Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction and Acknowledgements
- Bernarr Rainbow: A Biographical Note
- Part I Five Bernarr Rainbow Lectures
- Part II The 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture
- Will Serious Music Become Extinct?
- Part III A 2013 Perspective
- Part IV Three Views on Music Education
- Part V Two Reviews of Bernarr Rainbow on Music
- Appendices
- Index
Will Serious Music Become Extinct?
from Part II - The 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction and Acknowledgements
- Bernarr Rainbow: A Biographical Note
- Part I Five Bernarr Rainbow Lectures
- Part II The 2005 Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture
- Will Serious Music Become Extinct?
- Part III A 2013 Perspective
- Part IV Three Views on Music Education
- Part V Two Reviews of Bernarr Rainbow on Music
- Appendices
- Index
Summary
Royal Philharmonic Society Lecture,
given at the Queen Elizabeth Hall,
London, 24 April 2005
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was born in Salford, Greater Manchester, and was appointed Master of the Queen's Music in 2004, which widened the scope of the international reputation he had already enjoyed for at least three decades. He studied in Manchester and Rome and was then music master at Cirencester Grammar School (1959–62). With Harrison Birtwistle he founded the Pierrot Players, later the Fires of London, in 1967. He moved to the Orkney Islands in 1971; ten years later he was made CBE, and he was knighted in 1987.
The other evening, after my usual full day of writing music, I turned on BBC Radio 3, and was immediately immersed in Bach's St Matthew Passion. I felt privileged to be put so easily into touch with one of the greatest creative minds in our history, which had drawn together into one glowing, unified whole such diverse cultural threads – religious, historical and literary, alongside musical traditions. I reflected that through education I have access to all this, while at the same time regretting that the vast majority of people are unaware of it: not only unaware, but sometimes antagonistic, deeming it élitist, irrelevant to contemporary life, the product of a long-dead European white male.
I know the Bible upon which the work is based; I understand the German text; I know something of the rather peculiar Protestant theology permeating Bach's work; and the polyphonic and baroque traditions are familiar enough to enable me to appreciate efforts to create the original sound-world of the music. Most importantly – I can read music.
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- Information
- Music Education in CrisisThe Bernarr Rainbow Lectures and Other Assessments, pp. 99 - 114Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013