers don't get it, it can just sound grafted on. That's why the theme from Schindler's List SOUNDS black and white, somehow. It's a perfect match for Spielberg's film masterpiece, while something like…

John Williams - Jurassic Park… well, this may sound daft, but I think it sounds like dinosaurs. It's… towering and lofty and epic, with undertones of 'Don't mess with me!' If you know what I mean!

In sharp contrast to John Williams is Michael Nyman, and The Piano. Nyman is a sort of Jack Nicholson of movie composers. By that I don't mean smiling and weird, I mean he always plays himself. A Michael Nyman score is a Michael Nyman score is a Michael Nyman score. As they say in the world of triple-entry bookkeeping. As they say in the world of triple entry book-keeping. As they say in the world of triple entry book-keeping.

Ah, now this is a cute one. 1994. The Channel Tunnel opens, Tony Blair is elected leader of the Labour Party, and playwright/former angry young man John Osborne dies at the age of sixty-five - all as the surprise film hit of the year produces an Oscar for the composer Luis Bacalov,? Postino, or, as it's now known, II Consignio.

1995. An interesting year, I think. Nick Leeson single-handedly brings down Barings Bank, Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa, and John Major wins the Tory leadership challenge -'Oh yes'. I don't know, if only we'd known about Edwina, he might have lasted a lot longer. Also, though, the year of Patrick Doyle, with the Oscar-nominated soundtrack to Sense and Sensibility. A gorgeous score. Also in 1995 we got a taste of things to come. I remember it staying in the Classical Charts for what seemed like months. And long after the film died down, the score was still topping the charts. Yes, it was the start of the uileann pipes craze, namely… James Horner - Braveheart.

The year after Braveheart, as the Globe Theatre is finally opened after some years of campaigning by Sam Wanamaker, there were Oscars for Rachel Portman for Emma; and Gabriel Yared for The English Patient, which scores a direct hit, particularly with its delightfully ursine title, Rupert Bear. Ahh, bears. Don't you just love 'em? Yummy. Anyway, 1997. Princess Diana is dead, Hong Kong is returned to China, and the Titanic does anything but sink. I always love hearing a composer playing his own music, whether it's Peter Maxwell Davies playing Farewell to Stromness - readily available -or even Robert Schumann playing his own 'Traumerei' - a little more rare - there's something about it that makes me listen with fresh ears. James Horner's recordings of some of his own music to the Titanic are in this category.

Now, in 1997 Stephen Warbeck had had some success with the music to Mrs Brown, but his 1998 offering brought him a nice, shiny, golden Academy Award. And very lovely it is too. Great film. Great score. It is Shakespeare in Love. Gorgeous.

Now, skipping on to the year… 8300. A new millennium. By now, we've had the Clinton-Lewinsky saga, Elgar has got himself on the back of the amp;Z0 note - good thing too - and we are in the age of the Euro. All this, and a cult hit for Tan Dun with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Beautiful yet haunting music it is. To 8001, though -foot and mouth, 9/11. A testing year. Plagues and terror - it was ever thus. The films of the year, musically speaking, are possibly… Stephen Warbeck - Captain Corelh's Mandolin Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring John Williams - Harry Potter

Three of the films of 2001 further signalled the rise and rise of movie music. In terms of Oscar honours, while John Williams is the second most nominated and rewarded Oscar composer, with thirty- seven nominations and five awards, it is Canadian Howard Shore who has appeared to come out on top, recently. Shore's scores to both The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King'both won him Oscars at the 74th and 76th annual Oscar ceremonies.. • «r: l/\Pf