Clive Myrie, now probably the top face of the BBC, and host of their television coverage of the Proms, had a strange one on Twitter this weekend. A fan gushed at him that ‘[the Proms are] completely accessible – no formal dress code and you can buy a Prom ticket on the day for the price of a pint! To hear some of the world’s best performers. What’s not to love?’ To which Myrie replied, ‘We’ve to keep pushing on that. This is music for everyone, not a select few who know their crotchets from their quavers!! That’s boring and naff!!’
The people who take these ‘vital’ and ‘important’ stands against phantoms enjoy the cost-free thrill of demanding an immediate end to something that nobody is actually doing
What a strange exchange. A formal dress code and knowledge of musical notation aren’t things demanded at the Proms, no. But they aren’t demanded anywhere else either. When and where was this ever the case, at least in the longest of living memories? I’ve been going to concerts and operas for nearly 40 years and I’ve never been either quizzed on music theory or refused entry for wearing trainers, and I am a scruffy, scruffy man. ‘Dress in a way that suits you. There are no rules,’ says the website of the poshest of music festivals, Glyndebourne. Even more weirdly, crotchets and quavers are really basic and simple to grasp, ABC stuff. I remember ‘doing’ them at a very ordinary state school when I was 8. Is it really the mark of the ‘select few’ to know what they are? If Myrie had gone on about Picardy thirds and the crisis of tonality, maybe he’d have more of a point. Yes, classical concerts may often be expensive, but that will happen when you have to pay lots of highly trained performers a reasonable amount.
When other tweeters wondered what Myrie was going on about, he said, ‘I’m so glad we’re having this discussion!!’ (He does like his exclamation marks!!) People who say ‘I’m glad we’re having this discussion’ are always lying. ‘It’s about time. Crotchets and quavers without enthusiasm and joy mean zilch in the vital task of passing on wonderful music to new generations. Technical knowledge is VITAL, but part of a much bigger equation.’
This is another example of the curious modern phenomenon of pushing back very hard against something – Kipling-style history teaching, gay conversion therapy, lesbian Nazism, etc – that isn’t even happening. I think the people who take these ‘vital’ and ‘important’ stands against phantoms enjoy the cost-free thrill of demanding an immediate end to something that nobody is actually doing.
But the Myrie incident speaks to another modern irritation, the attempt to make ‘high’ culture ‘relevant’ by trivialising and reducing it, to funk it up.
One of the attractive things about some of the classical repertoire is the awe-inspiring massiveness and impenetrability of it. It doesn’t give a damn what you think, it looms above your insect being like a thundering waterfall. There is a different variety of pleasure to take from that. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy it, but its formal structure and grandness really matter. It is the polar opposite of the bish-bosh TikTok three-minutes-and-out snippet culture of almost everything else on offer today.
Myrie talks like a grim municipal pamphlet about ‘pushing at’ making things ‘accessible’, then switches to stock 1980s teenager with ‘boring’ and ‘naff’. (But then, like me, he was one, so fair enough.) The way adults talk in this ‘inspired’ way – like presenters on CB:TV or Wacaday – summons up my last meal. I saw some of the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage and it made me want to set fire to the studio. And that’s bloody tennis, hardly the most complex thing to wrap your head around.
This tone brings back acutely painful memories of being patronised just because you’re young. I think this trendy vicar bonhomie could in fact be more off-putting than the actual gravity and enormity of the high culture being presented. We are often told that something classic and enduring is ‘relevant’ and ‘accessible’. Well, what a surprise. All good art is relevant and accessible.
But sometimes I’m afraid that you do have to make an effort to meet it – a small one or a big one. You simply can’t knock off Der Ring des Nibelungen in ten minutes while scrolling down your Insta. If you have to really force yourself to like something, it’s probably not for you. And that’s fine.
The time required to make such efforts is in fact the important, unspoken factor here, the real reason why high culture has a snob appeal. It is a coded demonstration that you have the time to engage with it and to acquaint yourself fully with it. But to react to this with the groovy Bible, the rapping King Lear, the peng Proms? No no no.
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