Richard Morrison
Coronavirus will damage musical life, but we won’t let it destroy it
Art always survives. That much we can learn from history. I don’t know how you have been filling your lockdown time, but I’ve spent some of mine reading up on what happened to music during the great pestilences and plagues of the past. Oh yes, I know how to cheer myself up!
I was motivated by an irritating remark from a friend. When I confessed I was finding it difficult to write while cooped up in my flat with a two year-old constantly clamouring for attention, he retorted: ‘Oh really? Shakespeare managed to write both King Lear and Macbeth when he was in lockdown during the plague of 1605.’
Well, futtocks to that, as Lady Macbeth never quite said. First, we don’t know exactly when Shakespeare wrote any of his plays. And secondly, he had a lot more experience of dealing with plagues than I have. During the 15-year period when he was at his most productive the London theatres were closed by plague more often than they were open.
Similarly, Tudor composers such as Tallis and Byrd lived through dozens of plague outbreaks. Purcell was six when the Great Plague of 1665 ravaged London. In fact, until the Victorians revolutionised sewage disposal in the 1850s, nasty infections were somewhat common. During outbreaks, musicians would often be silenced. Yet the music always came back, even if individual performers didn’t.
But was the music the same when it returned? Two hugely disruptive historical events suggest the same answer to that question. One was the English Civil War and its aftermath, when England was ruled by Cromwell. Those 18 years were catastrophic for musicians who relied for their income on either the Church or the patronage of the royal court – which, in the mid-17th century, meant nearly all of them. The Puritans didn’t quite abolish Christmas, but they certainly disapproved of elaborate music in religious services.
On the other hand, they liked musicmaking in the home, and consequently many musicians turned to writing keyboard pieces and chamber music. In other words, they repurposed their skillset – to use modern management jargon – to suit the needs of the times.
A similar thing happened in the aftermath of the First World War and the devastating Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-20. Before 1914, composers were writing works that often required hundreds of performers. Think of Mahler’s symphonies, Stravinsky’s big pre-war ballets, Elgar’s oratorios. Afterwards? The creative impulse remained strong, but the mood had changed and so had the world economy. After his Cello Concerto (a subdued work), Elgar retreated into chamber music, while Stravinsky rethought his aesthetic stance, channelling his musictheatre genius away from sprawling ballets and into sparse works such as The Soldier’s Tale, written for 11 performers.
I expect something similar to happen when we emerge from our present nightmare. There will be traumatic changes to the cultural landscape. No doubt. We may lose some well-known ensembles along the way. The balance between streamed music and live performance may be permanently altered. World-class musical capitals such as London, Berlin and New York could take years to restore the richness of their concert and opera schedules.
And, sadly, in the meantime I fear that many talented performers will have abandoned the profession. The coronavirus lockdown will be the final straw for underpaid, under-appreciated musicians already wracked with stress by the sheer insecurity of their lives.
Yet I have no doubt that musical life will go on. And while we are waiting to emerge from our homes, blinking at the sunlight like bears after hibernation, there’s plenty we can do to keep our musical lives going. Jaded orchestral musicians, accustomed to a relentless rehearse/perform production-line schedule, could rediscover the joy of playing pieces for their own pleasure. Amateurs could do the extra practice each week that brings the trickier Bach fugues within reach. Composers could use the enforced isolation to make progress on that magnum opus. Parents have more opportunity to make music with their children. And we all have more time to explore recordings of the eight centuries of music – pretty well every note ever written – available online for little or no cost.
I don’t pretend the coronavirus is a blessing in disguise. It’s horrific. But it won’t kill music. It may even make us love it more.
While we are waiting to emerge, there’s plenty we can do to keep our musical lives going