THE MUSICAL SPECTATOR: The Sound of Silence
Scruton, Roger
THE MUSICAL SPECTATOR ROGER SCR U TON The Sound of Silence r 1HE MUSICAL PROFESSION has never recognized bor- ders. Composers, performers, and ensembles have moved from city to city and country...
...The smear campaign, launched by a leftist trade union, was taken up also by Germany's orchestra union, which shares the protectionist ideology of its French counterpart...
...Actually Hartung employs musicians from everywhere, in a job that involves constant travel between countries, a constant search for audiences, and a hand-to-mouth existence from one engagement to the next...
...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...
...And repeated allegations are far more damaging than criminal prosecutions, since they offer the victim no right of defense...
...He had filled in all the relevant forms, believing that he was covered, like every business, by the EU treaties guaranteeing the free transference of goods and services across borders...
...After a performance of Ravel's Bolero and Bizet's Carmen Suite at the Strasbourg Palais de la Musique in February, Hartung returned to the platform to thunderous applause, picked up his baton to begin an encore, and was promptly seized and marched off by the police...
...However, it was the first time that he had been forced to pay for his popularity with a couple of nights in jail, being interrogated throughout the first of those nights by insolent officers who denied him not only food and drink but also the use of the toilet...
...To 46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR OCTOBER 2005 ROGER SCRUTON offer regular employment contracts, a German orchestra would have to charge the kind of ticket prices, and receive the kind of subsidies, that would confine it to the big concert venues...
...In short, it is a job for freelancers, and the Cologne New Philharmonic contracts with its players on those terms...
...Taking a job in such an orchestra is like joining the circus...
...but intimidation, allegations, a sustained smear campaign in the press, and a "caution," together with a "ban" on future performances in France—a ban which is almost certainly illegal under community law...
...rirrrahre...
...Indeed, one consequence of German employment law, with its socialist bias in favor of the employee, is that employment is rapidly disappearing from Germany...
...Or are we to look forward to a time when the cathedral choirs are unionized, and when all music in church is governed by the equivalent of German employment law, with a pension for life for every choirboy when his voice breaks...
...To his astonishment, though, the work permit was suddenly withdrawn, by a fax received at the last minute, when the concert could not be cancelled...
...It is a job that simply could not exist under the terms of a normal German employment contract, with all the benefits and perks that make the employer more responsible for his employee than a husband for his wife...
...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...
...Fortunately for the musical life of Europe, there are people like Volker Hartung who look for ways to bring music to the wider public...
...Such peripatetic musicians exemplify Hartung's philosophy, and it would be shameful of the Anglican Church to spurn him, simply because journalists have sided with those who wish both to monopolize live music and also to keep it to themselves...
...For our musical tradition is a universal bond between strangers...
...It was the Guardian, notoriously addicted to leftist smear campaigns, that brought the case to England...
...As a consequence, Hartung's scheduled concerts in English cathedrals this autumn have been peremptorily cancelled by deans who recognize no authority higher than a Guardian editorial...
...They travel from church to church, charging £2,000 a time, and for that price affordable tickets are available to local music lovers and money is still raised for charity...
...What was Hartung's crime...
...It is enthusiastically received, but that enthusiasm is not universally shared...
...Not prosecution, of course, since this would have given him the chance to vindicate himself and to turn the tables on his accusers...
...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...
...One letter deserves to be quoted: You will know of the negative publicity that appeared in the Guardian in the UK on 2 March 2005 concerning the Cologne New Philharmonic Orchestra...
...The allegation, put about by the French musicians union, is that Hartung employs performers from Eastern Europe without work permits...
...It is surely a great mistake of the Anglican Church to join forces with protectionist trade unions, against the style of music-making on which the Church itself depends...
...In order to obtain permission to perform in Strasbourg, Hartung had applied for a collective work permit for his orchestra, and this had been granted...
...This cosmopolitanism belongs to the spirit of Western music, which is an art without frontiers, flowing unhindered into every corner of the civilized world...
...And Hartung was given the full gamut of punishment...
...No explanation was given, and the manner of the withdrawal was surely illegal...
...Since when has Christian charity permitted us to act on unproven allegations, or to withdraw our help from their victim...
...The band travels from place to place across the Continent, performing in all the venues that would like to hear live music, but which cannot afford the fees demanded by the big established orchestras...
...More and more Germans are either self-employed or unemployed...
...EVERTHELESS, UNDER PRESSURE from the 1,000strong French musicians union, the police decided to act...
...At Malmesbury Abbey once a year, the Ukrainian Boyan Ensemble sing the sacred music of the Orthodox Church...
...And it is certain that he was...
...In a piece of shamelessly biased reporting from Berlin, the paper managed to repeat all the allegations against Hartungwithout exposing their utter and transparent baselessness...
...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...
...Article and cartoon reproduced by permission of The Spectator magazine in London...
...Through the Three Choirs Festival and the weekly engagement in music-making, the cathedrals have shown how to keep a musical culture alive by involving amateurs and professionals on an equal footing...
...Despite having maintained France in a state of musical impoverishment unequalled anywhere in Europe, the musicians' union resents the intrusion of friendly competition into its territory...
...My son is going thro and wants his freedo OCTOBER 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47...
...Needless to say, for a gentle and civilized person who had dedicated himself to bringing the music of Europe to the people of Europe, the experience was shattering...
...Thiswas not the first time he had been in trouble with the French authorities—a previous concert in Nice having also been raided...
...We cannot judge the truth of these allegations but [our] Cathedral cannot proceed with your proposed event here while these allegations and the associated publicity continue...
...ugh a rebellious phase m. So, I left home...
...There is nothing illegal in this under either German or European law...
Vol. 38 • October 2005 • No. 8
