Forget all those non-words like diversity, multiculturalism, equal opportunity, the right to [fill in the blank], sexism… and so forth ad nauseam. They denote nothing, but they all connote the same thing: mediocrity is god who will smite any infidel.
You can see the high priests of this god everywhere, and you’re welcome to choose your own field by way of proof. My today’s choice is music, if only to let Dave off the hook this once.
In the last few days I couldn’t help hearing two typical performances on Radio 3, accompanied by equally typical commentary. In one, Murray Perahia, the patron saint of giftless pianists, played the last movement of the Emperor Concerto as if dead set on proving that it’s possible to convey Beethoven’s genius by just playing all the notes in the right sequence. In the other, Mitsuka Uchida communicated to the world her startling discovery that Mozart wrote his Sonata in A not when he was 27, but some time after his death.
I don’t know if you follow music, but these two are regarded these days as ineffable talents, the ultimate exponents of their art. Sure enough, Radio 3 announcers, whose giggly voices have the same effect on me as the word ‘culture’ had on Dr Goebbels, intoned a few sweet nothings to that effect.
At the same time, one of them described Glenn Gould, arguably the greatest instrumentalist of all time, as a pianist ‘who divides opinion’. That much is true: the opinion is divided between those who understand musical performance and those who don’t. In general, on the rare occasions those same announcers introduce a truly great musician of the past, they have to make inanely condescending remarks implying that the art of performance has moved on since that time, but here’s a little something of curiosity value.
Musical performance has indeed moved on – down to the level at which aesthetically challenged philistines feel comfortable. Just compare, in their performance of the same pieces, Schnabel to Uchida or Yudina to Perahia or Sofronitsky to Lang Lang or Gould to Hewitt and you’ll hear the difference between sublime artistry and nondescript mediocrity, hiding behind digital competence. (Note that I deliberately use as modern examples those universally lauded as the great masters of today. I could make the contrast even starker by naming, at random, any of the dozens of fly-by-night ‘celebrities’ who haven’t yet attained the iconic status, all those Yuja Wangs of this world.)
Why can’t those Radio 3 announcers hear it? Several reasons. First, they all can play a bit, and they naturally respond to those musicians who play the way the announcers themselves would if they had the fingers. True artistry, even if those BBC folk were capable of recognising it, would remind them too painfully of the real reason they are announcers and not musicians. Mediocrity tropistically reaches for mediocrity – it abhors the unsettling discomfort that a great performance inevitably causes.
And then of course they work for an outfit institutionally, if not statutorily, committed to promoting mediocrity – and then only if we are lucky. When we’re unlucky, they pay millions to utterly offensive types like Jonathan Ross, who aren’t amusing even on their own pathetic terms. When that is the case, they clearly contravene the BBC Charter that calls for ‘promoting education and learning; stimulating creativity and cultural excellence’. It’s almost embarrassing to have to say that Jonathan Ross asking our PM to what use he as a boy put a photo of Lady Thatcher doesn’t quite achieve such noble aims.
However, it should be equally evident that neither does Radio 3, with its consistent commitment to mediocrity. This comes across not only in their choice of performers, but also in the selection of music. ‘Cultural excellence’ they are obligated to ‘stimulate’ doesn’t cover minor Baroque composers performed by a minor Baroque band whose members play their original instruments with the opposite of originality. Nor does it comprise an umpteenth performance of a late Romantic composer, prefaced by the remark that he is undeservedly forgotten. Let me tell you: if a composer is still forgotten after 130 years, it’s not undeserved. Those Radio 3 chaps would be entirely within their Charter’s remit to let sleeping composers lie.
With the profusion of newly digitised CDs of great musicians of the past (there aren’t many at present), Radio 3 could play nothing but sublime works sublimely performed. Occasionally, by way of ‘promoting education and learning’, they could throw in something distinctly average as an illustration of our downward cultural slide – and explain why the stuff is distinctly average. That way Radio 3 would have a sporting chance of reversing the depressing trend rather than pushing it to risible extremes.
But they can’t and won’t do that. The god of mediocrity is athirst, and the BBC is there to provide his sustenance.