Philip Pickett sentenced to 11 years imprisonment

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To add clarity: by "conductor" here I meant "conductor[or person] most associated with King's Consort[= Retrospect Ensemble]", i.e, Robert King, not the actual conductor of this performance, Matthew Halls.

But Robert King (whose recordings I will not buy new) was not "most associated" with the Retrospect Ensemble, and royalties from recordings made by the Retrospect Ensemble do not reach King's pocket. Given that the performers in the Retrospect Ensemble also work for other Period Instrument ensembles, one would need to know the personnel of each recording you intended to buy to prevent providing funding for those who continue to work with King.


Mal, you might wish to know that for several years, I was vaguely acquainted with Peter Ball, when he was Bishop of Lewes. I found him an interesting and absorbing public speaker, and enjoyed my brief moments of chatter with him. I had no idea that this (as I believed) decent, honourable, and considerate man was a sexual predator, and was shocked and dismayed (and seriously, seriously angry) when the truth became public.

I hope that this will not affect your membership of this Forum.

[Barbirollians]

King has made records with his new orchestra which have been praised on R3 - I would not touch them with a barge pole. the Retrospect ensemble comprises his old orchestra and unless there is any evidence any of them knew about his offending and covered it up I see no reason to blame them for his behaviour.

I find those sentencing remarks utterly disgusting - the idea that because a convicted paedophile gets married he is rescued and no longer a risk is antediluvian.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Silve's mention of "Christian forgiveness" is an interesting notion. I am not a Christian, but I think it would be arrogant for me to presume that I could "forgive" anyone for an offence that they had not given to me. I can no longer forgive a sexual predator for offences against other people than I can forgive Nazis involved in the Extermination Camp - it simply isn't "up to" me to do this; it is for the people who were the victims of such offences.

[DracoM]

OK, I DO see all that from all posters, BUT if a recording is made by such people AND it's seriously good musical work, then how do we react? Do we say:
[a] It 'doesn't exist' or
[b] 'never saw it' or
[c] 'will never buy it'.

The last yes, but the other two?

Do we stop admiring Byron's poetry because he was a serial lecher? Does that invalidate his skill / excellence as a POET?

[teamsaint]

King failed to take responsibility for his actions, and has showed little humility or remorse in his return to very visible public music making. Other options around how he makes a living were doubtless open to him.

He has paid a price for his crimes, but he has failed to act in an appropriate manner on his release.
The music industry, and including BBC radio, should look very hard in the mirror to consider its varying treatments of those committing broadly similar offences.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Given that the performers in the Retrospect Ensemble also work for other Period Instrument ensembles, one would need to know the personnel of each recording you intended to buy....

Reminds me of a moral maze i encountered when working in a WHS record department as a student c1973. An elderly couple kept bringing concerto LPs to me and asking if the soloist was Jewish. I answered to the best of my ability, not knowing whether this factor was a plus or a minus for them. When they made their purchases they told me that the Jews were trying to take over the world so they wouldn't buy such discs

I contented myself with the reflection that their chances of getting 100% Aryan orchestras were distinctly limited.

There were other tricky questions in WHS without any moral issue. An obvious rock enthusiast asked if we had the 1812 Overture. We had a number of versions from bargain to full price. He peered at them dubiously and asked me, "Which one's the original?" Not an easy question to answer tactfully!

[Bryn]

Do we stop admiring Byron's poetry because he was a serial lecher? Does that invalidate his skill / excellence as a POET?

Well I, for one, have vowed never to enter a church or concert venue where the works of Gesualdo are performed, and stay well away from galleries which exhibit the work of Caravaggio, (NOT!).

[Stanfordian]

It seems upper middle class music professionals with a public school background, too often, get a free pass when it comes to paedophilia; and other musicians & journalists, of a similar background, are quite happy to consort with them & support them. Stay alert, check out the background of those you are throwing your money at.

Vote with your wallets.

It's not all about the music (and there's plenty of great music from the untarnished... the devil does not have all the good music...) Interesting that the Observer in 2007 published an article by an establishment poet supporting our highbrow paedophile, but this year the Guardian had a "long read" in the Guardian that harshly criticised this article:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...d-sexual-abuse

Such a moving article - which I hadn't read before. Someone's life so terribly affected by the voracious desire for sexual gratification of another. The remarkable level of effort put into the grooming is amazing but sadly not unusual as I found through my prison work with sex offenders. I hope Tom can find some peace from his torment.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Do we stop admiring Byron's poetry because he was a serial lecher? Does that invalidate his skill / excellence as a POET?

No - but it is important (if we take Byron's poetry seriously) to take his vile behaviour as much into account (and his activities as a political revolutionary) as we do his achievements as a poet.

There's a substantial commercial difference between cases like Byron and those like King's that I would take into account: if I buy a volume of Byron's poetry, it's not financially profiting Byron. Buying a CD (new) by Pickett or King (Robert or Jonathan) does put money in their pockets.

[Pulcinella]

No - but it is important (if we take Byron's poetry seriously) to take his vile behaviour as much into account (and his activities as a political revolutionary) as we do his achievements as a poet.

There's a substantial commercial difference between cases like Byron and those like King's that I would take into account: if I buy a volume of Byron's poetry, it's not financially profiting Byron. Buying a CD (new) by Pickett or King (Robert or Jonathan) does put money in their pockets.

It does, but as a reward for their musical talent, which for me does not imply that I condone their behaviour.
A fine distinction perhaps, but one that I happen to be comfortable with (at the risk of horrifying others hereabouts).

[Pabmusic]

No - but it is important (if we take Byron's poetry seriously) to take his vile behaviour as much into account (and his activities as a political revolutionary) as we do his achievements as a poet.

There's a substantial commercial difference between cases like Byron and those like King's that I would take into account: if I buy a volume of Byron's poetry, it's not financially profiting Byron. Buying a CD (new) by Pickett or King (Robert or Jonathan) does put money in their pockets.

I watched the Tony Palmer film on Malcolm Arnold recently, and was struck by the reputation he had as a truly unpleasant man. Not only was such an evaluation attributed to John Drummond, but in the end none of his children (nor, unsurprisingly, his wives) would have much to do with him.

But does that mean that we should be wary about listening to his music? And does the reason people thought he was unpleasant matter?

[ahinton]

I watched the Tony Palmer film on Malcolm Arnold recently, and was struck by the reputation he had as a truly unpleasant man. Not only was such an evaluation attributed to John Drummond, but in the end none of his children (nor, unsurprisingly, his wives) would have much to do with him.

But does that mean that we should be wary about listening to his music? And does the reason people thought he was unpleasant matter?

Quite - and should I by the same token attend confession (not that I would because I'm not a Christian) because I have listened to the works of Florent Schmitt?...

[Stanfordian]

No - but it is important (if we take Byron's poetry seriously) to take his vile behaviour as much into account (and his activities as a political revolutionary) as we do his achievements as a poet.

There's a substantial commercial difference between cases like Byron and those like King's that I would take into account: if I buy a volume of Byron's poetry, it's not financially profiting Byron. Buying a CD (new) by Pickett or King (Robert or Jonathan) does put money in their pockets.

Whether to play or buy recordings, or attend concerts by convicted sex offenders is very much down to the individual. I can imagine this being a real dilemma for some.

[Mal]

I watched the Tony Palmer film on Malcolm Arnold recently, and was struck by the reputation he had as a truly unpleasant man. Not only was such an evaluation attributed to John Drummond, but in the end none of his children (nor, unsurprisingly, his wives) would have much to do with him.

But does that mean that we should be wary about listening to his music? And does the reason people thought he was unpleasant matter?

But Palmer ends up suggesting that we do more for Arnold:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/homage-to-a-misfit-53010.html

"... aged only 21, he was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Compound that with a disadvantaged background, an over-healthy appetite for alcohol and women and the absence of powerful protectors akin to those of his near-contemporaries Benjamin Britten and William Walton, and it's clear that the odds were stacked against Arnold..."

"Arnold decided he no longer wanted to live. Depression, attempted suicide, alcoholism, two failed marriages and periods in and out of hospital, undergoing treatments for mental illness, had a profound effect on him through the 1970s and early 1980s. He was given electric shock therapy, insulin treatment, maybe even a lobotomy."

Why did his wives and children not have much to do with him? If they just couldn't handle the suicide attempts and depression then surely he is more to be pitied than castigated for not holding down a marriage and estranging his children. A depressed person can be unpleasant, but it's a totally different category of unpleasantness than paedophilia.

A quote in the article from one of his children doesn't indicate resentment:

"Arnold's children, too, speak movingly of the destruction of their family through their father's malady: "I've never before been faced with someone saying, 'I have lost my father,'" Palmer reports of his interview with Arnold's daughter Katherine."

"I hope this is a sympathetic film, but it's also an angry film," Palmer insists. "I'm angry on behalf of Malcolm Arnold. I'm saying, 'Come on, guys, we've got this great man in our midst, and you're treating him badly!' I want to do something about it. It's a passionately angry film about someone who's been terribly neglected and has suffered appallingly as a consequence. There's not much we can do about it, because he's not going to write nine more symphonies. But what we can do is pay him proper tribute."

Note, this article was published in 2004 and Arnold passed away in in 2006.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I watched the Tony Palmer film on Malcolm Arnold recently, and was struck by the reputation he had as a truly unpleasant man. Not only was such an evaluation attributed to John Drummond, but in the end none of his children (nor, unsurprisingly, his wives) would have much to do with him.

But does that mean that we should be wary about listening to his music? And does the reason people thought he was unpleasant matter?

I want to avoid "we" here, and stick to "I", for the reasons Stanf gives in his #193.

I think that there is a world of difference between being "truly unpleasant" and molesting children.

The quality of the Music/Poetry/Painting/Sculpture/Window-Cleaning skills of a sex abuser may be unaffected by the fact that they are a sex abuser, but the fact may well figure in whether an individual choses to employ them or not - or buy their products - and I think that this would be a legitimate reason for somebody to be "wary about listening" to the Music/Music-Making of such an individual. There would be similar questions if a child-abusing priest/vicar/bishop gave an excellent sermon - the arguments may be immaculately expressed, but there would always be the nagging knowledge that, coming from such a source, the moral impetus has become dissipated.