Half-baked ideas
‘about the GPO
Sir, Having read your
report (December 6) on
the projected ‘“dramatic
shake-up for town orchestra” may I, as a former
reviewer of Guildford
Philharmonic concerts in
your newspaper for nearly
20 years, ask a few questions?
Who is describing the
GPO’s music as “the constraints of a formal standardised concert series”?
Who is claiming that
“audiences are getting less
and less musically adventurous’’?
Who is calling this an
“exclusive and elitist market”?
And who is Nicola
Goold to come storming
into Guildford with her
half-baked ideas “challenging the whole meaning of PhilharmonicTM.
Doesn’t she realise that
the
Guildford
Philharmonic, under several illustrious conductors, has built up a reputation as one of the leading
provincial
symphony
orchestras in Britain?
Does En Shao agree
with her ideas? Does
Vernon Handley agree?
I travelled a total of 200
miles to the last, brilliant
concert
of
Beethoven/Brahms
on
December 14. Are we
going to have fewer classical concerts? Audiences
have always been excited
about classical music.
What on earth is meant by
“in the broadest sense”’?
Surely,
Guildford
Borough Council will not
abandon its support of
the GPO in its present
style? I do not want pop
classics.
JOHN FRAYN TURNER
Apartment 302,
The Metropole,
Folkestone.
GPO ‘pp’
THE ADVERTISER, AUGUST 21, 1998
Letters
Fax
Must orchestras
follow public taste
rather than lead it?
Sir, I have looked at the
programmes for the forthcoming season by the
Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra. Their content
raises a lot of large ques-
tions.
:
Can an orchestra survive seriously by performing only one symphony
per year? And that one,
the Dvorak New World?
Last season the GPO
gave a breathtakingly brilliant
account
of
the
Beethoven
Seventh
Symphony — and virtually no more. Similarly with
concerts.
After
the
Chopin Piano Concerto
No. 1, also in the opening
concert with the New
World, virtually nothing.
Admittedly there is a
span of. great choral
music.
Several
other.
T
————
things
emerge on close analysis
of the GPO prospects.
Only six concerts are actually by the full orchestra.
The rest are chamberbased.
And, of course, of
these six, several are composed of shorter pieces of
popular appeal.
This is obviously to try
to make the orchestra
more economically justifi-
able. But how far should
such a policy go?
Must orchestras now
follow public taste rather
than try to lead it?
Music lovers like me
may be lost forever to an
orchestra - they
have
admired for 35 years. Noone may mind.
It may be a sign of the
times. Perhaps symphony
orchestras will become
extinct — but I hope noone ever calls them elitist.
I
am
sick
of
being
“brapdod
by-this word-sim=—_
ply in seeking to preserve
and nurture the best in the
arts.
Listen to us for
fine choral works
Sir, Following the letters
criticising the demise of
the Guildford Philharmonic, as we have all
known it, might
I, as
the
of
chairman
Guildford Philharmonic
Choir, invite the writers
and others to our concerts
next season.
:
For symphony lovers,
we shall be performing
Mahler Symphony No. 2
and Bruckner Mass in E
minor on March 13, 1999,
in the cathedral.
The choir has for the
past 50 years performed
Guildford
the
with
Philharmonic Orchestra
the great choral works of
both well-known and less-
er- known composers for
the music lovers of
Guildford, supported by
an enlightened and for-
ward-looking
borough
council.
Under the new scheme,
the choir has been separated from the orchestra
and the borough organisation and is promoting
Meanwhile, 1 shall go
to that opening concert,
but not many of the
remaining dozen or so.
JOHN TURNER
16 Church Street,
Leatherhead.
music IS
not what
Sir, I have just received the
future programme of the
Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra and 1 regret
that, for the second successive season, the concerts
are
unlikely
to
receive my patronage.
It is sad to see this
orchestra, which built its
outstanding
reputation
primarily on its performances of early 20th century
British
music,
not
being given a single piece
of Elgar, Delius, Walton
or
(the
lightweight
Fantasia on Christmas
carols apart) Vaughan
Williams to play — not to
mention. Parry, Bax or
Bliss!
And can a programme
ever have been devised
before for a symphony
orchestra that contains
only one symphony in a
whole year — and that the
already over-exposed New
World — and only one
concerto?
The more discerning
music
lovers - of
the
_Guildford area will clearly
have to travel to Dorking,
Basingstoke, Woking or
London to satisfy their
requirements to hear good
orchestral music this coming season.
Perhaps, in the meantime, Guildford Borough
Council should consider
renaming the GPO the
Guildford
Pops
Orchestra, for this is surely- what
it
has
now
become.
for our forthcoming pub-
Or perhaps the council
should review its support
for this ensemble and its
general manager altogether and consider giving it
instead to arts organisations in the borough for
whom quality and artistic
integrity are still important considerations.
We are very much
looking forward to an
High Rise,
its own concerts.
Details of these were
not allowed in the new
borough
season’s
brochure but do look out
licity!
exciting season performing works of quality and
integrity.
Our plans mean that
we shall be singing even
more than usual and playing our full part in the
musical life of Guildford.
JOHN TRIGG
(Chairman, Guildford
Philharmonic Choir)
13 Vicarage Gate,
Onslow Village,
Guildford.
PETER ANDREWS
Greenhill Close,
Godalming.
O See also theatre and
arts, on page 17.