"I'm a little Alma, not a little Mozart!"

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

She writes in a highly conservative/approachable (delete as appropriate) style. Music sounds very pleasant and accomplished: I feel churlish saying it's not at all striking or original. An amazing achievement and a bit of a triumph for home-schooling!

And what a charming and articulate person. :)

[Richard Barrett]

She writes in a highly conservative/approachable (delete as appropriate) style. Music sounds very pleasant and accomplished: I feel churlish saying it's not at all striking or original. An amazing achievement and a bit of a triumph for home-schooling!

I don't think anyone is claiming that her music isn't accomplished, or that it should be original, but remarking rather on the fact that it's based on models 150 years old rather than anything closer to our time.

As for home schooling, it's fine of course for people with money, time and education on their hands, but it would be good to be able to imagine someone like this getting the encouragement and support to develop her abilities within the school system. Who knows how many children there are out there with comparable talents, whose opportunities to develop themselves are absent due to where and/or to whom they were born? I'm reminded again of the little bit of research I did into estimating the proportion of "living British composers" who are privately educated. And I can't see this situation improving at present; quite the contrary.

[Cornet IV]

I think that I shall leave fellow Forumista Gabriel Jackson (the only "contemporary composer" whose work I have heard on R3 in recent mornings) to comment on CornetIV's "judgement" of it as "second class". As Bach is referred to as an "arch-conservative" (? a slightly camp Tory?) in #26, I don't think that there's a point of contact I can make to even begin to respond to it.

Oh dear! Again one of my infrequent ventures onto this forum has been soured by un-necessarily adversarial reaction.

I have not sought to, nor indeed have I made any "judgment". I have expressed a view, clearly not universally popular but in no sense was this judgmental. My reference to "second class" was given in parenthesis as this was a direct quote of yourself - vide Nr. 24. It was not a term I would have used in this context.

Having lived with his output for 70 years, I am unable to entertain a view of JSB as being anything other than "conservative" - a view shared by and given substance by the scholarly Rosalyn Tureck. I'm not sure whether it is I or JSB who might be thought a "slightly camp Tory"; I have no idea what this means and in consequence will refrain from comment but I suspect it to be a contrived pseudo-sophism.

I do not remember this level of unpleasantness on the old BBC forum.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

it hardly is surprising that such music is not held in higher regard for in my judgment, the bulk of it indeed is "second class". Just listen to Radio 3 on most mornings to hear what I mean. This, of course, is a criticism of self-indulgent programming as much as anything else.

I have not sought to, nor indeed have I made any "judgment".

[Serial_Apologist]

Indeed, the earth doth resound to the sound of a man blowing his own cornet.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed, the earth doth resound to the sound of a man blowing his own cornet.

... and thus having to find an alternative orifice out of which to talk.

[ahinton]

Indeed, the earth doth resound to the sound of a man blowing his own cornet.

Well, it's certainly not the one to which MacDiarmid refes in his verse

The cornet solo of our Gælic islands
Will sound out every now and again
Through all eternity.
I have heard it and am content forever.

which is appended to the short piano piece Fantasiettina Crittogrammatica that Ronald Stevenson commissioned from me and premièred yeas ago...

Still, there mercifully seems (at least so far) to be "just one cornetto"...

[kea]

If you are the parent or music teacher of a precocious or talented child please do not allow newspapers, magazines, TV, tabloids etc to take advantage of that child by publicising them and their work (or other music teachers/parents/etc to groom the child into becoming a media figure). It can lead to serious psychological issues and cause significant, long-term and irreversible harm to the child as a person. There are definitely children who aren't harmed by publicity and media attention, but if so and they are still interested in music and talented at the age of 18 they can seek that out for themselves rather than having it pushed on them when too young to consent or understand.

As far as I am concerned the parents of this child are being seriously neglectful/potentially abusive as is everyone else involved in publicising her.

Also it's not all that concerning to me that children and students are writing pastiches of 150-year-old music: that was more or less the last time classical music had a set of fixed rules that had to be followed (tonality, form, etc) in order to turn out a "good" composition. Normally, if not given publicity and validation, very young composers will naturally progress beyond the ideas of rules and develop more individual paths. Given it, however, there is a significant chance she will continue to be stuck at a 9-year-old musical level as there is no incentive to develop further. Essentially there's a reasonable possibility media attention will not only harm her psychologically, but impair her normal and healthy musical development as well.

[Richard Barrett]

there is a significant chance she will continue to be stuck at a 9-year-old musical level as there is no incentive to develop further. Essentially there's a reasonable possibility media attention will not only harm her psychologically, but impair her normal and healthy musical development as well.

I think you're absolutely right.

[Mary Chambers]

IIRC, although the thematic material derives from Britten's childhood, the arrangements were made when he was a young adult?

But I like* your parallel with Britten's experience: whereas in previous centuries, young composers would be exposed to the latest Musical compositions as a matter of course, by the Twentieth, the Music of the past had become the standard fare.

* - in the sense that I think it's a good observation, that is; NOT in the sense that I "like" it at all!

The Simple Symphony was based on piano pieces he wrote between the ages of nine and twelve, and as has been said, reworked into a piece for strings when he was about twenty.

I have only just read this thread. It suddenly dawned on me that it was probably about Alma Deutscher and not Alma Mahler as I had for some reason vaguely assumed.

I have come across this child before. She is clearly very gifted, but I feel that her talents should have been allowed to flourish in a more 'normal' environment, with school and other children. Britten's parents were careful to do this. They weren't certain that his gifts would last, or that he could make a living out of them even if they did, so they sent him to what passed for normal middle-class schools in the 1920s, local dame school and prep school followed by a couple of years at public school so that he could get his School Certificate. He did have lessons with Frank Bridge as well, of course.

I'm sure that Miss Deutscher is being well educated in a way, but I don't like the manner in which she is treated like a rare and precious flower. Even prodigies are children.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... it's not all that concerning to me that children and students are writing pastiches of 150-year-old music: that was more or less the last time classical music had a set of fixed rules that had to be followed (tonality, form, etc) in order to turn out a "good" composition.

Whilst thoroughly agreeing with and applauding most of what you say in #38, kea, I think that there are issues (connected with, but far more wide-ranging than the Alma business) that should be a matter of concern. Korngold had the same sort of social/educational background as Alma (including the publicity), but his earliest works already show an awareness and control of a much more advanced Musical style than those of what would already have been fifty years out-of-date at the time he wrote them. Britten's work also shows awareness of Debussy and Ravel. They were exposed to it as a matter of course, and sought to master the contemporary language of their time, not those of earlier generations. That's what genuine creativity is - responding to the Art you are exposed to and manipulating it in your own way - NOT learning/following "a fixed set of rules that have to be followed". Nine-year-olds are not taught the rules of grammar before they are encouraged to write, nor are they just given books written in 1860 to read.

This is the real point that I think needs to be made and made again (aside from the Alma case): going into local Primary Schools, I see evidence of visual Artwork by nine-year-olds (and younger) that has been produced after looking at work by Hockney, Hirst (as well as van Gogh, Picasso, Klee, Matisse, Hepworth etc) on display in the classrooms. Poetry "following" studies of ee cummings and Craig Raine. Imperfect reproductions, but showing the basis of understanding (and, therefore, genuine "judgement") and awareness. The "rules" that these works supposedly break (and, with luck and a good teacher, the new "rules" that they create) are studied later.

This could so easily be part of Music Education, too. Instead, at best, (in these same schools) it's a weekly "singalong", preparing for the Summer Concert, or the Christmas play: a passive, second-rate attitude to Music, treating it merely as a sideshow to the Entertainment Industry. That deeply concerns me.

[MrGongGong]

This could so easily be part of Music Education, too. Instead, at best, (in these same schools) it's a weekly "singalong", preparing for the Summer Concert, or the Christmas play: a passive, second-rate attitude to Music, treating it merely as a sideshow to the Entertainment Industry. That deeply concerns me.

And many others of us as well

http://www.bcmg.org.uk/learning/schools-and-music-educators/listen-imagine-compose/

[french frank]

This could so easily be part of Music Education, too. Instead, at best, (in these same schools) it's a weekly "singalong", preparing for the Summer Concert, or the Christmas play: a passive, second-rate attitude to Music, treating it merely as a sideshow to the Entertainment Industry. That deeply concerns me.

As Sakari Oramo says: "In the schools, classical music has become something only done as a footnote. Drums and guitars are everywhere, which is OK, but if the schools don’t guarantee at least some contact with classical music for every child, where will they have that encounter?"

For me, that doesn't have to be the stuff from 150 years ago - it can be 'the music of the contemporaries'. But this seems to mean either pop music - or teaching every pupil to 'create' which, however rewarding an activity in itself, is no sort of substitute for acquainting children with the range of what the adult world is creating now.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I agree - but I'd add that it's not just "Classical Music" that suffers as a result: Jazz and World Musics of all descriptions (beyond those most approximating to Western Commercial Pop) are also neglected.

[Serial_Apologist]

I agree - but I'd add that it's not just "Classical Music" that suffers as a result: Jazz and World Musics of all descriptions (beyond those most approximating to Western Commercial Pop) are also neglected.

Hence the emergence of the wonderful groups of young black jazz musicians in the mid-1980s, (including one from right around the corner from me), at a time when jazz was definitely on the itinerary.

(Michael Garrick and one or two other of our top musicians fought for that to be on the GCSE and A Level syllabuses, and I assumed it still was. )