If your concert-going habits mean that you always attend the same kinds of venue in the same kinds of town in the same country, the equation I am about to put to you may strike you as being rather odd. But the fact is that on the world stage there are socialist concerts and capitalist concerts; and, although they overlap, in their neat forms they are astonishingly different.
In Britain the two tend to blend into each other, with tax-payers’ money helping to build the hall in the first place and grants being available — from the Arts Council, for instance — to stage interesting events which otherwise would not be viable. The public is duly charged for attending, and the money that is raised from the sale of tickets is crucial to the final financial result. In this system there is always an anxious moment, inconveniently about five minutes before the artists are due to go on stage, when it becomes apparent whether the costs will be covered or not. Those responsible (which usually includes the conductor) may be seen looking distracted as they do quick mental calculations about the extent of the shortfall and where they are going to find the difference. Nor is a good house necessarily a guarantee of success. To budget the break-even point at, say, 70 per cent of the house is to ask for trouble. It may look from the stage as though 70 per cent has sold, but those quick tottings-up are always, without fail, over-optimistic. However, I digress.
The purer forms of concert promotion are to be found in Catholic Europe on the one hand, and American university campuses on the other.
In the US private money is solicited for every stage of the process, from the building of the hall, which will be named after (or ‘for’) the donor, to the paying of the artists and the staff at the hall itself. Students will be charged to attend the concerts, though my impression is that the cost of a ticket is not high compared with some commercial halls in Europe and Japan, suggesting that a larger percentage of the cost has been covered in advance than in the British system.
The socialist version, which I have been experiencing at length recently in Spain, is the polar opposite of the American, except to say that similarly all the costs have been budgeted for. They have to be, since the audience is let in entirely for free. From the halls themselves (which can be architecturally spectacular) to the fees of the artists, to the caretakers and administrators, it is the tax-payer who foots the bill and no private citizen would dream of offering his own money to make something different happen, a point on which the ones I have asked are vehement.
What interests me as a performer is the atmosphere that can be obtained in these different situations. A free audience is often a nightmare, with teenagers giggling at the falsettists, children bored and everybody coughing; though just occasionally a packed space, with people sitting on the floor and standing at the back, can produce the best kind of buzz. And the worst kind of audience — worse even than bored children — are those who are beautifully dressed, sitting and clapping politely, yawning up their sleeves and not even curious. For some reason I think of Bermuda.
It is good to know who wanted us to be there. The really disappointing thing about socialist concerts is that no one takes responsibility for the existence of the event. Just recently we were greeted by the caretaker of a hall in Spain with the words ‘how long?’. That was all the reception we got. The audience equally took no responsibility: having paid nothing, yet still in a sense owning the occasion, they could come and go as they pleased. After a performance in Burgos recently I asked the promoter whether the concert had been a success.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘the public stayed for the second half.’ This is not the measure of success when a ticket has cost £30. At least when someone is paying for you to turn up they look pleased to see you, and are solicitous about your health.
But I realise there are merits on both sides of this divide, since the socialist model may give people exposure to something which private sponsorship might never pay for. Still, quite apart from the systemic carelessness and laziness which always seem to accompany the dishing out of public funds, concert promotion remains a very expensive business which is less likely to hit its mark if money is no object.
The story is often told of a BBC Singers concert of hyper-modern music — all costs covered by the Corporation — at which there was one person in the audience. The first half of the programme was performed but at the interval the conductor turned to the lone auditor and suggested they might all be happier in the pub. The listener replied, ‘You carry on. I’m just waiting to close up.’ I tell you, it’s the caretakers who set the tone.
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