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Tough, for us and them

Friday, 11th April 2008

I have mixed reactions to this.

The Barbican has been forced to cancel a concert by the Russian pianist Grigory Sokolov because of changes to visa regulations requiring non-EU citizens to provide fingerprints.
Sokolov, 57, was due to perform a programme of Mozart sonatas and Chopin on 10 May at the London concert hall, followed by an appearance at Glasgow's City Hall. But the pianist will no longer travel to the UK, where he has been performing regularly for the past 18 years, because he is unwilling to disrupt his schedule to apply in person for the new biometric visa.

Sokolov is a wondrous pianist and I had tickets for that now cancelled concert. And if his unwillingness to travel to the UK is the first of other such decisions by great artists, I will be despondent.

However, these comments made me see red:

The Barbican is concerned that the changes to the visa system could deter other artists from travelling to perform in the UK.
Robert Van Leer, head of music at the Barbican, said: "In the past, Grigory Sokolov has always been able to [apply for a visa] remotely. He hasn't had to go anywhere in person. We're dealing with an artist of the highest sort. He really only does two things. He practises and he goes to concerts and plays."
Mr Van Leer added: "Even if we move past this individual situation, I don't see it as a tenable way of working with artists. We often have artists who are not back in their home country for weeks on end. I'm worried about how we're going to deal with these artists."
...A spokeswoman for the pianist said: "He's been coming for the past 18 years and he's never had a problem before. The whole process has become incredibly complicated, time-consuming and difficult.
"Some artists just can't quite handle that sort of intrusion into their music. For someone like Sokolov, who languished behind the Iron Curtain for years and his career in the West started very late, having suffered at the hands of that regime, to find all this obstruction to playing in a country he's played in for 18 years is very distressing."

I beg your pardon? I revere some musicians. I would travel - have travelled - to the other side of the world - for concerts and opera. But why should they have the right - as is the implicit demand behind such comments - to be treated any differently from the rest of us? If the poor dears can't cope with the real world, that's tough: for us and for them. But sensitivity and an inability to live in the real world are no good reasons for the law not to apply.

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Sempronius

April 11th, 2008 11:04am

I don't see an implicit demand to change the law in those comments - just a statement of the obvious: that if visiting foreigners are going to be made to jump through too many hoops to get here then many of them just won't bother. It cuts both ways - I'm not that enthusiastic about having a biometric passport to get out of the country, either.

Veronica

April 11th, 2008 11:05am

What to you mean by "treated any differently from the rest of us"? I guess it's not you who perform at Barbican and need to come in person to some other city for your fingerprints to be taken.

You seem not to get it. Sokolov doesn't owe you anything. It's nice to perform at Barbican, but he has a lot of other places to choose from. He finds spending one day JUST TO GET a UK visa for one performance a bit too much of a hassle. He'll go somewhere else (basically, anywhere in continental Europe, for example).

It's not Sokolov or other musicians (Chinese, American, and so on) who might choose not to disrupt their timetable who lose by the Brits treating illegal immigrants, tourists and distinguished musicians (or someone similar) in the same way :)

Joshua

April 11th, 2008 3:46pm

Dear Outraged of Finchley: Given that much of the cost of those tickets was one way and another paid for by millions of people who either loathe or barely tolerate classical music, I do think that you're the very last person who should be complaining about Grigory Sokolov's supposed inability to cope with the real world. I am particularly fond of jazz, scotch and pretty women. However, I do not expect anyone else to subsidise my pleasures and peccadillos (voluntary donations will of course be gratefully received and employed appropriately).

Alleagra

April 13th, 2008 4:13pm

Don't we all have the right not to have to live in this 'real world' created by bureaucrats in the EU and US that presages a frightful future for us all?