Roger Scruton

The sound of silence

Roger Scruton describes a left-wing smear campaign that has persuaded the Anglican authorities to cancel a tour this autumn by the German conductor Volker Hartung

issue 20 August 2005

The musical profession has never recognised borders. Composers, performers and ensembles have moved from city to city and country to country, learning and teaching, experimenting with local styles, adding to the repertoire and delighting patrons and the public. This cosmopolitanism belongs to the spirit of Western music, which is an art without frontiers, flowing unhindered into every corner of the civilised world. You can put together an orchestra in which no member shares ethnicity, language or creed with any other, and still be true to the spirit of Mozart, Debussy or Elgar. For our musical tradition is a universal bond between strangers. Music is the one sphere in which the EU’s goal of a Europe without national boundaries makes sense — for it was a goal already achieved by Handel, Scarlatti and Bach.

It was in this cosmopolitan spirit that the German conductor Volker Hartung founded the Cologne New Philharmonic, an orchestra of young musicians that has now begun to make recordings under Hartung’s refined and devoted leadership.

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