The trials and tribulations of composers

Thanks to Dan for drawing attention to the Rosenzweig quartet. My interest whetted, I have just been listening to the work via the BBC iplayer as I typed. It will only be available until Saturday evening (10 January).

I rather agree with the anonymous comment linked off his MySpace page which says “Just be grateful it is going to be broadcast – you are just wasting your energy in continuing to harp on about the injustice of it all.”

Having said that, it must be hard to be a composer – lack of proper recognition during life has been a historical norm and there is a need to compete within an ever increasing repertoire of worthwhile music – not just contemporary work but rediscoveries from the past.

Harking back to Johan van Veen’s earlier post about contact from an artist following a review, reading Rosenzweig’s rant made me recall being contacted by the composer James Stevens after writing a review of his opera The Reluctant Masquerade. In an earlier era, he too clashed with the BBC and blamed them for his career failing to take off. He liked most things about my review but not the allusion to Britten (!) – I declined to amend it.

I am also struck with the contrast between the complaining attitudes of Rosenzweig and Stevens, and the “get on with it” approach of the composers I have met, MusicWeb reviewers Robert Hugill and Dominy Clements (just seen his comment!), and personal friend Judith Bailey. Judith has spent a lifetime composing a range of interesting music without gaining any real recognition and achieving only amateur performances, and I have never heard her complain once. Having heard quite a bit of her music, about three years ago I decided to do two things to try to help – to create a website and to arrange and sponsor, mainly from my business, the making of a recording – this was issued last June on Metier and there are three reviews of it on MusicWeb. Unsurprisingly it didn’t receive any reviews in the printed media and nor, to my knowledge, have the BBC played it yet.

If anyone would like one of the promotional copies of the disc I have sitting in my office – please send me an e-mail with your address, and I’ll put one in the post (living outside the UK is no bar). There is no obligation at all but if anyone likes the music and cares to suggest to Rob Cowan that [say] the Towers of San Gimignano would be perfect for his breakfast show …. You’ll understand that I don’t feel able to do this.

History surely tells us that composers need support. I doubt that whinging à la Rosenzweig is the way to get it, whatever the merits of his music and his arguments against the BBC.

P.S. The quartet is rather impressive!